Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rumi, whose full name was Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, was a Sufi mystic and poet who lived from the 30th of September 1207 to the 17th of December 1273. He founded the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order and wrote the Masnavi, often called "the Quran in Persian."
Rumi means "the Roman," a nisba referring to Rum, the geographical area of Anatolia once held by the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. He settled in Konya within the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, so he became known as the man from Rum despite his family hailing from Balkh.
Shams-e Tabrizi was a wandering dervish who arrived in Konya on the 15th of November 1244 and completely changed Rumi's life, transforming him from a teacher and jurist into an ascetic. Shams disappeared on the night of the 5th of December 1248, and Rumi's grief produced the lyric poems of the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi.
The Masnavi is Rumi's best-known work, a six-volume poem of approximately 27,000 lines that he dictated to his student Hussam-e Chalabi over twelve years in Anatolia. It has been commonly called "the Quran in Persian" and regarded by many commentators as the greatest mystical poem in world literature.
Rumi is buried in Konya beside his father, beneath a shrine called the "Green Tomb," known in Turkish as Yesil Turbe and today as the Mevlana Museum. The Georgian princess and Seljuq queen Tamar Gurju Khatun sponsored its construction, and it remains probably the most popular pilgrimage site regularly visited by adherents of every major religion.
Rumi has become the best selling poet in the United States in recent years, with the English interpretations by Coleman Barks selling more than half a million copies worldwide. His work has been translated into many languages and presented through concerts, workshops, readings, and dance performances.
The Mevlevi Order is the Sufi brotherhood founded in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death and organized by his son Sultan Walad. Its members, known as Whirling Dervishes, perform the Sama, a sacred dance and mystical journey of spiritual ascent, which UNESCO proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.