Sometime after Salah died in 1261, Hisam al-Din Chalapi became Rumi's close companion, serving him until Rumi died in 1273. The Mathnavi, always the source of inspiration for his disciples down through generations, became the greatest poetic work in the Persian language. Rumi did not construct a systematic philosophy. To truly understand any part is to understand the whole. Rumi renounced systems because divine philosophy is understood only as it pervades every aspect of one's life.
Holy men dance and wheel on the spiritual battlefield.
They dance in their own blood. At their ecstasy the sea bursts into foam. You see nothing, but for them leaves on branches are clapping hands. Close the head's ears to jesting and falsehood, That you may see the resplendent city of the soul. For Rumi, whatever one can know of reality, which is divine in nature and graded in manifestation, is known through purified inner experience.