Mevlana

"...before everything [Mevlana] was a learned theologian after the finest pattern of medieval Islam, very familiar with the Koran and its exegesis, the traditional sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the sacred law and its erudite expositors, the wranglings of the 'Two-and-Seventy jarring sects,' not to mention the 'foreign sciences' including philosophy, and the lives and dicta of the saints and mystics. All this various learning is reflected in Rumi's poetry...In Rumi we encounter one of the world's greatest poets. In profundity of thought, inventiveness of image, and triumphant mastery of language, he stands out as the supreme genius of Islamic mysticism."

--A. J. Arberry, Mystical Poems of Rumi, 31, 33.

...when you look well into the matter, all is nothing but flame.

--Ibid., 85.