Rumi's Time Has Come (Again) -- By Rachel Beckman

The United Nations declared 2007, the 800th anniversary of the poet's birth, the International Year of Rumi. --- Mr. Popularity was born Sept. 30, 1207, near Balkh in what is now Afghanistan. He became an Islamic scholar and embraced Islam's mystic tradition of Sufism. Along the way, he wrote thousands of poems. An untitled snippet: --- Rumi -- like Shakespeare and Mozart-- travels well, says Akbar Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic studies department at American University. Rumi's message of unity and peace is needed in America right now, he says.