Coleman Barks, Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, is Rumi's premier English translator. He lives in Athens, Georgia.

John Moyne is a Persian scholar and Emeritus Professor and former head of Linguistics at the Graduate School of the City University of New York.

Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273) was not only a poet, mystic, and the founder of a Sufi order, he was a man of profound insight into the nature of human existence and possibly the greatest mystical poet of any age.