Rumi the poet and his life

 How Rumi became one of the world's most popular writers. Here.

Open Culture newsletter posted this about the poet...

The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you add in South Asia and the Mediterranean. But there’s one thing on which many residents of that wide geographical span can agree: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī. One might at first imagine that a thirteenth-century poet and mystical philosopher who wrote in Persian, with occasional forays into Turkish, Arabic, and Greek, would be a niche figure today, if known at all. In fact, Rumi, as he’s commonly known, is now one of the most popular writers in not just the Middle East but the world; English reinterpretations of his verse have even made him the best-selling poet in the United States.

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Today's quote:

Lyndon Johnson said when signing Civil Rights Law: “We believe all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings … because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply imbedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand — without rancor or hatred — how this happened, but it cannot continue. … Our constitution … forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And [now] the law … forbids it.”