Wikipedia says: Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known as Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, Mawlana/Mevlana ('our master'), Mevlevi/Mawlawi ('my master'), and more popularly simply as Rumi (30 September 1207-17 December 1273) was a 13th century Persian Poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, and the Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the 'most popular poet' and the 'best-selling poet' in the United States. Rumi's works are written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic, and Greek in his verses. His Mathnawi, composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language. His works are widely read today in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world. Translations of his works are very popular, most notably in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the United States, and South Asia. His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, as well as literature of some other Turk, Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto and Bengali.