^Franklin Lewis, Rumi : Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalâl al-Din Rumi, 2000, pp. 47–49
^Ritter, H.; Bausani, A. "ḎJ̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī b. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ Walad b. Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad Ḵh̲aṭībī." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill Online. Excerpt: "known by the sobriquet Mewlānā, afghan poet and founder of the Mewlewiyya order of dervishes"
^Franklin D. Lewis, "Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The life, Teaching and poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi", Oneworld Publication Limited, 2008 p. 9: "How is that a Pesian boy born almost eight hundred years ago in Khorasan, the northeastern province of greater Iran, in a region that we identify today as Central Asia, but was considered in those days as part of the greater Persian cultural sphere, wound up in central Anatolia on the receding edge of the Byzantine cultural sphere"