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Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya
Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya (b. 714/717/718 CC, Basra, Iraq — d. 801 CC) was an Arab Muslim saint and Sufi mystic who became an influential religious figure. She is known in some parts of the world as Hazrat Rabia Basri, Rabia Al Basri or simply Rabia Basri. She set an saintly example respected by Muslims throughout history and is a keystone in the complicated founding of Islam.
Rabiʻa is said to have been born between 714 and 718 CC (95 and 98 Hijri) in Basra, Iraq, of the Qays tribe. Farid ud-Din Attar, a later Sufi saint and poet, recounted much of her early life. Rabi'a was the fourth daughter of her family and, therefore, was named Rabiʻa, meaning "fourth".
According to Farid ud-Din Attar, whose account is more mythical rather than historical, when Rabiʻa was born, her parents were so poor that there was no oil in the house to light a lamp, nor even a cloth to wrap her with. Her mother asked her husband to borrow some oil from a neighbor, but he had resolved in his life never to ask for anything from anyone except God. He pretended to go to the neighbor's door and returned home empty-handed.
After the death of Rabi'a's father, famine ravaged Basra. Rabi'a parted from her sisters. she went into the desert to pray and became ascetic, living a life of semi-seclusion. She is often cited as being the queen of saintly women, and was known for her complete devotion as "pure unconditional love of God." As an exemplar among others devoted to God, she provided a model of mutual love between God and God's creation. Her example is one in which the loving devotee on earth becomes one with the Beloved.
She prayed:
Rābiʻa died in her 80s in Basra in 185 AH/801 CC. Often noted as having been the single most famous and influential renunciant (one who renounces a worldly life to lead a spiritual existence) in Islamic history, Rabiʻa was renowned for her extreme virtue and piety. A devoted ascetic, when asked why she performed a thousand ritual prostrations both during the day and at night, she answered:
Rabi'a was intense in her self-denial and devotion to God. She never claimed to have achieved unity with God. Instead, she dedicated her life to getting closer to God. As an explanation of her refusal to lift her head toward the heavens [to God] as an act of modesty, Rabi'a would say:
"Were the world the possession of a single man, it would not make him rich ... [B]ecause it is passing away."
Rabi'a was the one who first set forth the doctrine of Divine Love known as Ishq-e Haqeeqi and is widely considered the most important of the early renunciants whose mode of piety would come to serve as a model for the Islamic practice known as Sufism.
Contrary to the name, Rabi’a was never appointed a saint because Muslims do not have such titles. However, through years of reinterpretation and westernization, Rabi’a has been donned with the title.
Rabi’a’s teachings had a lasting impact on the religious world, as noted by many religious scholars. One non-Sufi account by Abu ‘Uthman al-Jahiz referred to her as highly respected, and someone people went to for guidance. Another reference by Abi Tahir Tayfur of Bhagdad remembers her always having something important to say.
Rabi'a was well known for having a powerful love for God and devoting her life to him. She was beloved not only by many for her spiritual guidance but for her ethics as well. She pushed the idea of loving God for being God, not for a heavenly or earthly reward.
Among her most notable qualities besides her devotion to God are her humility and celibacy. Living alone and in love with only God, she is idolized by many for her religious passion and for setting the example for the growing Muslim population. She is also said to be the founder of Islamic love mysticism.
Much of the poetry that is attributed to Rabi'a is of unknown origin. There is no evidence in the historical archive that Rabiʿa ever met Hasan al-Basri. However, the following myth, first appearing in Fariduddin Attar's Tadhkirat al-Awliya`, is a common trope in the modern period: After a life of hardship, she spontaneously achieved a state of self-realization. She was chosen by Allah to perform divine miracles. When asked by Shaikh Hasan al-Basri, how she discovered the secret, she responded by stating:
One of the many myths that surround her life is that she was freed from slavery because her master saw her praying while surrounded by light, realized that she was a saint and feared for his life if he continued to keep her as a slave.
