Rumi wasn't yours
Afghanistan furious as Iran, Turkey claim Sufi poet
Who can lay claim to Rumi, the Sufi mystic who is one of the world's most beloved poets? A bid by Iran and Turkey to do so has exasperated Afghanistan, country of his birth eight centuries ago.
Tehran and Ankara asked to list the work of Jalal ud-Din Muhammad Rumi as their joint heritage on the UN's "Memory of the World" register in May.
The register, falling under the UN's cultural organisation Unesco, was formed in 1997 to protect the world's documentary heritage -- archives, correspondence and writing -- especially in troubled or conflict-ridden areas.
But the Afghan government has denounced the bid, which mainly concerns the 25,600 verses of "Masnavi-i-Ma'navi", one of the most influential works in Persian literature.
He is one of the best-selling poets in the US, and his works have been translated into more than 23 languages. Hollywood is planning a Rumi biopic -- also mired in controversy after rumoured plans for Leonardo DiCaprio to play him were met with accusations of "whitewashing".
The poet and philosopher "was born in Balkh in Afghanistan and made us proud," the Ministry of Information and Culture insisted.
Unesco "never asked us" about the proposal, Harron Haklimi, the ministry's spokesman, said, acknowledging that Kabul had been beaten to the punch but hoping they can yet convince the organisation that Afghanistan has the better claim to the poet.