Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi, was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih (jurist), Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian (mutakallim), and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.
Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī, known by his pen name Hafez or Hafiz, was a Persian lyric poet whose collected works are regarded by many Iranians as one of the highest pinnacles of Persian literature. His works are often found in the homes of Persian speakers, who learn his poems by heart and use them as everyday proverbs and sayings. His life and poems have become the subjects of much analysis, commentary, and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other Persian author.
Abū Ḥāmid bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm, better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn (فریدالدین) and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur, was an Iranian poet, theoretician of Sufism, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Sufism. He wrote a collection of lyrical poems and number of long poems in the philosophical tradition of Islamic mysticism, as well as a prose work with biographies and sayings of famous Muslim mystics. The Conference of the Birds, Book of the Divine, and Memorial of the Saints are among his best known works.
The Masnavi, or Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi, also written Mathnawi, or Mathnavi, is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known as Rumi. It is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines. The Masnavi is one of the most influential works of Sufism, ascribed to be like a "Quran in Persian". Some Muslims regard the Masnavi as one of the most important works of Islamic literature, falling behind only the Quran. It has been viewed by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature. It is a spiritual text that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being truly in love with God.
Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia, South Asia and the Balkans where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language.
Divan-i Kabir, also known as Divan-i Shams and Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, is a collection of poems written by the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, also known as Rumi. A compilation of lyric poems written in the Persian language, it contains more than 40,000 verses and over 3,000 ghazals. While following the long tradition of Sufi poetry as well as the traditional metrical conventions of ghazals, the poems in the Divan showcase Rumi’s unique, trance-like poetic style. Written in the aftermath of the disappearance of Rumi’s beloved spiritual teacher, Shams-i Tabrizi, the Divan is dedicated to Shams and contains many verses praising him and lamenting his disappearance. Although not a didactic work, the Divan still explores deep philosophical themes, particularly those of love and longing.
Shams-i Tabrīzī or Shams al-Din Mohammad (1185–1248) was a Persian Shafi'ite poet, who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi's poetic collection, in particular Diwan-i Shams-i Tabrīzī. Tradition holds that Shams taught Rumi in seclusion in Konya for a period of forty days, before fleeing for Damascus. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hossein Mohyeddin Ghomshei is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, author, and lecturer on literature, art, and mysticism.
Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi, more commonly known as Sanai, was a Persian poet from Ghazni. He lived his life in the Ghaznavid Empire which is now located in Afghanistan. He was born in 1080 and died between 1131 and 1141.
William Clark Chittick is an American philosopher, writer, translator, and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively on the school of Ibn 'Arabi, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic cosmology. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University.
The influence of Persian literature in Western culture is historically significant. In order to avoid what E.G. Browne calls "an altogether inadequate judgment of the intellectual activity of that ingenious and talented people" (E.G.Browne, p4), many centers of academia throughout the world today from Berlin to Japan have permanent programs for Persian studies for the literary heritage of Persia.
Sufi literature consists of works in various languages that express and advocate the ideas of Sufism.
Daniel Ladinsky is an American poet and interpreter of mystical poetry, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Over a twenty-year period, beginning in 1978, he spent extensive time in a spiritual community at Meherabad, in western India, where he worked in a rural clinic free to the poor, and lived with the intimate disciples and family of Meher Baba.
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, FBA, or R. A. Nicholson, was an eminent English orientalist, scholar of both Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism, and widely regarded as one of the greatest Rumi scholars and translators in the English language.
Asaf Halet Çelebi was a Turkish mystical poet. Although not very widely known, due to his erudite and often foreign-influenced style, he is considered to be Turkey's first surrealist poet.
Inoyat Hojieva, mostly known as Farzona is a Tajik poet and writer. She won a lifetime achievement award.
Franklin D. Lewis was an Associate Professor of Persian Language and Literature, and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago with affiliations to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. He taught classes on Persian language and literature, medieval Islamic thought, Sufism, Baha'i Studies, translation studies, and Iranian cinema.
Baha al-Din Muhammad-i Walad, more popularly known as Sultan Walad, was a Sufi, Hanafi Maturidi Islamic scholar and one of the founders of the Mawlawiya (مولویه) order.
Leonard Lewisohn was an American author, translator and lecturer in the area of Islamic studies and a specialist in Persian language and Sufi literature. He was the editor of Mawlana Rumi Review, a publication of the Rumi Institute and Archetype, Cambridge, published once a year. He was a member of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in University of Exeter.
Majid Naficy, also spelled "Majid Nafisi" and "Madjid Nafissi", is an Iranian-American poet. He was the youngest member of the literary circle Jong-e Isfahan and was considered the Arthur Rimbaud of Persian poetry in the late 1960s in Iran. He was a member of the Confederation of Iranian Students in Los Angeles in 1971, and a member of the independent Marxist Peykar Organization after the Iranian Revolution from August 1979 until spring 1982.
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