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Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
A different witness, a disciple of Jelāl’s father, related that Bahā Veled frequently affirmed publicly that his Lord, Jelāl, was of exalted descent, being of the lineage of a king, and also of an hereditary saint.
His maternal grandmother was a daughter of the great Imām Es-Sarakhsī11 (died at Damascus A.H. 571, A.D. 1175), who was of the lineage of the Prophet. The mother of Es-Sarakhsī was descended from the Caliph ‘Alī; and Jelāl’s paternal grandmother was a daughter of the King of Kh’ārezm, who resided at Balkh.
Jelāl’s paternal great-great-grandmother, also, the mother of Ahmed, El-Khatībī, grandfather of Jelāl’s father, was a daughter of a king of Balkh. These particulars establish that Jelāl was well descended on both sides, in a mundane and in a spiritual sense. The well-known proverb—
“Hereditary disposition ever insinuates itself,”
proved fully true in his most illustrious case.