Islam · Sufism

Rabia al-Adawiyya

رابعة العدوية القيسية · رابعة بنت إسماعيل · رابعه عدویه

c. 717 – c. 801Historicity debated

Eighth-century ascetic and teacher of Basra (d. c. 801), venerated as the first great woman saint of Islam and as the initiator of the mysticism of disinterested love of God. She left no written work: her sayings and the few verses attributed to her reach us through later sources, from Ibn Abi l-Dunya and al-Makki to the legendary biography by the Persian poet Attar four centuries later. Modern scholarship, above all Rkia Cornell, distinguishes the historical Rabia, about whom very little is known, from the one tradition constructed.

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works: 9works
editions: 17editions
quotes: 7quotes
videos: 14videos
images: 4images

Rabia de Basora y su sirvienta en oración · Public domain

In their words

«I love You with two loves: a love of desire, and a love because You are worthy of it. The love of desire is that I am occupied with remembering You to the exclusion of all else; the love of which You are worthy is that You lift the veils for me until I see You. Neither in this nor in that is the praise mine: Yours is the praise in this and in that.»

Atribuido; Abu Talib al-Makki, Qut al-qulub (s. X), y al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum al-din, libro XXXVI. Texto árabe según la versión que reproduce Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (Wikisource); traducción propia.

To begin, one work

The Two Loves (attributed verses)

Their central idea

Disinterested love of God: The idea associated with Rabia is that God must be loved for His own sake and not as a means of escaping Hell or gaining Paradise.

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Biography

5 min read

A woman of Basra

Very little is known for certain about Rabia al-Adawiyya: that a woman ascetic and teacher of that name (or of the name Rabia al-Qaysiyya, which refers to her tribe, while al-Adawiyya designates her clan) lived in Basra, in southern Iraq, in the eighth century. The sources call her Rabia bint Ismail, give her the kunya Umm Amr and describe her as a freedwoman (mawla) of the family of Atik. The commonly repeated birth date, around 717, and the date of her death, the year 185 of the Hijra (801), come from much later authors and are not the only ones: al-Dhahabi records that she lived some eighty years and died in 180 (796), and others place her death in 135 (752). Rkia Elaroui Cornell, author of the most thorough study, concludes moreover that no writing can be securely attributed to her.

The Basra of the ascetics

Basra, founded as a military camp in 638, was in the eighth century a wealthy city, a port on the Persian Gulf and a centre of grammatical, theological and legal learning. It also saw the flowering of a movement of rigorous piety: men and women who wept for their sins, fasted, kept vigil at night and mistrusted the wealth of the rulers. Hasan al-Basri, Malik ibn Dinar, Riyah al-Qaysi and Abd al-Wahid ibn Zayd are its best-known names, but al-Sulami's book on Sufi women shows that there were also many women ascetics and teachers, some of them freedwomen. Rabia belongs to that milieu: the "weepers" and devotees of Basra, whose spirituality of the fear of God preceded the mysticism of love.

What the earliest sources say

The best proof of her existence is local memory: two ninth-century authors from Basra, among them al-Jahiz, mention her as a well-known figure. The collections of ascetic sayings by Ibn Abi l-Dunya (d. 894), transmitted by al-Dhahabi, preserve sober scenes with named witnesses. Her servant Abda used to tell how Rabia prayed the whole night and, at dawn, reproached herself for her short sleep: "O soul, how long will you sleep? Soon you will sleep a sleep from which you will not rise until the Day of Resurrection." Sufyan al-Thawri, the great traditionist of Kufa, visited her; when he sighed "Oh, the sorrow!", she corrected him: "Do not lie; say: Oh, how little sorrow!" She barred her door to visitors who talked about the world. It is the image of a demanding ascetic and a teacher respected by the most learned men of her time, rather than of a poet of love.

Three Rabias and a suspicion

Tradition soon mixed up several women. Al-Sulami (d. 1021), in his book on Sufi women, distinguishes Rabia al-Adawiyya from two other Rabias of the period: Rabia al-Azdiyya, wife of the ascetic Abd al-Wahid ibn Zayd, and Rabia bint Ismail of Damascus, wife of Ahmad ibn Abi l-Hawari (d. 844). The confusion explains the tomb attributed to her on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, mentioned by Ibn Kathir; Ibn Battuta already noted that the woman buried there was someone else. Suspicion was not lacking either: according to Ibn Kathir, the traditionist Abu Dawud al-Sijistani accused her of heresy, and al-Dhahabi had to defend her against those who read into one of her verses ("I have made You the confidant of my heart and left my body to whoever wishes to sit with me") the doctrine of divine incarnation.