Rabiʿa's main modern biographer, Rika Elaroui Cornell, discovered four main tropes of mythologization, Rabiʿa the Teacher, Rabiʿa the Ascetic, Rabiʿa the Lover, and Rabiʿa the Sufi.
Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya is often mythologized as an essential ascetic, where "the ascetic attains the Nonworld not by rejecting the World but by treating it as unimportant. The essential ascetic avoids the World not because it is evil per se but because it is a distraction from God."
Rabi’a was said to have a circle of disciples, including Maryam of Basra. Besides her disciples, she is regarded as a mentor to many emerging Muslims and guided people in their journey toward God and Sufi practices.
While nothing physical is left, her impact on the lives of the people around her can be seen in the stories still told about her. For someone whose physical existence is unproved, the fact that her name is still known and respected today speaks volumes.
Several aspects of Sufism suggest that Sufi ideologies and practices have stood as counters to dominant society and its perception of women and the relationships between men and women. The stories detailing the life and practices of Rabi'a al-Adawiyya show a counter-cultural understanding of the role of gender in society. Her role as a spiritual and intellectual superiority is depicted in several narratives. In a Sufi narrative, Sufi leader Hasan al-Basri explained, "I passed one whole night and day with Rabi'a ... it never passed through my mind that I was a man nor did it occur to her that she was a woman...when I looked at her I saw myself as bankrupt [i.e. as spiritually worth nothing] and Rabi'a as truly sincere [rich in spiritual virtue]." However, she decided to stay celibate in order to leave her womanhood behind and devote herself completely to God.
One day, she was seen running through the streets of Basra carrying a pot of fire in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When asked what she was doing, she said, "I want to put out the fires of hell, and burn down the rewards of paradise. They block the way to Allah. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of Allah."
There are no artifacts found written by or about Rabi’a during her lifetime. While there are various poems and pieces of writing under her name, the legitimacy of their origin is highly debated. Since there are no primary sources confirming her existence or writing, historians rely on the literature of other religious philosophers that came after her time and who wrote about her legacy.
Because of the lack of eyewitness accounts and surviving evidence of her life, the “true” Rabi’a is unknown. However, Rabi’a’s importance and legacy remain prominent through tales of her life, modern references, and her standing in Muslim culture. While no physical evidence was found of her, Rabi’a’s story and poetry remain an inspiration to women and Muslim people today.
Rabi’a’s teachings and example are influential for people of her time and Sufis today. It helps narrate what Islam looked like throughout time and shows what influential roles women played in it.
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"O God, if I worship Thee in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting beauty."
Prayer attributed to Rabi'a
A mystic is someone who seeks direct contact with God through meditation or special insight. Mystics believe this is possible—indeed, only possible—outside the context of formal religion. But this unorthodox approach does not mean that mystics expect a "shortcut," as the life and teachings of an extraordinary woman named Rabi'a al-Adawiyya illustrate.
Founder of the Sufis, a sect of Islamic mystics, Rabi'a was sold into slavery; she gained her freedom, according to some legends, because her master was awed by a miraculous light shining above her head. She devoted her life to a quest for direct contact with Allah, or God.
The Middle Ages was a time when mysticism proliferated in lands influenced by the great religions of the Middle East: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Some of these mystics would be judged insane if they lived in modern times; others were fanatics of one kind or another who used mysticism as a mask for darker urges within themselves. Then there were the genuine seekers, among them Rabi'a al-Adawiyya (rah-BEE-ah al-ah-dah-WEE-ah).
Rabi'a is generally credited as the founder of the Sufis, whose name comes from a word meaning "wool." The Sufis reacted to the political turmoil of their times, an age when the Abbasid caliphate was extending its power throughout the Muslim world, by retreating to an inner search for God. A principal belief of the Sufis was that one should not worship Allah out of fear of Hell, or hope of Heaven; rather, love for God should be an end in itself.
When Rabi'a was about eleven years old, her father, Ismail, died. Her mother, hoping to find a better life for her children, took them to Basra. On the way, however, bandits attacked them, killing the mother and kidnapping the girls. Rabi'a, along with her sisters, was sold into slavery.
