“I keep getting nourished by it. It’s like food for me – it’s not like work,” said Barks, who combines music with poetry in order to translate Rumi’s scholarly language into colloquial free verse.

The former poetry and creative writing professor at the University of Georgia highlighted Saturday’s “Commemorating Rumi in the 21st Century” event held at the Union. The day-long tribute featured several authors and professors educated on the works of Rumi and focused on the Sufi traditions of Islam.

Event organizer Emine Evered said she hoped to showcase an aspect of Islam that isn’t often portrayed in this part of the world.

“I feel that politically, people in the West are at odds with the Middle East, but poetically, they’re at peace. My main motivation was to bring the culture to the region,” said Evered, a professor in the history department at MSU.

MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon provided the opening remarks which set the tone for three sessions that spanned most of the morning and afternoon.

The commemoration, which drew about 300 people, continued in the evening with cultural events that featured Barks and Washington University professor Fatemeh Keshavarz, and finished with a traditional Sufi performance of Whirling Dervishes.

Clad in white robes and tall hats and accompanied by four musicians, the two whirlers took center stage of the Union ballroom and began expertly twirling for a period that lasted nearly 30 minutes.

The whirlers alternated between twirling in place to rotating along a designated path and demonstrated the mystic’s spontaneous ritual of letting go of his worldly self.

Maweza Razzaq, the Muslim Students’ Association president, said Rumi’s works help break the stereotype between Islam and violence.

“Non-Muslims should know that this is a Muslim voice talking about peace and all the positive ideals,” said the international studies senior.