The saint of love

The Rabia known to posterity was born between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Abu Talib al-Makki (d. 996) attributes to her the verses of the "two loves" (the love of desire and the love owed to God because He is worthy of it), which al-Ghazali would comment on in the Ihya; al-Qushayri, Abu Nu'aym and Ibn al-Jawzi, who devoted a short work to her, multiply her sayings. But the great biography is that of the Persian poet Farid al-Din Attar, writing in the early thirteenth century, more than four hundred years later: there we find the fourth daughter of a poor family (hence her name, "the fourth"), the famine, her sale into slavery, the light above her head that moves her master to free her, the dialogues with Hasan al-Basri and the famous prayer asking to be burned in Hell if she worships God from fear and shut out of Paradise if she worships Him from hope. Many of these stories are chronologically impossible (Hasan al-Basri died in 728, when she would have been a child) and follow well-known hagiographical models.

What her figure made possible

Cornell distinguishes several overlapping Rabias in this process: the teacher, the ascetic, the lover of God and the Sufi. The third has prevailed. In her the tradition found the purest expression of an idea that transformed Islamic piety: that God must be loved for His own sake, without fear of punishment or desire for reward. The theme passed to the great theorists of mystical love, from Ahmad al-Ghazali to Rumi, and reached Europe as well. Jean de Joinville relates in his Life of Saint Louis (1309) that a friar of the crusade, Yves the Breton, met in Damascus an old woman carrying fire in one hand and water in the other to burn Paradise and quench Hell, so that no one would do good from fear or self-interest; in seventeenth-century France the scene became an emblem of pure love. Later Islamic versions place this gesture in Rabia's hands.

A presence that keeps growing

In the twentieth century Rabia was claimed as the first saint of Islam and as a female figure of religious authority. Margaret Smith devoted the first Western monograph to her in 1928; Abd al-Rahman Badawi, a book calling her the "martyr of divine love"; Egyptian and Turkish cinema, popular films, two of them released in Turkey in 1973. Modern anthologies attribute to her poems and prayers of uncertain origin, and many of her sayings circulate without references. Read through the sources, Rabia is at once a real woman of Umayyad and Abbasid Basra, about whom we know almost nothing, and a collective construction of several centuries that gave shape to the idea of disinterested love of God.

Sources: Cornell, Rkia Elaroui. Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya. Londres: Oneworld Academic, 2019. · Smith, Margaret. Rabi'a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928; reed. 1984 con introducción de Annemarie Schimmel. · al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar a'lam al-nubala', entrada «Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya» (texto árabe en Wikisource). · Ibn Kathir. al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya, vol. X, obituarios del año 185 H, entrada «Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya» (texto árabe en Wikisource). · Attar, Farid al-Din. Tadhkirat al-awliya', capítulo de Rabia; en la adaptación inglesa de Claud Field, Mystics and Saints of Islam, Londres: Francis Griffiths, 1910, cap. III «Rabia, the Woman Sufi» (Project Gutenberg 24314).

Timeline

A life, year by year

Each point is a documented event. Click to read it, with its source and degree of certainty.

717738759780801

c. 717age 0Basora

Birth (traditional date)

The usual date (c. 95–99 AH / 714–718) comes from late sources of uncertain origin, according to Cornell; placed in Basra.

TraditionCornell, Rkia Elaroui. Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya. Londres: Oneworld Academic, 2019.

After their death

c. 869Al-Jahiz mentions her
c. 996The verses of the "two loves"
c. 1021Al-Sulami distinguishes three Rabias
c. 1221Attar's biography
1309The woman of fire and water reaches Europe
1928First Western monograph
2019From narrative to myth

c. 717 · age 0
Birth (traditional date)
The usual date (c. 95–99 AH / 714–718) comes from late sources of uncertain origin, according to Cornell; placed in Basra.
Tradition
728
Death of Hasan al-Basri
Death of the great preacher of Basra (110 AH). The dialogues between him and Rabia narrated by Attar are therefore chronologically impossible.
Documented
c. 770
Visits of Sufyan al-Thawri
Ibn Abi l-Dunya and others transmit encounters with the traditionist Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 778) and other Basran ascetics; this is the oldest layer of her memory.
Probable
801
Death (185 AH, most cited date)
Ibn Kathir lists her among those who died in 185 AH (801); al-Dhahabi gives 180 (796) and other sources 135 (752). She probably died in Basra.
Disputed
c. 869
Al-Jahiz mentions her
The Basran polymath al-Jahiz (d. 868–869) is one of the two ninth-century authors who cite her: the oldest surviving mention.
Documented
c. 996
The verses of the "two loves"
Abu Talib al-Makki (d. 996) attributes to her in the Qut al-qulub the verses on the two loves, which al-Ghazali would comment on in the Ihya.
Documented
c. 1021
Al-Sulami distinguishes three Rabias
In his book on Sufi women, al-Sulami (d. 1021) separates Rabia al-Adawiyya from Rabia al-Azdiyya and Rabia of Damascus.
Documented
c. 1221
Attar's biography
Farid al-Din Attar writes in Persian the biography that fixes the legend: slavery, liberation, dialogues with Hasan al-Basri, the Kaaba coming out to meet her.
Documented
1309
The woman of fire and water reaches Europe
Joinville narrates in his Life of Saint Louis Yves the Breton's encounter in Damascus with a woman who wanted to burn Paradise and quench Hell.
Documented
1928
First Western monograph
Margaret Smith publishes Rabi'a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam in Cambridge.
Documented
2019
From narrative to myth
Rkia Elaroui Cornell publishes the critical study separating the historical and legendary layers of her figure.
Documented

Works

Essential works

The works without which their legacy cannot be understood.

