SOURCE: Wines, Leslie. “The Poet of Love and Tumult.” In Rumi: A Spiritual Biography, pp. 13-22. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000.

In the following essay, Wines examines the significance of Rumi's love poetry to a contemporary, Western audience while also providing a historical context for Rumi's ecumenical spirit and ideas about love and spirituality.

The meaning of poetry has no sureness of direction;                     it is like the sling, it is not under control. 

—Jalalu'ddin Rumi

Jalalu'ddin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian lawyerdivine and Sufi, widely considered literature's greatest mystical poet, understood very well the uncontrollable and idiosyncratic impact of poetry. Yet one wonders if even he, for all his intuitive grasp of language, humanity and the cosmos foresaw the deep and diverse influence his own work would have on readers throughout the world seven centuries after his death—or the myriad meanings enthusiasts would draw from his sprawling...