Rumi was a respected but conventional jurist and preacher until, in his late thirties, he met the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz — after which he abandoned teaching for months of private conversation, began composing poetry compulsively, and was never the same. Shams disappeared, probably murdered by Rumi's jealous students, and the loss produced the poetry. The order his followers founded, the Mevlevi, developed the turning ceremony that made "whirling dervishes" a global image.