Traditional attribution · c. 996

The Two Loves (attributed verses)

أحبك حبين: حب الهوى * وحباً لأنك أهل لذاكا

The most famous of the poems attributed to Rabia distinguishes two loves for God: the "love of desire", which occupies her in remembering Him to the exclusion of all else, and the love owed to Him "because He is worthy of it", in which God lifts the veils until He lets Himself be seen. It ends by denying any merit of her own: the praise, in both cases, belongs to God alone. Al-Ghazali made it the canonical example of pure love, and since then it has summed up the doctrine tradition associates with her name.

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Traditional attribution · c. 1221

Prayers and Sayings in Attar's Memorial of the Saints

تذکرة الاولیاء، ذکر رابعه عدویه (Tadhkirat al-awliya', capítulo de Rabia)

The chapter devoted to Rabia in the *Tadhkirat al-awliya* is the fullest and most influential biography: it narrates her poor childhood, slavery, liberation, the pilgrimage in which the Kaaba comes out to meet her, her dialogues with the ascetics of Basra and her prayers. The most famous of these asks God to burn her in Hell if she worships Him from fear and to shut Paradise to her if she worships Him from hope. Attar presents her as "the woman worth a hundred men".

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4 editions · amazon.com

Complete works (9)

Quotations

Quotations located in a specific work. Each carries its provenance and its level of confidence.

I love You with two loves: a love of desire, and a love because You are worthy of it. The love of desire is that I am occupied with remembering You to the exclusion of all else; the love of which You are worthy is that You lift the veils for me until I see You. Neither in this nor in that is the praise mine: Yours is the praise in this and in that.

أحبك حبين: حب الهوى * وحباً لأنك أهل لذاكا / فأما الذي هو حب الهوى * فشغلي بذكرك عمن سواكا / وأما الذي أنت أهل له * فكشفك لي الحجب حتى أراكا / فلا الحمد في ذا ولا ذاك لي * ولكن لك الحمد في ذا وذاكا

DisputedAtribuido; Abu Talib al-Makki, Qut al-qulub (s. X), y al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum al-din, libro XXXVI. Texto árabe según la versión que reproduce Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (Wikisource); traducción propia.

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Apocryphal quotes or disputed attributions (1)

«I carry a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other: with these I will set fire to Heaven and put out the flames of Hell, so that voyagers to God can rip the veils and see the real goal.»
A modern poem, spread above all through Charles Upton's free versions (1988), that puts a hagiographical anecdote into the first person. The story of the woman with fire and water appears without a name in Joinville's *Life of Saint Louis* (1309), and later Islamic versions attribute it to Rabia; no Arabic poem by Rabia with this text exists.

Last words

There are no verifiable records of their last words.

No attested last words survive. The early sources do not even agree on the year of her death. Attar and later hagiography narrate an exemplary death (Rabia asks those with her to make way for God's messengers, and the verse "O soul at peace, return to your Lord!" (Qur'an 89:27–28) is heard), but it is a late account and is not recorded as testimony.

Source: Attar, Farid al-Din. Tadhkirat al-awliya', capítulo de Rabia; en la adaptación inglesa de Claud Field, Mystics and Saints of Islam, Londres: Francis Griffiths, 1910, cap. III «Rabia, the Woman Sufi» (Project Gutenberg 24314).

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What their work answers

Twelve great human questions and what their texts allow us to answer, with references. We never put words in their mouth.

