I Was Dead, Then Alive – A poem by Jalalludin Rumi. About the poet – Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi (1207 – 1273) was a 13th-century Persian Muslim poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. He was born in Balkh Province of present Afghanistan. Rumi was an evolutionary thinker and had a philosophical outlook which clearly reflects through his poetic works. Rumi's poetry is often divided into various categories: the quatrains (rubayāt) and odes (ghazal) of the Divan, the six books of the Masnavi. The prose works are divided into The Discourses, The Letters, and the Seven Sermons.