Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was an adventurer, scholar, linguist and British intelligence officer. Bell's courageous travels in the Islamic world of the Middle East in the late nineteenth century offered some of the first Western understandings of the culture and people of the lands of modern-day Iraq and Iran. Her translations of the poems of Hafiz are still considered by many scholars to be the most faithful of any in the English language.

Ibrahim Gamard is a member of the Mevlevi Order, a 730-year-old Sufi order which originated with Rumi himself.