1000 Lira Jalaladdin Rumi

Issued as part of Turkey's commemorative gold program of the late 1970s, this piece honors Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, the 13th-century Sufi poet and mystic born in Balkh — present-day Afghanistan — who spent much of his life in Konya, where his tomb remains one of the most visited sites in Turkey. The Turkish state's decision to place Rumi on an official gold issue reflects the complex negotiation between secular Kemalist identity and the country's Islamic cultural inheritance.