ABSTRACT
JAL&L AL-D$N IBN Called R#m" was born at
Balkh in 1207, son of al-D"n ibn called al-D"n Valad; according to certain authorities he was a great-grandson through his
grandmother of Khv!rizmsh!h, but this assertion involves a historical impossibility and his royal descent, if true, must have been from another line. Less doubt is entertained concerning his claim to the caliph Ab# Bakr as a remote
ancestor. His father was a noted preacher and who never lost any opportunity of emulating the great Ghaz!l" in expressing his detestation of philosophy and scholasticism, and this is said to have excited against him the anger of that doughty theologian Fakhr al-D"n al-R!z" who enjoyed the protection of the ruling house. Whether on account of this quarrel (which seems unlikely, for al-R!z" died in 1209) or for some other cause, such as
the onset of the Mongol invasions, al-D"n Valad presently found himself obliged to flee from Balkh. Jal!l al-D"n was still a boy when his father set out on his forced wanderings through Persia, Iraq, Arabia and Syria; it is related, and there is nothing
inherently improbable in the story, that at N"sh!p#r he met Far"d al-D"n then an
aged and greatly revered figure; divined the spiritual aptitude of the lad and
presented him with a copy of his Asr#r-n#ma, telling al-D"n that ‘soon his son would set on fire the consumed ones of the world.’ The refugees came to rest finally in
Qonia; there al-D"n died in 1230, and there with certain intervals R#m" resided
to the end of his life. He had married and begotten a son named Valad while the family were temporarily halted at Zarinda, forty miles to the south-east of Qonia.