Eventually Rabi'a wound up in Baghdad, a great city of the Islamic world that is today the capital of Iraq. There a man bought her, and proceeded to exploit her talents. Not only was she beautiful—she would receive many proposals of marriage in her life, each of which she refused—but she was a talented singer. Therefore he put her to work entertaining people, and he lived well off the money she earned.
It was said that during this time, Rabi'a became affected by the world around her, and adopted loose ways. Then one day when she was about thirty-six, she was singing before a wedding party when suddenly, the song inside of her changed. Instead of singing to the wedding guests, she found herself singing to Allah.
From then on, Rabi'a refused to sing for anyone but God, and this angered her master. He began to abuse her, but still she refused to resume her old life. At this point, the legends about Rabi'a differ. Some say that her master was over-whelmed by a light shining above her head, which illuminated his whole house, and therefore he freed her. Others maintain that he grew so frustrated with her that he sold her at a market, where a holy man bought her.
Whatever the case, it was said that the holy man took her to his home and treated her with kindness. He did not expect her to be his slave, he explained, but if she would be his wife, he would marry her. She thanked him, but said that she had no desire to marry anyone.
Legends maintain that Rabi'a soon came in contact with Hasan al-Basri (bahs-REE; 642–728), a noted Islamic leader. This is difficult to reconcile with the few known facts about her, since when Hasan died she would have only been thirty-seven, and tales of their conversations suggest that they knew each other for a long time. Regardless of the details, the distinguished Hasan came into her life, and like the holy man before him, asked her to marry him. Again she refused him, explaining that her only love was Allah.
Another story about Rabi'a and Hasan is that one day when she was sitting by a lake, he spread his prayer mat on the surface of the water, where it floated miraculously. She had a prayer mat too, as did all Muslims, for the purpose of praying toward the holy city of Mecca five times a day, and she caused her mat to rise into the air with her on it. Then she told Hasan that "the real business is outside these tricks. One must apply oneself to the real business."
The "real business" was a quest for the direct knowledge of God, and it is a testament to Rabi'a's reputation that legends of her—whether or not they were true—depict her as giving religious instruction to the esteemed Hasan. Women were second-class citizens in most parts of the medieval world, and this was certainly true in Islam. Thus it was later said of Rabi'a, "When a woman walks in the ways of Allah like a man she cannot be called a woman." Other admirers compared her to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ.
Rabi'a was speaking of both men and women when she said that there were three kinds of men: one who uses his hands to gain wealth in this world, one who uses his hands to pray for rewards in the afterlife, and one who allows his hands to be tied by God—to serve without expecting anything in return.
This was the essence of the Sufi teaching, which she expressed in a famous prayer quoted in a variety of forms. One version was: "O God, if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting beauty." Another time, she explained that both fire, or Hell, and the Garden, or Heaven, were "veils" that kept the seeker from a true knowledge of God.
In line with her belief that the seeker should not expect anything in return, Rabi'a, like many other mystics, lived a life of self-denial. She would often fast, or go without food, for long periods of time, and she lived in poverty. She welcomed misfortune, she said, because it was no better than blessings: all things were from Allah, and therefore they were good.
One legend told that while making the pilgrimage to Mecca, an act to which Muslims were called, her donkey died in the middle of the desert. The people on the caravan she was with offered to help her, but she refused, saying she would stay in the desert and trust in Allah. It was said that after she nearly died, she prayed to God, and God restored the donkey's life.
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Attar, Farid al-Din (translation by Losensky - 2009). Memorial of the Friends of God.
Attar, Farid al-Din (translation by A. J. Arberry - 1983). Rabe'a [sic] al-Adawiya, from Muslim Saints and Mystics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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Smith, Margaret (1995). Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Vol. 8, "Rabiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya". Brill. pp. 354–56.
Smith, Margaret (2010). Rabi'a, The Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam. Cambridge University Press.
Stewart, Desmond (1967). Early Islam. New York City, New York: Time-Life Books.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabia_of_Basra
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/rabia-al-adawiyya
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