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?
God is the Beloved, loved for His own sake
A personal GodStated explicitly
Rabia left no writings and formulated no theology: what we know of her comes through sayings and verses gathered by later authors, from Ibn Abi l-Dunya and al-Makki to Attar, four centuries later. In those texts the Absolute is always a Thou: the Beloved spoken to at night, whom she asks to worship for His own sake, not in hope of paradise nor for fear of hell. The poem of the two loves, made canonical by al-Makki and al-Ghazali, distinguishes the love of desire, which turns her away from everything that is not God, from the love God deserves, in which He lifts the veils until He lets Himself be seen. There is no speculation about the divine essence: there is a personal, demanding and exclusive relationship, in which all praise returns to God.
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Who am I? Is there a true self?
She did not theorise the self: she urged a sleeping soul to wake
Did not address it
Rabia left no writings, and among the sayings her biographers attribute to her there is no doctrine of the self. The closest thing is her exhortations to the soul. According to the oldest ascetic accounts, she kept vigil at night and at dawn reproached herself for having slept: she asked her soul how long it would sleep, for soon it would sleep a sleep from which it would wake only on the Day of Resurrection. That soul is the soul of Islam: created, responsible and called to account. What the later tradition adds is a demand for sincerity: to strip worship of all self-interest, not to worship for paradise or for fear of hell, and to deny any merit, for praise belongs to God alone. It is an ascesis of the self-interested self, not a metaphysics of the subject.
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Why do we suffer?
The only true pain is not knowing whether God is pleased
Separation from GodInferred from their doctrine
Rabia did not write, and what is attributed to her on pain consists of transmitted scenes. In the oldest she corrects Sufyan al-Thawri when he laments his sadness: he should not lie, but rather say how little sadness he has. The only worthy grief is that of one who knows herself far from God, and hardly anyone feels it enough. Attar, four centuries later, tells that as a child and a slave she fell and broke her wrist, and that in her prayer she said she did not grieve over being orphaned, enslaved or wounded, but only over not knowing whether God was pleased with her. Outward suffering is received with contentment (rida); what truly wounds is the Beloved's distance, and the only thing that matters is His good pleasure.
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What happens after death?
Resurrection and judgement, yes; but God is not loved for paradise
Eternal life and resurrectionStated explicitly
Rabia did not write, but the sayings her biographers attribute to her take Islamic eschatology for granted. In the oldest ascetic accounts she reproaches herself for having slept and warns her soul that soon it will sleep a sleep from which it will wake only on the Day of Resurrection. What is distinctive of the tradition bearing her name is not denying the hereafter but displacing it: the prayer recorded by Attar asks God to burn her in hell if she worships Him from fear, to shut paradise to her if she worships Him from hope, and not to deny her His eternal beauty if she worships Him for Himself. The paradise desired is not a garden but the vision of the Beloved. The image of a Rabia who wants to burn paradise and quench hell is much later.
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How is liberation or salvation attained?
To love God expecting nothing, and to know that returning is His gift
Through devotion and surrenderStated explicitly
The tradition bearing Rabia's name, transmitted by her biographers and not written by her, makes disinterested love the path. Worshipping God from fear of hell or desire for paradise is still trading with Him; the only thing that saves is to love Him for Himself. Her poem of the two loves describes that surrender: a love that turns away from all that is not God and another in which He lifts the veils. But the surrender is not her own merit. The manuals of al-Sulami and al-Qushayri attribute to her a reply to someone who asked whether God would accept his repentance: no, unless He first turns towards you; if He turns towards you, you will turn towards Him. Love is the way; grace, its source.
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Is a teacher necessary?
With no known master, tradition shows her teaching the masters
Did not address it
No saying attributed to Rabia deals with the need for a master, and the sources know of none for her. On the contrary, the accounts show her correcting men of authority. In the oldest ascetic sources she rebukes Sufyan al-Thawri for boasting of his sadness; in Attar's Memorial of the Saints her dialogues with Hasan of Basra place her above the famous preacher, though chronology makes such meetings unlikely. What these scenes convey is the figure of a saint taught directly by God, whose authority springs from her sincerity and asceticism, not from a chain of initiation. It is not a doctrine about masters but the portrait of someone who depended on none.
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Is the world real?
Come in to see the Creator instead of going out to look at creation
Did not address it
Rabia did not pronounce on the reality of the world, and nothing in the sayings attributed to her suggests she took it for an illusion. What they convey is an ascetic attitude: the world distracts. The early sources show her shutting the door on those who came to talk to her about worldly matters. Attar, much later, tells that one spring morning her servant invited her to come out and contemplate the works of God, and she answered that the servant should rather come in and contemplate the One who had made them. Creation is good, but whoever has known the Creator no longer needs to linger over it. It is a hierarchy of attention, not a metaphysics of the real.
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What is love?
Two loves: the love of desire and the love God deserves for Himself
Longing and unionStated explicitly
The figure of Rabia has become the emblem of mystical love in Islam, though what survives are verses and sayings transmitted by others. In the poem of the two loves, the first is the love of desire, which keeps her occupied in remembering God and turns her away from everything else; the second is the love God deserves because He is worthy of it, in which He lifts the veils until He lets Himself be seen. In other verses she says she has made God the confidant of her heart: her body keeps company with whoever sits beside her, but the Beloved is her only intimate companion. And the prayer transmitted by Attar sums up the demand: to love God not for paradise nor from fear of hell, but for His eternal beauty.
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Are we free, or is everything determined?
She did not debate freedom: she practised contentment with what God disposes
Did not address it
The question of free will, which divided the theologians of Basra in her time, does not appear in the sayings attributed to Rabia. What her biographers transmit is an attitude towards what happens: contentment (rida) with the divine will. According to the accounts, she did not ask God to free her from poverty or illness, because to desire anything other than what He wills would be to oppose her Beloved. Al-Qushayri and other manuals also attribute to her the idea that repentance itself is a gift: man turns towards God when God has first turned towards him. There is no theory of freedom in this, but a spirituality of surrender that leaves the initiative to God.
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Why meditate or pray?
Keeping vigil at night alone with the Beloved, confidant of the heart
Friendship with GodStated explicitly
The scenes transmitted about Rabia show her above all praying at night. The oldest ascetic sources tell that she kept vigil until dawn and reproached herself for every sleep as time stolen from God. Later tradition attributes to her night prayers in which, with the doors of kings closed and lovers lying together, she remains alone with her Beloved. Her verses say the same: she has made God the confidant of her heart, and while her body keeps visitors company, her heart converses with Him. Prayer is not for her a means of obtaining anything, not even paradise, but the very form of intimacy with God, an exclusive friendship that admits no third party.
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Can reason know the ultimate?
No word on reason: her authority did not come from learning
Did not address it
Rabia did not write, and among the sayings attributed to her there is no reflection on the powers or limits of reason. What the sources convey is an implicit contrast. In them Rabia appears alongside traditionists, ascetics and preachers of Basra, men of religious learning, and her authority comes not from study or argument but from her sincerity, her asceticism and the intensity of her love for God. When she corrects Sufyan al-Thawri she does not oppose an argument to him, but a truth about his heart. Later tradition made her an example of a knowledge of God that does not pass through the schools, but that is a reading by her biographers, not a doctrine of hers.
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Withdraw from the world or transform it?
Poverty, celibacy and a door shut to whoever spoke of the world
Withdraw in order to findStated explicitly
The Rabia transmitted by the sources is a withdrawn ascetic. The oldest accounts show her shutting the door on those who came to talk of worldly matters and preferring conversation about God to any comfort. Later tradition, recorded by Attar, adds that she turned down marriage proposals from powerful and pious men because her heart was occupied, and that she accepted no gifts or help, not even from those who venerated her, so as to owe nothing to anyone but God. She lived, according to those sources, in the voluntary poverty of Basra. She preached no reforms and did not intervene in public life: her testimony is a life set apart, devoted to prayer and the love of God.
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Affinities & tensions

