Talk:Rumi
If what you say is true, then perhaps you can tell us why all the major encyclopedias of the wrold (Britannica, Americana, etc.) describe Rumi as Persian and not a Turk, or your interesting designation of "Turkish/Persian"?!
Furthermore, if you actually could read his poetry, you would see that in a number of places, both in his Mathnavi as well as Divan Shams, he refers to his ethnicity, but almost in all cases, he is trying to teach you that the label doesn't matter. Somehow I have a feeling you have not even read any of his poetry and you are only going by your Pan-Turkish chauvinism and trying to 'claim' Rumi as Turkish or part-Turkish.
It is true that at that time the Persian language was more popular, and it is also true that some Turks (and others) wrote _some_ of their works in Persian. But in such cases, they _also_ have works in their own native language. One example would be the great poet Qatran from Tabriz. He has poetry in both Persian and Turkish. Another example is Iqbal Lahuri who has poetry in Persian and in Urdu (his native language). There are a number of other examples ... many examples in fact. But there is not any example where one would not produce any works at all in his native language. Do you know of _ANY_ works by Rumi in Turkish?
Furthermore, if you study the poetry of the great poets of the Khorasan territory (the Greater Khorasan is where Rumi was born in, Blakh was part of the Khorasan province), many of them complain about the Turkish encroachments to their land. For example, Nasser Khosrow, also from Balkh, in his poetry says, and I am just translating and paraphrasing, "now khorasan has become a land of the Turks -- a free man (aazaadeh, in Persian) and a base (low) man ("doon" in Persian) do not fit in one place -- that a bunch of homeless and uncultured rascals (referring to the Turks) -- today have become Khans and Khatuns (Turkish titles of eminence for men and women) in this land.".
There are plenty of examples and evidences like the above that show that people disliked the Turks because they abused people and they were uncultivated and often violent, rogue and unfair in their practices.
In fact, many people left that land BECAUSE OF the Turks, and Rumi's family was no exception. If you study the history accurately, you will see that his family left Blakh years BEFORE the Mongol invasion, and they did not leave to avoid the Mongols -- unless their family possessed a very good crystal ball that could tell them about the future.
For you to claim that up to this date in human history everybody has been misinformed and wrong to call Rumi "Rumi the Persian", including all the major encyclopedias of the world, is quite astonishing and remarkable. So for centuries and centuries all academicians, including the two great Rumi experts from England and Germany where wrong to call him a Persian, and suddenly in year 2003 you are educating the world about his 'true' cultural identity?
You claim to be an educated man. Let us keep the centries-old tradition of intellectual integrity and honesty in the academia alive and don't allow our personal prejudices and biases to interfere with facts.
Rumi was a Persian. Also, even if somehow miraculously you manage to convince the world that he was anything else, the fact remains that there is only one people on earth who can truly understand, feel and enjoy his poetry, and that people is none other than the Persians. There are too many subtlties in the Persian language, and in particular, in Persian poetry, that a translation, no matter how mastefully done, will never come even close to the original. I myself have read his poetry, together with the works of many other great poets, since my early teens; and I am no exception among Iranians. Even before I could read them by myself I have been told stories from the Mathnavi as children's stories. When many other peoples of the world rent a movie to watch after dinner, many Persians go the the wonderful treasury of Persian Literature after dinner.
Finally, you are also wrong in saying there was "no Iran" at that time. Iran's history, geography, language, culture, calendar and traditions go back to much longer than that; but naturally, in such a long history there have been many ups and downs. If one truly understands the Persian language, one would CLEARLY see that even the very name of Khorasan is made up of parts that is relative to Iran. I won't even mention the long long list of works before and after Rumi's time that contain "Iran" all over the work.
I am afraid, after reading what you have written, I am left with the impression that you are either allowing chauvinistic biases and prejudices overcome your good conscience, or you are honest about what you say but you are simply misinformed.
Sincerely,
Keyvan Partovi.
P.S. You also removed the part where I had mentioned Rumi's two major works, really, essentiantially these two works are what the world knows him by, one is the Mathnavi and the other is Divan Shams, without even offering any reason why you removed that part. Of course you removed it because it indicated (correctly, I might add) that these two works are two of the greatest works of all of Persian Literature and Poetry. Let's be honest, there is just one keyword in there that bothered you and that was keyword is "Persian" -- otherwise, there is no reason for you to deprive an article about Rumi from an important and accurate information.
Some of the paragraphs of this article are systemically being deleted without declaring a reason. I put the article back in the original form as much as possible. ErdemTuzun
"Rumi was a Persian and not a Turk, and all of his poetry is in Perisan. In fact, Turkish people cannot read and understand any of his poetry, unless they read a Turkish translation of Rumi's works, or they study and learn the Persian language at a high level. However, he lived most of his life in Konya which is in present-day Turkey, but at the time of his life, there was not even a country called Turkey, nor was present-day Turkey a 'Turkish land'."
I removed this paragraph and carried to the discussion page because it contains wrong informations and logical fallacies.
First of all, nationality is a relatively new concept. In 13th century, this concept was obviously not even a matter of discussion and people were not carrying identity cards on which their nationalities had been scripted. So, actually, while we are talking about the nation or ethnicity of an old age person, most of the time we are just making estimates. In Rumi's case there is no way of knowing exactly what ethnicity he belonged to. Actually, territories involving present Iran were controlled centuries for several Turkic dynasties like Safavids or Qajars and Turkic and Persian people lived side by side and surely mixed, complicating the estimation of Rumi's ethnicity.
Secondly, Rumi was born in a Turkic country and lived and died in another Turkic country. While we are talking about the countries of people in their biographies, we are not only mentioning the country they were born in but also the country they lived most of their time and made their greatest contributions. For example in many biographies Einstein is presented as Germany born Jewish American scientist. Rumi's position is just the same. Of course there was no Turkey that time as there was no Iran. But there were Persian and Turkish people living in different locations of Asia. In this article the word turkish does not point a citizenship of country but a certain ethnicity.
It is true that Rumi was writing in Persian and Turkish people can not understand his poems unless it is translated. However, Persian was the official language for science and art in all Islamic countries. All prominent Turkish artists and scientists have written their works in either Arabic or Persian. It is very similar to the fact that Latin language was the official language for artists and scientists in Europe and regardless of their ethnicities they were producing their works in Latin.
For these reasons, I added the deleted paragraphs to the article and of course all of these paragraphs are open to modification and refinement.
Finally, controversial issues should be solved by discussions carried on this page rather than blindly deleting things that we don't like to read. "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here". ErdemTuzun