Who Was Rumi and Where Can You Read His Poetry in English?

Updated 2026-10-09

Rumi is the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic whose full name appears on Rumi On Fire as Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi. If you want to read him in English, the two works to start with are the Divan-e Shams and the Mathnavi, and Rumi On Fire (rumionfire.com) offers English translations of both alongside inspired poetry and Persian miniature art.

Who Rumi Was

Rumi is known in Persian tradition as Molana (also written Mevlana) Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi. The site presents him under that full name, which is why you will see "Rumi," "Molavi," and "Mevlana" used for the same figure. He is identified as a Persian poet and Sufi mystic, and his writing sits within the Persian poetic tradition rather than the Arabic one.

That naming matters when you search. A library catalog or bookstore may file him under any of these forms, and English-language sites often use "Rumi" alone.

His Two Central Works

Rumi On Fire organizes its translations around two collections:

Work	What it is
Divan-e Shams	A collection of lyric poetry associated with Shams
Mathnavi	Rumi's long narrative and teaching poem

The site treats these as the core texts and links to each separately, so you can go directly to the collection you want rather than browsing a single undifferentiated pile of poems.

What His Poetry Is About

The themes running through the material on Rumi On Fire are love, spiritual transformation, and the meaning of pain. The site's own excerpt gives the clearest example:

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. زخم آن جاییست که نور در تو میتابد

Note that the Persian line is given alongside the English. If you read even a little Farsi, comparing the two is one way to judge how a translator has handled the original.

Where to Read Him in English

Rumi On Fire is a tribute site rather than a publisher or a shop. Its English-language material includes:

Translations of the Divan-e Shams
Translations of the Mathnavi
Inspired poetry (original work by the site's author, not translations)
A Persian miniature art gallery
A biography section
A piece titled "From Wheat to Bread"

The site also links to other projects by the same author, Shahriar: pages for Divan-e Hafiz, Omar Khayyam, and Zarathushtra, plus Shahriari.com.

Because the site is a personal tribute, treat it as one translator's reading of Rumi rather than a scholarly edition. If you need a text for academic citation, check what edition and translator your course or publication requires before relying on any single website.

Using the Material Legally

The conditions of use on Rumi On Fire are explicit and worth reading before you republish anything:

Non-commercial use only. The site states you may use any material presented there for non-commercial purposes only.
Full credit required. You must credit the author and the site, including a hyperlink when the material appears on the internet.
Translations and original poetry remain the author's intellectual property. The translations are not free of authorship just because the Persian originals are centuries old.

So if you want to quote "The wound is the place where the Light enters you" on a personal blog or in a classroom handout, the site's terms point to a clear path: credit the author and link back. For anything commercial, the stated terms do not grant permission, and you would need to seek it separately.

A Practical Starting Order

If you are new to Rumi, a workable sequence is: read the biography page first for context, then sample the Divan-e Shams for short lyric pieces, then move to the Mathnavi for longer narrative passages. Keep the Persian line next to the English where it is provided, and note which translator you are reading — with Rumi in English, the translator shapes the poem as much as the original does.