Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi, the Persian scholar and Sufi mystic of the 13th Century. His great poetic works are the Masnavi or "spiritual couplets" and the Divan, a collection of thousands of lyric poems. He is closely connected with four modern countries: Afghanistan, as he was born in Balkh, from which he gains the name Balkhi; Uzbekistan from his time in Samarkand as a child; Iran as he wrote in Persian; and Turkey for his work in Konya, where he spent most of his working life and where his followers established the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Whirling Dervishes.

With

Alan Williams
British Academy Wolfson Research Professor at the University of Manchester

Carole Hillenbrand
Professor of Islamic History at the University of St Andrews and Professor Emerita of Edinburgh University

And

Lloyd Ridgeon
Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Glasgow

Producer: Simon Tillotson.