The shrine kept expanding and expanding to take in more and more pilgrims. It was a palpable lesson that we are capable of taking so many into our hearts if we dare let it expand to encompass the whole humanity.

Rumi died in 1273. To this day, his devotees celebrate his departure from the world as one would in a marriage, apt for a man who sought the highest love in life, and found it most completely in death.

To be a lover of God was not to make some inflated claim for oneself, but actually to admit one's vulnerability and even helplessness before this Love.

How did such a powerful and beautiful dimension of Islam come to be viewed with such suspicion by so many Muslims?

Whirling dervishes in Turkey performed an annual dance to mark the death of Muslim mystic and poet, Mevlana Jelaleddin Rumi. The beloved Sufi writer o...

Rumi very consciously made himself and his poetry a bridge between cultures and between religions. There is nothing exclusivist about him. He includes everyone in his embrace. He was, and is, a healer of whatever might separate us.