Genealogy of Jelālu-’d-Dīn, Rūmī.
On his father’s side, the remote ancestor of Jelālu-’d-Dīn, during Islāmic times, was Abū-Bekr, the dearest and most faithful friend of Muhammed the Arabian lawgiver, and his successor in the government of the community of Islām, as the first of the long line of Caliphs.
Like Muhammed himself, Abū-Bekr was of the tribe of Quraysh, which claims descent, through Ishmael, from Abraham, the chosen Friend of God, and Father of the faithful. The stem of Abū-Bekr’s branch of the tribe unites with that of Muhammed in Murra, ancestor to Muhammed in the seventh degree, and to Abū-Bekr in the sixth.
Abū-Bekr was, furthermore, one of Muhammed’s fathers-in-law, as his daughter ‘Ā’isha was the Prophet’s only virgin bride.
A son or grandson of Abū-Bekr is said to have been among the Arabian conquerors of Khurāsān during the caliphate of ‘Uthmān (Osmān), about A.H. 25 (A.D. 647), and to have settled at Balkh (the capital of the ancient Bactria), where his family flourished until after the birth of Jelālu-’d-Dīn.[35]
At an uncertain period subsequent to A.H. 491 (A.D. 1097), a daughter of one of the Kh’ārezmian kings of Central Asia was given in marriage to Jelālu-’d-Dīn’s great-great-grandfather, whose name is either not mentioned by Eflākī, or I have missed it. She gave birth to Jelāl’s great-grandfather, Ahmed, surnamed El-Khatībī (as being, apparently, a son or descendant, or a client, of a public preacher, Khatīb).
Nothing more is mentioned of Ahmed by Eflākī, than that he had a son Huseyn, surnamed Jelālu-’d-Dīn, who married a daughter of a certain Khurrem-Shāh, King of Khurāsān, and became grandfather, by her, to the author of the Mesnevī. His son, Muhammed, surnamed Bahā’u-’d-Dīn, styled Sultānu-’l-‘Ulemā, and commonly known as Bahā’u-’d-Dīn Veled, or shorter as Bahā Veled, appears also to have married a lady, by whom he had three children, a daughter and two sons.
Bahā Veled’s eldest child, his daughter, was married off, and remained at Balkh, when Bahā Veled, his mother, and two sons left it, a year or so before it was taken and devastated by Jengīz Khān in A.H. 608 (A.D. 1211). His elder son is not again mentioned by Eflākī after their departure from Balkh. Neither is the mother of his children once mentioned. But his own mother, the princess, was alive, and was still with him in about A.D. 1230; after which, she too is not again mentioned.
Bahā Veled’s youngest child, his most celebrated son Muhammed, surnamed Jelālu-’d-Dīn, Mevlānā, Khudāvendgār, and Rūmī, the principal personage of these memoirs, the founder of the order of the Mevlevī dervishes, and author of the Mesnevī, had four children, three boys and a girl, by two wives. His eldest son was killed in the broil that caused the murder of his father’s friend Shemsu-’d-Dīn of Tebrīz. His youngest son is not taken further notice of; but his daughter was married off to a local prince, and left Qonya.
His second son, and eventually his successor as Principal or Abbot of his order, was named Muhammed, and surnamed Bahā’u-’d-Dīn. He is commonly known as Sultan Veled.