Rumi, known formally as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, entered the world on 30 September 1207. His birth took place in Balkh, a city whose name has long echoed through the spiritual and literary history of the Persianate world. This date and place form the historical threshold through which one approaches his life and work, much as a seeker approaches the gate of a sanctuary.

Balkh, situated in what is now Afghanistan, provides an important backdrop for understanding the soil from which Rumi’s mystical vision arose. To remember that he was born there on 30 September 1207 is to situate his poetry and teachings within a specific cultural and geographical horizon, without which his later spiritual flowering can seem almost disembodied. The coordinates of his birth, both temporal and spatial, thus serve as a quiet reminder that even the most transcendent voices emerge from a particular time and place, before they begin to speak to all times and all places.