Famous 13th century poet, scholar and mystic. Born and educated in Balkh, Rumi advocated for the arts as a means of communion with the divine.

This is love: to fly to heaven, every moment to rend a hundred veils;
At first instance, to break away from breath - first step, to renounce feet;
To disregard this world, to see only that which you yourself have seen.
I said, 'Heart, congratulations on entering the circle of lovers,
On gazing beyond the range of the eye, on running into the alley of the breasts.'
Whence came this breath, O heart? Whence came this throbbing, O heart?
Bird, speak the tongue of birds: I can heed your cipher!
The heart said, 'I was in the factory whilst the home of water and clay was abaking.
I was flying from the workshop whilst the workshop was being created.
When I could no more resist, they dragged me; how shall I
tell the manner of that dragging?'

- Mystical Poems of Rumi 1, A.J. Arberry, The University of Chicago Press, 1968