Maulana Rumi's Life
Generally referred to as Rumi, but known to Iranians as Mawlavi or Maulana (our master), and to the Turks as Mevlavi, Maulana Jalal al-Din Muhammad of Balkh (henceforth Rumi) was born into a scholarly family of Balkh in Khorasan, in present-day Afghanistan, on September 30, 1207. His father, Bahauddin Balad, was a well-known jurist, Islamic theologian and mystic; he was descended from Hazrat Abu Bakr (ra). His mother Momina Khatun was descended from Hazrat Ali (ra). Escaping the Mongol invasion and destruction, Rumi and his family travelled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to Mecca and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then part of Seljuk Empire. In any event, on his way to Baghdad, Baha' Walad visited Nishapur. There, allegedly, he met Farid al-Din 'Attar, renowned at the time as a major follower of the Kubrawiyyah Order. 'Attar liked Baha' Walad's six-year-old son, Jalal al-Din Muhammad, and assured the father of his son's becoming a true inspiration for the devout . It is reported that 'Attar gave the child a copy of his Asrar Nama or Book of Mysteries. Rumi's contemporaries report that Rumi treasured 'Attar's book and, alongside his father's al-Ma'arif, kept it very close to himself . Rumi studied in Aleppo and Damascus, learning theology and the arts and sciences. His command of Persian, Arabic and Greek was amazing and he wrote poems in those languages. When his father Bahaduddin Walad passed away, Rumi succeeded him in 1231 as professor in religious sciences. Rumi became an accomplished scholar in religious and positive sciences at the age of only 24. Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi is a soldier and volunteer (on the path of Truth) who dedicated his life to knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, in short, to Allah and the people. He lived almost all of his life in Konya, presently Turkey, and died on December 17, 1273. A mausoleum was built in his honor by the Seljuk king, and next to the mausoleum there is a mosque built by the Ottoman prince who was an ardent admirer of Rumi.

The great thinker:
Men of five faiths followed his bier. He remains one of the greatest thinkers and scholars of Islamic civilization. The peoples of Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey consider him to be their own poet. In fact, Maulana tries very hard to instill in his followers a strict work ethic. The comfort of the individual and the family, he says, is tied to the individual's adoption of a profession. Even children, he says, can contribute to the labor force. They can be equipped with small drums that they can beat to keep the swarms of birds away from the farms. Before the Second World War about 1,00,000 followers of the `Mawlawi’ Sufi order, a leading mystical brotherhood of Islam lived in the Balkans, Africa and Asia. No poet in the history, even Shakespeare and Dante, has ever been able to establish such a glorious and universal influence on human civilization. Rumi’s major work is the Masnavi, a six-volume poetry book containing some fifty thousand verses; some went too far root of wisdom even called it hasthe Persian-language Qur`an.

Rumi and the World
He addressed humanity as a whole: "I do not distinguish between the relative and the stranger." At every age of history when people find themselves helpless in the midst of hatred and despair, Rumi’s poems appear as a guiding star showing the way of love and compassion. Rumi’s philosophy of life and the greatness of his literary works were widely spread around the world (ranging from Tangiers to Cairo, from Lahore and Sarajevo to remote Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran and even the villages of India) by his son Sultan Walad and other successors and followers. Even centuries after his death and ups and downs and tragedies in the history of Islam, Rumi’s odes are being sung with great respect by the pilgrims in many religious congregations. Orientalists accept Rumi as the best of mystic poets, and his masterpiece `Mathnawi’ enjoys much admiration of the people of East for its holiness, charm, depth, and mystery. The concept of the perfect man is very close to Rumi's heart. Before Rumi, Ibn Maskawaih, Ibn 'Arabi, and Jilani, and after Rumi, in more recent times, Muhammad Iqbal have discussed this concept to some degree. Rumi, however, is the thinker who has analyzed the concept in terms of both material and spiritual dimensions. Although Rumi was a Sufi and a great scholar of the Qur`an, his appeal reaches across religious and social divisions. Even during his lifetime he was noted for his cosmopolitan outlook. It is said that Rumi, after meeting Shams Tabrizi, spontaneously composed poetry for ten years, and the collection of the poetry was named after Shams in his honor. In Rumi's own words, after meeting Shams he was transformed from a bookish, sober scholar to an impassioned seeker of the truth and love. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. he touches every one of us
Unity of Millat:
In Quran Allah Said " And hold fast, all together, by the rope of Allah and be not divided among themselves" (Al-Quran: Surah Al-e-Imran, Verse 103). Rumi’s poems have a universal appeal. He wrote:
The Paths are many, but the goal is one. Don't you see
how many roads there are to the Kaaba? For some the road
starts from Rome, for others from Syria, from Persia, or China;
Some come by the sea from India and the Yemen. If you are
considering the different roads, the variety is immense
and the difference infinite; if you are considering the goal however,
they are all in harmony and are one. The hearts of each
and every one of them is fixed upon the Kaaba. Each heart
has one overriding attachment-a passionate love for the Kaaba-
and in that there is no room for contradiction.
Once the travelers arrive at the Kaaba,
all quarreling and vicious squabbling about the different paths
-this person saying to that "You're wrong! You're a blasphemer!"
and the other shouting back in kind- simply vanish;
For they realize what they were fighting about were the roads only,
and that their goal was ONE

-Mawlana Jalaludin RUMI(ra)
The point of the story is that we all have our differences, and different understanding, but if for a moment, we just stopped to understand what the goals of our differences lead up to, we would realize it was attaining the pleasure of the same Rubb. The prophet(saw) said "None of you will enter paradise until you believe, and none of you will believe until you love one another". The preaching of hatred and dividing the Ummah should cease at understanding this. A verse of Quran, “kiatab-al-ladee anzalnaahu ilaika litukhrijan naasi minazzulumaati ilannoor” which means “This is the book which has been dispatched to you (O Muhammad) so that it can bring mankind out of layers of glooms towards light.” Unfortunately, the Ummah cannot see that the whole world today is enveloped in gloom and unless they recognize and understand the nature of this gloom, they would not be able to remove the gloom through the Light which they possess but are not able to uncover it. We are shocked on the events in Middle east.
Concluding words
If the Unity of Ummah is to be achieved, it can be achieved only when we recognize the larger aim of Islam, which is meant for true peace of the whole mankind. We have to find the way out from the contradiction of Sunni, Shia, Wahabi, Ahle hadith and so on. The need of the time is to apply Islamic principles in all the fields including law, health, economics and sociology.
Unity of being is as true for the relationship of believer to believer, as it is for the individual soul to God:
I speak of plural souls in name alone –
One soul becomes one hundred in their frames;
Just as God's single sun in heaven
Shines on earth and lights a hundred walls
But all these beams of light return to one
If you remove the walls that block the sun
The walls of houses do not stand forever
And believers then will be as but one soul
Masnavi 4: 415-18