Page 21 - The Book of Rumi

ominous political clouds were darkening the relatively peaceful horizons of
Khorasan and threatening the tranquility of the diverse and multifaith city
and its many centers of trade and learning. After all, Samarkand was the city
that boasted the foundation of fi rst paper mills of the Islamic world, in the
middle of the 8th century.
The sense of foreboding was perhaps intensifi ed by the unifi cation a few
years earlier of the Turko-Mongol nomadic tribes farther to the east under
the leadership of Genghis Khan. How should have the inhabitants of Samar-
kand responded to the consolidation of Genghis Khan’s power? Should they
have feared him? Had he not sent emissaries to the ruler of this corner of the
Persian empire with messages that sought neighborly trade? The accounts of
the Persian historian Juvayni relate that Genghis Khan had greeted the Persian
king in correspondence, saying: “I am the sovereign of the lands of the rising
sun and thou the sovereign of the lands of setting sun. Let us conclude a fi rm
treaty of friendship and peace.”
Regardless of such assurances, the Valad family decided that remaining
in Samarkand was not an option, and they left the region in 1216 and began
an extraordinary journey that came to an end with their arrival in Konya in
central Anatolia thirteen years later. During these thirteen years, the then nine-
year-old Jal¯al od-Din—who just over two decades later would be addressed
by the honorifi c title Mowlana, “our master,” and in centuries to come would
be recognized across the world as Rumi, one of the most widely read and
revered poets of all time—would travel a distance of more than seven thou-
sand kilometers, meeting scholars, poets, spiritual teachers, princes, wayfarers,
and a host of other characters who would appear in the pages of his Masnavi
in due course.
After leaving Khorasan, the Valad family fi rst made their way to the
sprawling city of Baghdad, where no doubt the stalls of book dealers and
bookbinders and sellers of inks and pens would have been a prime attraction.
Perhaps it was in this city, divided by the sacred river Tigris, that a spiritual
bond was forged across the centuries between Rumi and Mansur al-Hall¯aj, a
mystical poet who had been gruesomely executed almost three hundred years
earlier on the very same riverbanks.

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