Affinities and tensions

Calculated question by question from their positions. The reason for each agreement or clash, on click.

Thinks most like

Thinks most unlike

Anecdotes and stories

Unverifiablec. 1250 (relato de Joinville)

Fire and water

It is Rabia's most famous scene: a woman walks the streets with a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. Asked where she is going, she replies that she wants to set fire to Paradise and put out Hell, so that both veils may vanish and people may worship God for His own sake, not from fear of punishment or desire for reward. Curiously, the oldest known version is neither Arabic nor Persian but French: Jean de Joinville, in his *Life of Saint Louis* (1309), relates that the Dominican Yves the Breton, the king's envoy during the crusade, met in Damascus an old woman carrying a bowl of fire and a flask of water who gave him that explanation, without saying her name. In the seventeenth century the scene served in France as an emblem of pure love. Later Islamic traditions attribute it to Rabia, and today it is inseparable from her figure.

Origin of the story: Joinville, *Vie de saint Louis* (1309), without a name; later attribution to Rabia in the Persian Sufi tradition. Schimmel (1975) and Cornell (2019) discuss its spread.

Source: Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975 (sobre Rabia y la difusión europea del relato del fuego y el agua a través de Joinville).

Hagiographic accounts. VIII (según Attar)

The freed slave

Attar relates that Rabia, fourth daughter of a very poor family in Basra, was orphaned during a famine, kidnapped and sold as a slave. Her master made her work without rest. One night, waking up, he heard her praying with bowed head: "Lord, You know that my heart's desire is to obey You; if it depended on me I would not cease serving You for an instant, but You have placed me under the power of a creature." Above her head, hanging from no chain, a lamp was shining that lit up the house. At dawn the master called her, gave her freedom and offered to let her stay as mistress of the house; she preferred to leave and devote herself to worship. The story, absent from the early Arabic sources, applies to Rabia a hagiographical pattern of revealed sanctity and miraculous liberation.

Origin of the story: Attar, *Tadhkirat al-awliya* (13th c.); English adaptation in Field (1910). Cornell notes that slavery does not appear in the ninth- to eleventh-century sources, which call her the freedwoman of a clan.

