All Lovers Are Welcome: Rumi and the Spirituality of Hospitality in Fihi Ma Fihi

Jajaluddin Rumi’s Fihi ma fihi (Signs of the Unseen) is a compilation of sermons, commentaries and narratives about a range of moral, ethical, spiritual, and cultural topics for “lovers” of God, that is, true devotees of God. In Signs, Rumi argues that acting in ways that exclude others (religiously or otherwise) is not the appropriate behavior action of “the lover” of God: rather, the sincere lover of God will always attempt to speak positively about another and seek out common ground or a space of understanding. For Rumi, lovers of God seek companionship and harmony with each other in correlation with their search for companionship with the Divine. Rumi’s teachings invoke the common ground of humanity and admonish people to transcend mortal differences by recognizing inherent—and enduring—similarities. Rumi thus departed from the exclusivist thinking of some devotees of religions by insisting on a spirituality of universal hospitality.