Children preserving Rumi's memory in Balkh
Today’s caravan of lovers is just getting started–after we’re done exploring traces of Rumi in Afghanistan, we’ll travel west–to a number of different countries to contemplate the legacy he has left behind throughout the Middle East. Above is a photograph of the house in Balkh which is believed by Afghans to have belonged to Rumi’s family. His memory here is even preserved by the kids I found climbing in and out of the windows and holes of this mud-brick house–children of war who could proudly quote Rumi in Persian at length, and insisted on calling him “al-Balkhi”–the one from Balkh. Shall we go inside?
There’s no one with intelligence in this town
except that man over there playing with the children,
the one riding the stick horse.
He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity
like the night sky,
but he conceals it in the madness of child’s play.
— Rumi
