[Sca-cooks] Rumi, was FW: Turkish Recipe

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Rumi's dates are given as 1207-1273, that's thirteenth century, 
despite a reviewer's confusion.

He was actually Persian and wrote his poetry in Persian, primarily, 
and Arabic, secondarily, not in Turkish, as far as i can tell. It's 
hard to find his personal name, it may have been Muhammed. Jalal 
al-Din, sometimes written Jalaladin or Jalaluddin, was his Sufi 
title, and the name by which he was usually known.

His family lived in Balkh when he was young. That's now in 
Afghanistan, but it was a major cultural center in the eastern 
Persian Empire throughout SCA period. His father, Muhammad ibn 
Hussain Khatibi, whose Sufi title was Baha' al-Din Walad, was a well 
regarded Sufi at the time. The family moved westward in Persia to 
Nishapour when Rumi was around 12, possibly due to pressure from 
invaders, and eventually moved to Baghdad, where the primary spoken 
and literary language was Arabic. The family went on the hajj 
(pilgrimage to Mecca), then moved to the city of Konya in 
south-central Anatolia, at the request of the ruler who wanted Rumi's 
father as a teacher.

"Rumi" was Arabic for "Roman". Byzantium was called "Rum", meaning 
"Rome", which the Byzantines considered themselves to be the 
continuation of. Konya is in an area that had been part of the 
Byzantine Empire. Konya had earlier been part of Byzantium, then had 
been incorporated into the Seljuk Turkish Empire. By the time of 
Rumi's life, it was an independent "kingdom", after the Seljuk Empire 
came apart at the end of the 12th century, known as Rum. "Rumi" means 
"of Rum" or "from Rum" and was added to his name
  He became popularly known as Rumi in the 19th century.

As for being best-selling poet in America, this is the case in the 
past decade or so. Here in NoCal, there are frequent nights of Rumi, 
either readings or readings with music, and lectures by various 
translators and re-workers of his writings, such as Coleman Barks or 
Shahram Shiva, are packed to the rafters.

I haven't been able to find any information about a dietary manual, 
although i have found a site that lists the foods he mentions in his 
poems. I don't know if this is accurate, as far as Rumi's poetry 
goes, but the food list is pretty accurate for the 9th-15th century 
Arabic language recipes i have, some of which are of Persian origin.
http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/essay_rumi_food.html
-- 
Urtatim, formerly Anahita