Turkey, Iran lay claim to Sufi mystic poet Rumi | World News - Hindustan Times
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Turkey, Iran lay claim to Sufi mystic poet Rumi

ByAgence France-­Presse
Jul 01, 2016 08:31 AM IST

KABUL: Who can lay claim to Rumi, the Sufi mystic who is one of the world’s most beloved poets? A bid by Iran and Turkey to do so has exasperated Afghanistan, the country of his birth eight centuries ago.

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Tehran and Ankara asked to list the work of Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi as their joint heritage ont he UN’s “Memoryof the World” register in May.

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The register, falling under the UN’s cultural organisation UNESCO, was formed in 1997 to protect the world’s documentary heritage – archives, correspondence and writing – especially in troubled or conflict-ridden areas.

But the Afghan government has denounced the bid, which mainly concerns the 25,600 verses of “Masnavi-i-Ma’navi”, one of the most influential works in Persian literature.

Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in the US, and his works have been translated into more than 23 languages. Hollywood is planning a Rumi biopic – also mired in controversy after rumoured plans for Leonardo DiCaprio to play him were met with accusations of “whitewashing”.

The poet and philosopher “was born in Balkh in Afghanistan and made us proud,” the ministry of information and culture insisted.

UNESCO “never asked us” about the proposal, Harron Haklimi, the ministry’s spokesman, said, acknowledging that Kabul had been beaten to the punch but hoping they can yet convince the organisation that Afghanistan has the better claim to the poet.

For Afghans, who learn his poems in primary school, Rumi is “Maulana Jalaludin Balkh”, or “Maulana” (literally “our master”), or simply “Balkhi”. Most researchers agree he was born in Balkh, Afghanistan in 1207 – though this too has been the subject of debate: a few argue he was born just across the border, in what is modern day Tajikistan, in a region also known as Balkh.

Today, Balkh is a small provincial settlement, but back then it was an ancient religious capital and centre for Buddhist and Persian literature.

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