This book offers a paradigm shift and fresh interpretation of Rumi's message. After being disentangled from the anachronistic connection with the Mevlevi order of Islamic Sufism, Rumi is instead placed in the world of philosophy.

A critical study of how Iranian nationalism, itself largely influenced by Orientalist scholarship first undertaken by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has shaped modern conceptions of Iran and Iranian identity, as well as narratives of Iranian history, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction of identity to suit Iranian political and ideological circumstances. This book argues that such a broad-brushed approach and the term "Iranian" could not have applied to the large multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural populations in the vast territory of Iran over so many distinct historical periods.