Hagiographic accounts. VIII (según Attar)

The Kaaba comes out to meet her

According to Attar, the ascetic Ibrahim ibn Adham spent fourteen years on the way to Mecca, prostrating himself at every step. When he finally arrived, the sanctuary was empty: the Kaaba had gone out into the desert to welcome Rabia, who was advancing with difficulty. Ibrahim reproached her for upsetting the world; she replied that he had crossed the desert praying, whereas she had crossed it in humility. In another scene of the same book, Rabia, seeing the Kaaba, calls it "a stone" and says she wants not the house but the Lord of the house. Both stories express the primacy of inner love over ritual and were often illustrated: a Mughal miniature by Govardhan, from the early seventeenth century, shows Ibrahim before the empty site of the sanctuary.

Origin of the story: Attar, *Tadhkirat al-awliya*. Ibrahim ibn Adham died around 777; the meeting has no basis in the early sources.

Testimonyc. 760–778

Sufyan al-Thawri and sorrow

Ja'far ibn Sulayman related that he went with Sufyan al-Thawri, the great traditionist of Kufa, to visit Rabia. On entering, Sufyan exclaimed "Oh, the sorrow!", as ascetics did to display their contrition. Rabia cut him short: "Do not lie; say: how little sorrow I have!" Another witness, Hammad, remembered that when his companion Sallam began to talk of worldly matters she told him that one speaks only of what is something, and that what is nothing deserves no mention. These scenes, transmitted with names and chains by Ibn Abi l-Dunya and collected by al-Dhahabi, show a teacher who bluntly corrects the most respected men of her time and demands inner truth before pious gestures.

Origin of the story: Al-Dhahabi, *Siyar a'lam al-nubala'*, entry on Rabia (Arabic Wikisource), with chains going back to Ibn Abi l-Dunya and Basran witnesses.

Source: al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar a'lam al-nubala', entrada «Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya» (texto árabe en Wikisource).

Hagiographic accounts. VIII (según la tradición)

Hasan al-Basri's proposal

Persian tradition tells that Hasan al-Basri, the great preacher of Basra, asked Rabia whether she intended to marry. She replied that the marriage contract binds one who is master of her will, and that she no longer had a will of her own: she belonged to her Lord. When Hasan asked how she had reached that degree, she answered: "By annihilating myself completely." In other versions Rabia refuses several suitors, saying that three concerns occupy her: whether she will die with her faith intact, whether she will receive the book of her deeds in her right hand, and whether she will be led to Paradise or to Hell. The dialogue is impossible as told, for Hasan died in 728, when Rabia was a child; Cornell interprets it as a construction that pits the saint against Basra's greatest male authority to show her spiritual superiority.

Origin of the story: Attar, *Tadhkirat al-awliya*, adapted by Field (1910). Wikipedia (en), summarising Cornell, stresses that there is no evidence they ever met.

Teachings

The notions that structure their thought, explained in context.

Disinterested love of Godhubb-ilahi

The idea associated with Rabia is that God must be loved for His own sake and not as a means of escaping Hell or gaining Paradise. The prayers Attar attributes to her push the thesis to the extreme: if she worships from fear, let her be burned; if from hope, let Paradise be shut to her. The verses of the "two loves", transmitted from the tenth century, distinguish between the love of desire, which is already constant remembrance of God, and the love owed to Him because He deserves it, which culminates in vision. In the eighth-century asceticism dominated by fear, this orientation towards love marked a turn that later Sufi manuals attributed to Rabia as its initiator, though modern scholarship doubts that the more elaborate formulas are hers.

The passage from the asceticism of fear (*khawf*) to the mysticism of love (*mahabba*); Nicholson, Schimmel and Cornell.

Source: Cornell, Rkia Elaroui. Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya. Londres: Oneworld Academic, 2019.

Asceticism (zuhd)zuhd

The oldest sources present Rabia above all as an ascetic: she keeps vigil at night, refuses gifts, lives with a broken jug and a mat, mistrusts money whose origin she does not know and sends away those who talk of the world. Her asceticism does not condemn the world as evil but as a distraction: according to a saying Attar attributes to her, whoever talks so much about the world's defects shows that he loves it. This Basran *zuhd*, which she shares with Hasan al-Basri, Malik ibn Dinar or Riyah al-Qaysi, is the soil from which Sufism would grow, and Cornell considers it the most reliable layer of her figure.

Basran asceticism in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Source: Cornell, Rkia Elaroui. Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya. Londres: Oneworld Academic, 2019.

Sincerity (sidq)sidq

Many sayings attributed to Rabia correct apparent piety: she reproaches Sufyan al-Thawri for boasting of sorrow; to those who define sincerity as patience, gratitude or even joy in affliction she replies that one is not sincere who does not forget the pain of the trial in contemplating God. Sincerity is the match between the outward gesture and the inner state, and its absence a form of lying before God. The scene with Malik ibn Dinar, Hasan al-Basri and Shaqiq, narrated by Attar, arranges those definitions in degrees up to hers, which culminates in forgetfulness of self.

Sufi doctrine of states and stations; *ikhlas* and *sidq* in al-Qushayri.

