Ali al-Khawas was a 9th-century Muslim Sufi poet and mystic from the ninth century AD. Pope Francis refers to him as a "spiritual writer" in his encyclical letter Laudato si' (2015) on the topic of ecology.[1]
In Laudato si, Francis writes that humanity can "discover God in all things": "in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face".[1] In a footnote, he refers to al-Khawas' experience of God and the world, noting how the poet stressed "the need not to put too much distance between the creatures of the world and the interior experience of God".[2] The footnote reads
Aisha Bhoori has noted that it is "unusual for a pope to cite a Sufi poet".