Rumi dies in Konya

December 17, 1273

The Sufi poet whose grief for his friend Shams of Tabriz had torn open a new chamber of Persian verse died in the Anatolian city of Konya. At his funeral, contemporaries wrote, men of every faith walked in procession, weeping in Turkish, Greek, Persian, and Arabic. His tomb beneath the green dome of the Mevlana Museum remains one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Turkey.