Rumi

(c. 1207 - 1273)

Born in 1207 into a distinguished Islamic family in modern-day Afghanistan, Rumi with his family fled the invasion of Genghis Khan; his father, it is said, loaded ninety camels with books only. Rumi in his twenties became the head of a madrasa in Konya after his father died, and in 1244 he met the wandering dervish Shams Tabriz, whose friendship served as the basis for The Big Red Book. “What I had thought of before as God,” Rumi wrote about their first encounter, “I met today in a human being.”