MEVLÂNÂ CELÂLEDDÎN-i RÛMÎ

Description

He was born on 6 Rabi’ul-awwal 604 (September 30, 1207) in the city of Belh in Khorasan (Ferîdûn-i Sipehsâlâr, p. 22; Eflâkî, I, 73). On the other hand, although it has been claimed based on a poem in the Divan-ı Kebîr (III, 49) that he was sixty-two years old when he met Shams-i Tabrizi (642/1244), and therefore his date of birth should be 580 (1184) (Gölpınarlı, ŞM, p. 3 [1959], pp. 156-161), Hellmut Ritter has not found this claim valid (EI2 [Eng.], II, 393). In the introduction to the Mes̱nevi, Mevlana recorded his name as Muhammed b. Muhammed b. Hüseyin el-Belhî. His nickname is Celâleddin. The title “Mevlânâ”, meaning “Our Master”, was given to him in order to glorify him. The Persian title “hudâvendigâr”, meaning “Sultan”, was also given to him by his father. He is also referred to as “Belhi” in reference to the city he was born in, as well as “Rûmî, Mevlânâ-i Rûm, Mevlânâ-i Rûmî” in reference to Anatolia where he spent his life, and “Molla Hünkâr, Mollâ-yı Rûm” due to his teaching. Apart from some information he provides in his works, information about Mevlana and his circle is largely based on the İbtidânâme (Velednâme) of his son Sultan Veled, the Risâle of his disciple Ferîdûn-i Sipehsâlâr, and the Menâḳıbü’l-ʿârifîn of Ahmed Eflâkî, the disciple of his grandson Ulu Arif Çelebi. Eflâkî’s contemporary Abdülkādir el-Kureşî also provides brief information about him in his work on Hanafi scholars called el-Cevâhirü’l-muḍıyye (III, 343-346). The information in the İbtidânâme is first-hand, but it is brief and concise. In Eflâkî’s work, which contains the most detailed information on many issues, there are some exaggerations, contradictions, and errors.

There is no information about Mevlânâ’s lineage in his works. In the Risale-i Sipehsâlâr, it is stated that Mevlana’s father Bahaeddin Veled was descended from Hz. Abu Bakr, and in el-Jawahirü’l-muḍıyye, a lineage leading to Hz. Abu Bakr is recorded. Eflâkî and later writers Abdurrahman-ı Jami and Devletşah also record that he was descended from Hz. Abu Bakr. On the other hand, Eflâkî, based on a saying of Bahaeddin Veled, says that his lineage reaches Hz. Ali from his mother’s side (Menâḳıbü’l-ʿârifîn, I, 75). The discussions about his Turkishness are of the recent period and largely consist of the following: “Do not think of me as a foreigner, I am from this neighborhood. I am looking for my home in your neighborhood. Although I seem to be an enemy, I am not an enemy. It took place within the framework of the quatrain “Although I am speaking in Hindi, my origin is Turkish”, while some argue that the word Turk in the poem refers to racial affiliation, some argue that the word has different meanings here, while others claim that it refers to spiritual closeness to the Turkish race.

Mevlana’s father, Bahaeddin Veled, was a member of a family of scholars settled in Balkh and was known with the title of “sultanu’l-ulemâ”. According to Sipehsâlâr, it is also recorded that Bahaeddin Veled, whose lineage of order reached Ahmed el-Gazzali, was a disciple of Necmeddin-i Kübrâ, the founder of the Kübreviyye order. According to Aflaki, Bahaeddin Veled’s mother was the daughter of Alaeddin Muhammed Khwarezmshah from the Khwarezmshah dynasty (ibid., I, 7-9). It has been claimed that this narration, which is an older source but does not appear in the Risale-i Sipehsalar, is a product of Aflaki’s imagination, and it has been noted that the author later said nothing about Bahaeddin Veled being the grandson of Sultan Alaeddin Khwarezmshah (ibid., II, 1252 [editor’s note]). According to Eflaki, Bahaeddin Veled, who heavily criticized scholars such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Zayn-i Kishi, who adopted Greek philosophy, and Khwarezmshah Alaeddin Muhammad, who followed their views, in his sermons (Ma’arif, I, 82), was accused by his opponents, who took advantage of the rift between him and the administrators and the ulema, and claimed that he had political aims and was preparing for a rebellion with his supporters. Thereupon, Khwarezmshah Alaeddin Muhammad asked him to leave the country (Menâqıbü’l-ʿârifîn, I, 12-13), and he was forced to leave Balkh with his family. Although Feridun-i Sipehsâlâr states that there were special efforts by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi in the decision to expel Bahaeddin Veled from the country after his falling out with the ruler (Risale-i Sipehsâlâr, pp. 12-13), according to what Eflâkî recorded, Bahaeddin Veled left Balkh in 609 (1212-13), at least three years after the death of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (Menâḳıbü’l-ʿârifîn, I, 16). Rumi was five years old at the time. Sultan Veled, on the other hand, states that he left the city to go to Hijaz because he was hurt by the people of Balkh, without touching upon the decision to expel Bahâeddin Veled from the country, and that Balkh was invaded by the Mongols while he was still on the road (Ibtidânâme, p. 240). Reynold Alleyne Nicholson and Hellmut Ritter claimed that Bahâeddin Veled left Balkh just to escape from the Mongols (Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rûmî, p. 16; İA, III, 54), but there is no such record in the sources.

The information given by Ferîdûn-i Sipehsâlâr and Eflâkî regarding Bahâeddin Veled’s journey to Hijaz does not match. Mevlânâ’s father, his disciples and his family visited the cities on the way.