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The claim of maternal descent from the Khwarazmshah for Rumi or his father is also seen as a non-historical hagiographical tradition designed to connect the family with royalty, but this claim is rejected for chronological and historical reasons. Some modern scholars, however, reject this claim and state it does not hold on closer examination. According to Sultan Walad's Ibadetname and Shamsuddin Aflaki (c.1286 to 1291), Rumi was a descendant of Abu Bakr.
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Rumi's father was Bahā ud-Dīn Walad, a theologian, jurist and a mystic from Balkh, who was also known by the followers of Rumi as Sultan al-Ulama or "Sultan of the Scholars". For example, Professor Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago, author of the most complete biography on Rumi, has separate sections for the hagiographical biography of Rumi and the actual biography about him. This biography needs to be treated with care as it contains both legends and facts about Rumi. A hagiographical account of him is described in Shams ud-Din Ahmad Aflāki's Manāqib ul-Ārifīn (written between 13). He was laid to rest beside his father, and over his remains a shrine was erected. Upon his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for the Sufi dance known as the Sama ceremony. He was buried in Konya, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Rumi lived most of his life under the Persianate Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, where he produced his works and died in 1273 AD. His father was also connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm al-Din Kubra. Rumi expresses his appreciation: "Attar was the spirit, Sanai his eyes twain, And in time thereafter, Came we in their train" and mentions in another poem: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at the turn of one street".
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The most important influences upon Rumi, besides his father, were the Persian poets Attar and Sanai. Greater Balkh was at that time a major centre of Persian culture and Sufism had developed there for several centuries. He was born either in Wakhsh, a village on the Vakhsh River in present-day Tajikistan, or in the city of Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan. Rumi was born to native Persian-speaking parents, originally from the Balkh, which at the time was part of the Khwarezmian Empire, but is now in present-day Afghanistan. Home Rumi: Poems and Prose Wikipedia: Life