Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī (نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as Jami or Djāmī and in Turkey as Molla Cami, was a Sunni poet who is known for his achievements as a prolific scholar and writer of mystical Sufi literature. He was primarily a prominent poet-theologian of the school of Ibn Arabi and a Khwājagānī Sũfī, recognized for his eloquence and for his analysis of the metaphysics of mercy. His most famous poetic works are Haft Awrang, Tuhfat al-Ahrar, Layla wa Majnun, Fatihat al-Shabab, Lawa'ih, Al-Durrah al-Fakhirah. Jami belonged to the Naqshbandi Sufi order.
Jami was born in Kharjerd, in Khorasan to a Persian family. Previously his father Nizām al-Dīn Ahmad b. Shams al-Dīn Muhammad had come from Dasht, a small town in the district of Isfahan. A few years after his birth, his family migrated to Herat, where he was able to study Peripateticism, mathematics, Persian literature, natural sciences, Arabic language, logic, rhetoric, and Islamic philosophy at the Nizamiyyah University. His father, also a Sufi, became his first teacher and mentor. While in Herat, Jami held an important position at the Timurid court, involved in the era's politics, economics, philosophy and religious life. Jami was a Sunni Muslim.
Because his father was from Dasht, Jami's early pen name was Dashti, but later, he chose to use Jami because of two reasons he later mentioned in a poem:
My birthplace is Jam, and my pen Has drunk from (knowledge of) Sheikh-ul-Islam (Ahmad) JamHence in the books of poetryMy pen name is Jami for these two reasons.
Jami was a mentor and friend of the famous Turkic poet Alisher Navoi, as evidenced by his poems:
U ki yak Turk bud va man TajikHardu doshtim kheshii nazdikThough he was a Turk, and I am Tajik,We were close to each other.
Afterward, he went to Samarkand, the most important center of scientific studies in the Muslim world and completed his studies there.