Rabia'h Al Adawiyah A Factual Myth

She was a female born in Basra, Iraq from a poor Muslim family.
Because she was the fourth daughter of her parents they named her Rabia'h (The Fourth).

Her father claimed that the Prophet (Mohamed) appeared to him in a dream and told him that his newly born daughter is a favorite by the Lord, and shall lead many Muslims to the right path.

After her father's death, the legend says that famine overtook Basra and Rabia'h separated from her mother and sisters and joined a caravan which was later fell in the hands of robbers.

They took Rabia'h captive and sold her in the market as a slave.

She was raised in the new house and trained to be an entertainer to the guests of her new master.

She had a beautiful voice, charming face and attractive body.

Rabia'h was involved heavily in her new life and was addicted to alcohol and the extreme lust.

Her master and his friends made a hunting trip, and took Rabia'h and other girls to entertain them, where they found a blind wise-man and started to make fun of him.

The wise-man was told Rabia'h that not only he can see her, but he can describe her beauty.. not of the body but of the soul.

He told her that she is living a wrong life and requested her to repent to God and he will lead her to the right path.

She spent many nights after that day, not able to sleep,,, thinking of what the old wise-man told her.

Then she started to visualize certain religious symbols and hear specific voices of (later she knew were angelic voices) reciting some holy phrases from the Quran.

Her master was in love with her, and she used to treat him as a special flirt.

After seeing the wiseman and her new experience with the voices, she decided to quit her lusted life and spend more time meditating.

Her master was so annoyed of her new (weird) behavior and started to give her some troubles, then beat her, then torture her...

All this strengthened her new attitude and made her more involved in meditating and ,,, praying.

One night, her master woke up hearing her praying and her reciting of the Quran with an amazing voice.. He listened to her speaking to God and saying:
"Lord.. you know well that my keen desire is to carry out Your commandments and to serve Thee with all my heart, O light of my eyes. If I were free I would pass the whole day and night in prayers. But what should I do when you have made me a slave of a human being?
If this situation of life, which I am in now satisfies You, then give me more... If not then let it go.. and I will accept whatever You decide of me".

Those words made her master weep and decided to set her free go .

In the morning he called her and told her his decision; he would serve her and she should dwell there as the mistress of the house. If she insisted on leaving the house he was willing to free her from bondage.

She told him that she was willing to leave the house to carry on her worship in solitude.
He granted her what she asked for, and she left the house.

Rabia'h decided to start her new life with a trip to Mecca for Hajj.
She took along an emaciated donkey on which were loaded her few belongings.
The ass died along the journey.
The people accompanying her offered to carry her belongings, but she refused, saying: "Proceed! I did not come relying on you."
The caravan continued, leaving her behind.
Even before completing her Dua (praying), the donkey came to life.
Rabia'h continued her journey and reached Mecca.

Rabia'h believed humans will be compensated in the other world for the work they do in this world.

She believed that God is pleased with a person when he expresses gratitude for the effort just as he expresses gratitude for bounties.

Once Rabia'h kept seven fasts and spent the entire night in Ibaadat (Sufi Praying).
On the seventh day someone presented her a bowl of milk. When she went to fetch the lamp, a cat came and drank the milk.
She decided to break her fast with water. When she brought a cup of water, the lamp was extinguished. As she lifted the cup, it slipped and broke.
She drew a sigh and said: "O God! What are You doing to me?" A Voice said: "O Rabia'h! If you desire the bounties of the world, We shall bestow it to you, but then We shall remove Our love from your heart.
Our love and worldly bounties cannot coexist in one heart." Henceforth, Rabia'h severed all her worldly hopes and her attitude was like that of a person in his death throes.
Each morning she supplicated: "O God! Keep me engrossed in You and do not allow the people of the world to divert me."

When her time to depart from earth was near, people gathered by her. She said: "Go away and leave place for the Angels." They all went out and closed the door. While they were waiting outside, they heard from within a voice reciting:

"O Soul at Rest! Return to your Rabb (God)."

For a long while thereafter there was silence. When they went inside they discovered that Rabia'h's soul had taken flight from this world and had reached God.

She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance.
She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise  than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshiping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils—i.e. hindrances to the vision of God Himself.

One day, she was seen running through the streets of Basra carrying a torch 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 God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God."

Oh Lord Have Mercy On Us and Accept Our Repent

She prayed: "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.”

When she was asked if she hated Satan. she said: "My love to God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating."

She was the one who first set forth the doctrine of Divine Love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets

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 in her dark cell, he then realized that she was a saint and feared for his life if he continued to keep her as a slave.

She was the first in a long line of female Sufi mystics.

The person who used to be her master was called Hasan Al Basri.
After she left his house he repented and acquired some spiritual Sufi powers.
But he used to follow her from one place to another.just to learn from her.
One day he saw her near a lake. He threw his prayer rug on top of the water and said, "Rabia'h come! Let us pray here."
She replied, "Hasan, when you are showing off your spiritual goods in the worldly market, it should be things which your fellow men cannot display."
Then she threw her prayer rug into the air and flew up onto it by saying, "Come up here, Hasan, where people can see us." Then she said, "Hasan, what you did fishes can do, and what I did flies can do.
But the real business is outside these tricks.
One must apply oneself to the real business."

She did not take a husband because she used to believe that she belongs to God and she follows his path and there is no significance to her as a person.

She used to pray the whole night, and just before the morning she takes a short nap, but when the sun rises she wakes up scared and says: Rabia'h, you sleep too long and to whom you wake up?...
I hope you sleep and only wake up when God calls you at the end of days.

A Martyr of Divine Love

She loved God as actual love:
Oh God - I love thee two loves
One love is the compassionate love
and the other love because you deserve it.
The compassionate love is that I left this world for you.
And you deserve my love because you opened all walls infront of me so I can see you.
No praise for me for both loves
Only you I praise for this love and that love.

Sami Cherkaoui