Contentment with the divine will (rida)rida

When Sufyan al-Thawri, visiting her in illness, asked her to pray God to lighten her suffering, Rabia, according to Attar, asked him who had sent it to her; if it was God's will, how could she ask Him to withdraw it? Contentment (*rida*) is not passive resignation but loving adherence to what God disposes, a consequence of disinterested love: whoever loves God for His own sake does not ask Him to change His decrees. The same logic appears in her reply to Malik ibn Dinar, who wanted to ask rich friends to help her: He who provides for the rich, she says, will also provide for the poor.

The station of *rida* in Sufi manuals; link with trust (*tawakkul*).

Repentance as gracetawba-como-gracia

A saying attributed to Rabia reverses the usual order of repentance: to one who asks whether God will forgive him if he turns to Him, she answers no, but that if God turns towards him, then he will turn towards God. Repentance (*tawba*) is not a human initiative God rewards but a divine gift that makes it possible. Nicholson cites it as an example of the "high mystical theory" of repentance, and the same spirit appears in the saying the manuals attribute to her: "our asking forgiveness itself needs forgiveness".

Sufi doctrine of *tawba*; Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (1914).

Source: Nicholson, Reynold A. The Mystics of Islam. Londres: G. Bell & Sons, 1914 (Project Gutenberg 67388).

Videos

Recordings, interviews and documentaries. Videos play from YouTube; they are not hosted here.

The Woman Who Rejected Heaven and Hell
Analysis· EN· 50 min
Let's Talk Religion
Mystical Love & Sufi Women
Analysis· EN· 20 min
Let's Talk Religion
"The life and significance of Rab'ia al-Adawiyya" - Dr. Sophia Pandya
Lecture· EN· 43 min
Salaam Islamic Center
First Female Sufi - Rabia al-Adawiyya
Lecture· EN· 27 min
Claudia Yaghoobi
Great Figures of Islam – Rabi'a al-'Adawiyyah - Lecture Series (Session 6)
Lecture· EN· 39 min
ISRA AcademyOfficial channel
Episode 4: Rabiah Al-Adawiyya | Inspirational Muslim Women
Analysis· EN· 6 min
Yaqeen InstituteOfficial channel
Conferencia: Rabi'a Al-'adawiyya. Dra. Paulina Pezzat
Lecture· ES· 89 min
Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía Canal
Dolors Bramon - Los sufíes Al-Khallaj y la ex esclava Rabia Al-Adawiyya
Lecture· ES· 49 min
Espacio Ronda Barcelona
Hasnat Mustafa Hashmi - Rabiya Basri, la mujer sufí
Lecture· ES· 58 min
Espacio Ronda Barcelona
Mundo Poesía. Capítulo 17: Poesía sufí. Primera parte. Rābia'a al-'Adawiyya
Analysis· ES· 3 min
Culturas Veintidós
Râbi'a al-'Adawiyya : Femme, Mystique et Sainte musulmane - Focus #1
Analysis· FR· 30 min
Ave'Roes
Râbi'a al-'Adawiyya, mystique et liberté, par Asma Lamrabet
Lecture· FR· 85 min
Conscience Soufie
RÂBI'AH al-'Adawiyyah – Une Vie, une Œuvre : l'amour spirituel (France Culture, 2006)
Documentary· FR· 2006· 88 min
ÉCLAIR BRUT
Rabia-i Adviyye Hazretleri: Hazreti Rabia (ARŞİV FİLM)
Third-party recording· TR· 77 min
TGRT Belgesel TV

Gallery

Images with verified licences. Each keeps its authorship and attribution.

Connections

Influences, discipleships and affinities. Documented relations are distinguished from similarities identified by analysis.

Influenced
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali quotes and comments on the verses of the "two loves" attributed to Rabia in book XXXVI of the *Ihya* as an example of pure love.
Documented relation
Influenced
Attar
Attar wrote in the *Tadhkirat al-awliya* the legendary biography of Rabia that fixed her image in the Persian, Turkish and Indian worlds.
Documented relation
Ideas akin to
Rumi
Rumi, Attar's heir, develops the mysticism of disinterested love that tradition associates with Rabia. No direct mention in his work is cited here.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
Al-Hallaj
Both are central figures of love mysticism in early Sufism and appear together in modern anthologies and studies; there was no contact (Rabia died around 801, al-Hallaj was born around 858).
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi studied with women Sufi masters in al-Andalus and defended women's full spiritual capacity, a theme Rabia's figure embodies in the tradition. An affinity, not influence documented here.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
Teresa of Ávila
Rabia's detachment before the Kaaba has been compared with Teresa of Jesus's degrees of prayer (Salto Sánchez del Corral, 2017). An academic comparison, with no contact.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
Jesus of Nazareth
Rabia's hagiographical stories share with the Christian tradition of women saints and desert fathers motifs such as voluntary poverty and the love of God for His own sake; the story of fire and water circulated in Christian Europe. A thematic affinity.
Similarity identified by analysis

Linked from other profiles

Sources

Bibliography and catalogues consulted for this profile.

