Rumi 165 cm tall, 60 kilos heavy: Expert

KONYA

Rumi was a man weighing between 60 and 63 kilos, with a height of 160 and 165 centimeters, the head of the Rumi Museum in the Central Anatolian province of Konya has said.

Naci Bakırcı highlighted that he has come to this conclusion after examining Rumi’s 19 clothes in the museum’s inventory and some 18th-century drawings.

Born on Sept. 30, 1207, and died on Dec. 17, 1273, at the age of 66, Rumi, also known as “Mevlana” and “Jalal al-Din Mohammed Balkhi,” was a 13th-century poet, Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic.

His “Masnavi,” considered to be one of the greatest Persian poems, was composed in Konya.

“There are 22 items of clothing belonging to Rumi in the museum, 19 of them were frayed, so a team of three started renovation on the clothes,” Bakırcı told Demirören News Agency.

When asked how they could know they were Rumi’s clothes, Bakırcı pointed out Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II’s one of the viziers’ memoirs penned between 1890 and 1901.

“This vizier, who was exiled to Konya, monitored the dervish lodge following Rumi’s teachings for years,” he said. “Vizier writes in his reminiscences that ‘no sect had continuity like the Rumi’s. Dervishes wore Rumi’s clothes and prayed.’ The inventory of the dervish lodge also listed Rumi’s clothes one by one.”

Among the silk and cotton clothes, there are shirts, tabards and other fabrics.

The museum head said the three restorators have finished the renovation of 12 out of 19 clothes in five months.

“The clothes are wide and loose. When one sees them, he or she may think that Rumi was a giant man,” Bakırcı said. “But, the reason behind this wideness was that one who wore showed he was a high-rank official.”

When asked if they knew any other detail of Rumi’s appearance, Bakırcı noted, “He was colored-eyed and pale-faced.”