Rab'ia al Adawiya, The Woman Mystic-Saint of Islam [ d 801 ]

Rabia al Adawiya al Basri stands out amongst the list of great Muslim saints and spiritual masters, as one of the few women who attained to the level of Qutb or Pole, the highest rank in the hierarchy of sufi-sainthood.

In the Tadhkirat-al-Auliya [Memorial of the Saints] of Fariduddin Attar [a sufi master of great repute himself], the life and teachings of this female sufi have been recorded with great regard and admiration. He says of her inclusion in this hagriophical magnum opus, "If anyone says "why have you included Rabia in the rank of men?" my answer is, that the Prophet s.w himself said, "God does not regard your outward forms. "The root of the matter is not form, but intention, as the Prophet s.w said, "Mankind will be raised up according to their intentions." Moreover if it is proper for us to derive two-thirds of our religion from Hazrat Bibi Aisha r.a [she being the chief source of Hadith and Sunnah recordings] surely it is permissible to take religious instruction from a hand-maid of Hazrat Aisha."

Writing about the position of women saints in her book "Rabia the Mystic and her fellow-saints", Margaret Smith reports that in the history of Islamic Mysticism, the title of saint was bestowed equally on women along with men. Some theologians have even named Hazrat Bibi Fatima r.a , daughter of the Prophet s.w , as the first Qutb or spiritual head of the sufi fellowship. The biographies of the Muslim saints compiled by Fariduddin Attar, Ibn al Jawzi and Jami, to name a few, are replete with the mention of the lives, teachings and miracles of women Sufis.

Rabia, a freed slave of the Al-Atik tribe of Qays-bin-Adi, and being born in the city of Basra, earned the titles of al-Adawiya and Basriyya. Rabia was born to poor parents, and her father was a man of exceptional piety himself. The night of her birth and the miraculous occurring related to it has been recorded by various historians. The night when she was to be born, there was not as much as even a drop of oil in the penurious couple’s house to light the lamp. The mother-to-be implored her husband to get some from the neighbour, but on account of being a pure ascetic, the man had relinquished all his needs to his Creator and could not consider asking any mortal for their fulfillment. With no rags to swaddle the child in and no oil to burn the lamp, Rabia’s father placed his head on his knees and his anxious state dissolved into stupor. In his dream he saw the Prophet s.w who is reported to have said "Do not be sorrowful, for this daughter who is born is a great saint, whose intercession will be desired by seventy thousand of my community." He s.w further asked the man to go to the governor of Basra the following morning with the message from the Prophet s.w that he was wont to send upon the Prophet, a hundred blessings every night, and four hundred every Friday night, and had forgotten his promise the previous Friday. In expiation he was to give this man four hundred dinar.
On awaking, the father burst into tears and sent the message to the governor forthwith. The governor was utterly shaken to witness the truth of his circumstance and he immediately ordered the payment of two thousand dinars to the poor as thanksgiving for the Prophet s.w remembered him. And as for Rabia’s father, the governor stated "take the four hundred dinars to that sheikh, and say to him that I desire that he should come before me that I may see him, but it is not fitting that such a person as he should come to me, but I will come and rub my beard on his threshold."

Rabia got her name, meaning the fourth, on account of being the one born after her three sisters. Her parents died in her childhood, and some time later, when Basra came into the grip of a fierce famine, she got separated from her sisters. She was captured by a man who sold her off for six dirhams. The purchaser subjected her to hard labour. Many hardships fell upon her, but she immersed herself in relentless devotion and worship of Allah. Her devotion for Allah was fired by a deep-rooted love and longing for the Divine. She is the pioneer of conceptualizing Hubb-e-Illahi or Divine Love in sufi philosophy. She expressed her love of God as "I love You with two loves, a love of passion and a love prompted by Your worthiness of that. As for the love of passion, it consists in occupying myself with remembering You and no one else. And as for the love of which You are worthy, it consists in your lifting the veils, so that I may see You. However mine is not the merit in this or that. But yours is the merit in this or that."
So consumed was she by this love, that on being asked whether she loved God and hated the devil, she replied "my being is so overwhelmed by the love of God that there is no chance for the love or hate of anything else entering it."
In her master’s house, she fasted by day and nights she spent in standing prayer. One night her master is said to have been awakened by a strange voice urging him to free Rabia his slave. When he looked through the window of his apartment, he saw Rabia in prostration offering the litany "O’ God You know that the desire of my heart is to fulfill Your commands, and that the light of my eye is in serving you. If the affair was with me, I would not rest even an hour from serving You, but You Yourself have left me at the mercy of a creature." Her master then perceived a lantern suspended above her head, giving out a blinding light. When day broke he summoned Rabia and set her free. Rabia left the house and wandered through the desert in search for what Allah had apportioned for her. She served God for a while in a hermitage that she came upon, but then determined to perform the pilgrimage, she set out for the desert .It is said that on the way, the donkey carrying her bundle died. She entreated the Lord by saying "O’ my God do kings deal thus with a woman, a stranger and weak? Thou art calling me to Thine own House, but in the midst of the way Thou hast suffered my donkey to die and left me alone in the desert." She had hardly completed her prayer when the donkey stirred up to life again.

