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Rumi and his LegacyLiterature, Culture, Religion

Edited by Scott Redford, A. C. S. Peacock and Richard P. McClary

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Published 28 February 2027

About this book

Places Rumi and his work in the broader context of thirteenth-century Anatolia and beyond

  • Provides a wide-spanning interdisciplinary study of the work, context and legacy of Rumi
  • Engages with an innovative range of methodological approaches to analyse a key literary figure
  • Features thirteenth-century architecture, art and manuscripts in its broader depiction of medieval Anatolia

Rumi and his Legacy provides a wide-ranging examination of Rumi's literary works, discussing the wider sociocultural contexts that influenced his writing, as well as the works themselves and their subsequent influence across medieval Anatolia. The volume explores the early Mevlevis and their contemporaries not only from the point of view of their literary works and the written evidence about them, but also from the perspective of their architecture and artistic production. Moreover, the book analyses how rituals related to broader Anatolian and Persianate traditions and considers the literary and manuscript production of Rumi and his circle in its broader context. As an interdisciplinary study, this volume brings scholarship on Persian and medieval Anatolia together to examine Rumi, his works, his contemporaries and his followers.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Images
Notes on Contributors

FOREWORD
Mohammad Este’lami

INTRODUCTION - Revisiting Rumi: Work, Context and Legacy
Richard Piran McClary A. C. S. Peacock & Scott Redford


PART I: THE HISTORICAL RUMI
1. The Mystical Subject: Examining the Contingency of Identity in the Quest for the Historical Rumi
Matthew Lynch

2. Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, Qaratay, and the Seljuk Political Elite of Konya in the 1240s-1250s
Sara Nur Yıldız


PART II: APPROACHING THE TEXT IN RUMI’S WORKS
3. Opening the Eye of the Heart
Alan Williams

4. Reflections on Narratives of Economic Morality in the Writings of Rumi
İklil Selçuk

5. Sin and Repentance in Rumi’s Poetry
Ali-Asghar Seyed-Ghorab


PART III: ART HISTORICAL APPROACHES TO RUMI
6. A Reassessment of the Shrine of Rumi in Medieval Konya
Zarifa Alikperova

7. The Lion and the Double-Headed Eagle: Two Bookstands made for the Shrine of Jalal al-Din Rumi
Scott Redford

8. A Changing City: Architectural Innovation and Urban Renewal in Konya during the Lifetime of Rumi
Richard Piran McClary


PART IV: THE RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY LEGACY OF RUMI
9. “O Jalal al-Din, O Thou Mine of Knowledge!”: Rumi in Early Ottoman Religious and Intellectual Culture
Murat Inan

10. The Mathnawi Form and the Beginnings of Islamic Literary Culture in Anatolia
Zeynep Oktay


PART V: THE POLITICAL LEGACY OF RUMI
11. Rumi’s Legacy in Hagiography and Historiography beyond the Mevlevis
A. C. S. Peacock

12. Rumi and Religious Pluralism: Mystical Poetry in the Political Theories of Abdolkarim Soroush
Maarten Holtzapffel


Index

About the contributors

Scott Redford

Scott Redford is Nasser D. Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology, SOAS, University of London and specialist in the art, archaeology, and architecture of medieval Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean.

A. C. S. Peacock

A.C.S. Peacock is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic History at the University of St Andrews, and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. His previous publications include The Great Seljuk Empire (2015) and Early Seljuq History (2010).

Richard P. McClary

Dr Richard Piran McClary is a Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of York. He received his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in 2015. He has lectured extensively on a range of subjects related to medieval Islamic art and architecture, and has conducted fieldwork in India, Iran, Turkey, Central Asia and across the Middle East. He is a specialist in the architecture and ceramics of the medieval Iranian world, and the history of the Islamic art market.
He has published three monographs; Mina’i Ware: A Reassessment and Comprehensive Study of Iranian Polychrome Overglaze Wares through Sherds (EUP, 2024), Medieval Monuments of Central Asia. Qarakhanid Architecture of the 11th and 12th Centuries (EUP, 2020), and Rum Seljuq Architecture 1170-1220. The Patronage of Sultans (EUP, 2017).
He has edited Stucco in the Islamic World: Studies of Architectural Ornament from Spain to India (EUP, 2025), and co-edited a volume with Andrew Peacock, entitled Turkish History and Culture in India. Identity, Art and Transregional Connections (Brill, 2020).
He has also published articles in numerous journals, including: Muqarnas, Iran, Persica, Anatolian Studies, the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. He has served as a trustee and the Research Director for the British Institute of Persian Studies, and is managing editor of the Journal of Islamic Art and Architecture.