Jalal al-Din Rumi, founder of the Mawlawi Dervishes, was born at Balkh in Khorasan, current Afghanistan, on 30^th September 1207. At the age of five, he had to leave Balkh with his father, the great mystic Baha’ al din Wallad, hnown as “The Sultan of the Wise”. After several wanderings he settled in Konya, in Turkey, where he died in 1273 and where his tomb is till today a place of pilgrimage for people from all over the world.

At his funeral, the entire population of Konya were present, not only Muslim, but also Christians and Jews, in acknowledgment of the immense spirit of tolerance of the Master.

Compared to San Francesco d’Assisi  for his sensitivity and modesty, and Jacopone da Todi for his culture and his expression, he is considered “the greatest mystic poet of all time” (Nicholson 1925-37, V-VI, p. XIII).

Linked to Afghanistan were he was born, to Iran by the Persian language he used in his writings and to Turkey where he lived and was buried, his teaching is considered today, as he wanted, a common cultural patrimony, which brings the nations together and unites all the creeds:

“…I am neither a Jew, nor Christian, neither a Zoroastrian, nor Muslim!

Neither from the Orient, nor from the West,…

Not from Persia or Babylonia, not from the Khurasan I am!

… my home is the out of space, my Sign is the no Sign,

… I search One, I know One, I sign One, I contemplate One!”

… “after death, don’t look for my tomb in the ground:

in the heart of the holly people is my sepulcher”

The Mesnevi of Jalal al Din Rumi, reprinted on the occasion of the “Year of Tolerance” by UNO in 1995, is exposed in the exhibition hall of the C.I.E.R.A.