Jamal J. Elias discusses his latest book, After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World, with Ahmet T. Karamustafa.

Wolf Humanities Center • University of Pennsylvania

After Rumi: Book Talk by Jamal J. Elias

Jamal J. Elias

Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania

Ahmet T. Karamustafa

Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Maryland; author of God’s Unruly Friends and Sufism: The Formative Period

Presented in collaboration with Penn’s Middle East Center

After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World by Jamal J. Elias is the first major book since the mid-20th century to focus on Rumi’s religious, social and literary legacy. In this book talk, the author will briefly introduce important aspects of Rumi’s impact on Sufism, language and society in Turkey and beyond. The talk will be followed by a discussion with Ahmet T. Karamustafa, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of medieval Sufism.

More information: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/after-rumi

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Jamal J. Elias specializes in Islamic thought, literary and visual culture as well as history in Western and South Asia. His current research focuses on processes and understandings of religious community formation from the medieval to the modern world, as demonstrated in historical and literary writing as well as in visual and material culture. His most recent book, After Rumi: Language, Kinship and the Making of a Religious Community, was published by Harvard University Press in 2025. A book edited by him entitled What Makes Islamic Literature Islamic? is forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press. He is the author of Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (2018); Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (2012); On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (2011); This is Islam: From Muhammad and the Community of Believers to Islam in the Global Community (2011); Islam (1999); The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani (1995); the coauthor of Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (2001); the editor and translator of Death Before Dying: Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu (1998); the editor of Key Themes for the Study of Islam (2010); the coeditor of Light Upon Light: A Festschrift presented to Gerhard Böwering by His Students (2019); and the author of numerous articles. His writings have been translated into at least nine languages. Dr. Elias is Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Religious Studies, and the Director of the Penn Forum for Global Islamic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was director of Penn’s Wolf Humanities Center from 2021–2025.

Ahmet T. Karamustafa is Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise is in social and intellectual history of medieval and early modern Islam in the Middle East and Southwest Asia as well as in theory and method in the study of religion. He is the author of God’s Unruly Friends (University of Utah Press, 1994), a book on ascetic movements in medieval Islam, and Vahidi’s Menakıb-ı Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can (The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1993), a study of a sixteenth-century mystical text in Ottoman Turkish. He also served as an editor for, and wrote several articles in, Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (University of Chicago Press, 1992). More recently, he completed a comprehensive historical overview of early Islamic mysticism titled Sufism: The Formative Period (published simultaneously by Edinburgh University Press & University of California Press, 2007). Currently, he is at work on a sequel volume titled The Flowering of Sufism as well as another book project, Vernacular Islam: Everyday Muslim Religious Life in Medieval Turkey. Karamustafa has held several administrative positions, including a five-year term as director of the Religious Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis. He was the co-chair of the Study of Islam Section at the American Academy of Religion between 2008 and 2011.

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This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.

The Wolf Humanities Center values inclusivity and we aim to create a welcoming environment for people of all backgrounds. Please feel free to note any accessibility needs or concerns in your registration, or connect with us by email or phone (215.573.8280).