Wikidata, Q256506 «Rabia of Basri» (P31=Q5; 65 enlaces entre wikis; P569 710 (década); P570 801).
Cornell, Rkia Elaroui. Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya. Londres: Oneworld Academic, 2019.
Smith, Margaret. Rabi'a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928; reed. 1984 con introducción de Annemarie Schimmel.
al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar a'lam al-nubala', entrada «Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya» (texto árabe en Wikisource).
Ibn Kathir. al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya, vol. X, obituarios del año 185 H, entrada «Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya» (texto árabe en Wikisource).
Attar, Farid al-Din. Tadhkirat al-awliya', capítulo de Rabia; en la adaptación inglesa de Claud Field, Mystics and Saints of Islam, Londres: Francis Griffiths, 1910, cap. III «Rabia, the Woman Sufi» (Project Gutenberg 24314).
Nicholson, Reynold A. The Mystics of Islam. Londres: G. Bell & Sons, 1914 (Project Gutenberg 67388).
al-Sulami, Abu Abd al-Rahman. Dhikr al-niswa al-muta'abbidat al-sufiyyat. Ed. y trad. de Rkia Elaroui Cornell: Early Sufi Women. Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1999.
al-Qushayri. al-Risala al-qushayriyya. Trad. de Alexander D. Knysh: Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism. Reading: Garnet, 2007.
Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975 (sobre Rabia y la difusión europea del relato del fuego y el agua a través de Joinville).
Abu Talib al-Makki, Qut al-qulub (s. X), y al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum al-din, libro XXXVI (Kitab al-mahabba), trad. Eric Ormsby, Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment, Islamic Texts Society, 2012; texto árabe de los versos reproducido por Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi en Wikisource.
Wikipedia (en), «Rabia of Basra» (citas de Cornell 2019 sobre la escasez de datos históricos, las tres Rabias de al-Sulami y su recepción moderna).
Ibn Battuta. Tuhfat al-nuzzar fi ghara'ib al-amsar, vol. I, descripción de Jerusalén: la tumba del monte de los Olivos es de «Rabi'a al-Badawiyya», distinta de la célebre al-Adawiyya (texto árabe en Wikisource).
Open Library, registros de ediciones de Smith, Cornell, al-Sulami, al-Qushayri, Attar (Arberry, Pavet de Courteille), Lings, Upton y Oudaimah.

Rights holder: Sin titular: no hay obra de Rabia. Los textos que se le atribuyen proceden de autores medievales de dominio público; las traducciones y estudios modernos (Cambridge University Press, Oneworld, Fons Vitae, Islamic Texts Society, Arfuyen, Seuil…) están sujetos a los derechos de sus editores.

Pending confirmation

What this profile has not yet been able to settle. We would rather say so than fill it in.

Obra: Rabia no dejó escritos. Se registran como «obras» los conjuntos de versos y dichos que se le atribuyen, cada uno con su fuente de transmisión (al-Makki, al-Dhahabi/Ibn Abi l-Dunya, al-Sulami, al-Qushayri, Attar), y los estudios y antologías principales como academic_about o compilation. No se ha podido verificar en el texto de Kitab al-luma' de al-Sarraj (ed. Nicholson, 1914) qué dichos de Rabia recoge: el OCR de Internet Archive no permite buscarlos.
Ediciones en español: no se ha localizado ninguna traducción castellana con ISBN de los dichos o poemas atribuidos a Rabia, ni del Tadhkirat al-awliya de Attar.
Sala de lectura: los textos de dominio público que contienen sus dichos (Attar en la edición persa de Nicholson, 1905–1907; la traducción francesa de Pavet de Courteille, 1889; Field, Mystics and Saints of Islam, 1910; Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, 1914) son libros de otros autores en los que Rabia ocupa un capítulo; no se registran porque el importador no puede separar el capítulo. Margaret Smith (1928) es libre en EE. UU. pero no en la UE ni en España (Smith murió en 1970).
Fechas: el nacimiento c. 717 y la muerte en 185/801 son tradicionales; Cornell subraya que su origen es incierto. Verificar en Cornell 2019 qué dos autores basrenses del siglo IX la mencionan (se cita a al-Jahiz).
Citas: cotejar con el texto árabe de Qut al-qulub y del Ihya los versos de los «dos amores» (se ha usado la versión reproducida por al-Nabulsi en Wikisource) y localizar el texto árabe del dicho sobre el arrepentimiento citado por Nicholson.
Vídeos: no se ha localizado un documental institucional; el programa de France Culture (2006) está subido por un canal no oficial.

Researched on 2026-10-25