Sufism: The Legacy of Rumi

Esin Çelebi Bayru, the 22nd generation granddaughter of Mevlana was born in Aleppo on the 2nd of April, 1949. She completed her primary, secondary and high school education in Private Işık High School. Afterwards, she graduated from Arabic and Persian Philology Department at the Faculty of Letters in Istanbul University. She became the vice president of the International Mevlana Foundation which was founded in 1996. In cooperation with her colleagues she prepared two significant projects under the auspices of the Foundation and presented them to UNESCO. Thanks to their efforts “Sema and Mevlevi Music” was voted as “The oral cultural heritage masterpiece of humanity” and the year 2007 was declared as “International Rumi Year”. The Foundation was ACCREDITED by UNESCO thanks to their hard work. Esin who also served as a consultant at the Institution of Mevlana Studies in Selçuk University, edited three books titled respectively as “Drops from the Mevlana Ocean” encapsulating conference and symposium statements of her father Celaleddin Bakır Çelebi and “Mevlana and Mevlevi order throughout centuries” authored by scientists specialized on rules and conventions, sema and music as well as “Those who reach to Allah through Mevlana” discussing foreign Mevlevis living abroad. Some of her articles and interviews were also published in various journals. In addition to this, she is invited as a guest speaker to national and international TV shows and to the universities and schools both in Turkey and abroad. She is working towards explaining universal ideas, exemplary lifestyle of Hz. Mevlana besides Mevlevi Culture as his way of right conduct and good manners. She was awarded with honorary PhD Degree in the US by Berkeley California Star King School for The Ministry in May, 2011 for her contributions and efforts on “World Unity, Peace and Justice”.

Anupa Mehta is an author, an arts consultant and a personal storytelling coach. She has trained with the Jungian writer and world renowned storyteller, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. She is an initiate in the Mevlevi Dervish order, and she received her initiation from Effendi Jelaluddin Loras in Konya , and is a student of Sheikha Khadija Radin. She has a book of short stories, “Unseasonal Rain” (Estrade, 2014) and a novel, “The Waiting Room” (Penguin 2007) to her credit.