Among the many anecdotes that have arisen relating to the life of Rabia is one which tells of the night a thief entered her hermitage. Being overcome by weariness she had fallen asleep. A thief entered and finding nothing of value, decided to leave with her chador. When he made to leave, the way was barred to him. He dropped the chador and approached the exit, finding the way open. He seized the chador again and as he began, the way got barred the same. He repeated this sequence seven times, utterly perplexed, he then heard a voice coming from the corner of her hermitage "man do not put yourself to such pains. It is so many years now that she has committed herself to Us. The devil himself does not have the boldness to slink around her .How should a thief have the boldness to slink around her chador ? Be gone, for if one friend has fallen asleep, One Friend is Awake and Keeping Watch."
Such was the reciprocity awarded to Rabia by her Divine Friend and Beloved.

Another interesting episode communicates the high spiritual station attained by Rabia, excelling her one time master and fellow-saint Hassan Basri. It is related that once Hassan Basri saw Rabia sitting near a lake. Throwing his prayer rug on the surface of the water, he called for her to come and offer two rakaats there. She retorted by telling him that if he was showing off his spiritual goods in the worldly market, it should be things his fellow-men were incapable of displaying. On saying that, she flung her prayer rug into the air and flew up on it, and continued by asking him to join her up there where people would be able to see. Hassan, who had still not attained that station, remained silent, on which she said "what you did fishes also do, and what I did flies also do. The real business is outside both these tricks. One must apply oneself to the real business."
It is thus said in sufi literature, that miracles were given as a sanction to the Prophets, but to the saints they were granted as a test. Being endowed with such miraculous power, yet she knew the value of humility, and the Divine Riza or Good-will was the only goal she fixed her vision on.

Her resignation to the Divine will and Trust of Allah was so great, that once when she was terribly sick, Sofyan-e-Thauri, a fellow ascetic, on seeing her condition urged her to pray for her cure. She replied that was he not aware that God had willed her suffering, and knowing that how could he bid her to request Him the contrary of His Will? She finished by saying that it was not proper to oppose one’s Friend. She had reached such a height of spiritual synchronicity with the Divine Will that to wish for other than the Will of Allah was a grievous sin.

The nature of her belief and notion of worship was so pure of anything other than the Divine Contemplation , that she would frequently pray "O’ my Lord if I worship Thee from fear of hell, burn me in hell, and if I worship Thee from hope of paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me Thine eternal Beauty."

Rabia lived upto the ripe old age of ninety and then died. She became the guide and spiritual director of many souls who came to seek her counsel. Her spiritual realization carried an overwhelming dread of judgment after death. The idea of sin disturbed her from the viewpoint of leading to separation from the Divine rather than the fear of punishment. In her the fire of this all-conquering Love demanded eternal union with the Eternal Flame, and death to her was the bridge whereby the lover would be joined to the Beloved. Attar says of her "Rabia was unique because in her relations with God and her knowledge of things Divine she had no equal; she was highly respected by all the great mystics of her time and she was a decisive proof among her contemporaries."

The preparation for the mystic way, being a life of purgation, through which the carnal self was sought to be purified and tamed, entailed a life of asceticism. When cleansed from the lusts of the flesh, the soul could turn to Divine union. Some Sufis adopted celibacy, only at the beginning of their quest, and others like Rabia practiced it to the end of their lives. On being asked about marriage she remarked "If anyone can give me the answer to these four questions, I shall marry him. Firstly, what will the Judge of the world say of me when I die, whether I have come out a Muslim or an unbeliever? Second, when I am put in the grave and Munkar and Nakir question me, shall I be able to answer them satisfactorily or not? Thirdly, when the people are assembled at the Resurrection and the books are distributed, will I be given mine in the right hand or the left? And fourthly, when mankind is summoned, some to paradise and some to hell, in which of the two groups will I be?" No one being able to answer these questions, she concluded "since the answers to these questions are unknown and I have them to concern myself with, how should I need a husband to be occupied with?" She was so singularly devoted towards achieving divine union, that all other attractions were meaningless to her.

Her final departure from this world is recorded in a beautiful account of the event by a Persian biographer. He says that during her last moments, many of her followers surrounded her, but she bade them to leave, asking them to make way for the arrival of Allah’s messengers. When they had left her presence, they heard her voice making the profession of faith "La illaha ilallah", and then a voice saying "O’ soul at rest, return to thy Lord, satisfied with Him, giving satisfaction to Him. So enter among My servants and enter into My paradise." [Al-Quran].

About seven years before she died, she traveled to Jerusalem with a woman companion and attendant .There she bought a small house with some land surrounding it, on top of the Holy Mt. Olives [Tur]. There she lived, and from there she used to walk down everyday, to Al-Aqsa mosque where she prayed and gave teachings to the people. Both men and women comprised her following, who would come in droves to listen to her. She was accepted as a master of the path, by both men and women, as it was Allah Who had moved her in this way to be a means of manifesting Himself to the people who sought Him through her. After praying she would walk back up to the mountain. This she did every day till she died in the year 185 A.H / 801 C.E. After her death, her followers built a tomb for her, which still exists near the Christian Church of Ascension on top of the Mt of Olives. It is visited by those who remember this lady saint, and thank Allah for the blessing which He granted through her life……the example of a holy soul filled with Huu.

Through her journey of life she traversed all the stages of The Way, starting from "Tawba" Penitence, the first of the many, and finally reached the true gnosis and Beautific Vision, the ultimate achievement. To conclude, she was a saint par excellence, burning with the love of the Real to such a degree that the world of illusion was reduced to cinders around her.


Written by Naila Amat-un-Nur. The author is a Sufi Salika [a student on the sufi path] and writer/researcher of spirituality and current Islamic issues.



Sayings and Prayers from Rab'ia Basri