O Allah! if I worship you for fear of hell
Burn me in hell
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

These are the words of the female sufi saint Rabia al Basra. She grew in the tender love and training of the higher intuitive powers of God and is one of the few women in Sufism – indeed she is considered the first female saint in Islam. She was not trained by a murshid but was born a devotee with great love for God. Rabia was born sometime between 712 and 717 C.E. in Basra, Iraq.
Many spiritual stories are associated with her, but what we do know of her life is essentially reality merged with legend. Much of her early life is related, recorded and narrated by Farid al-Din Attar, a later day sufi saint and poet, who is the only source of her history as Rabia herself did not leave behind any written work.
She was the fourth daughter of her family and therefore named Rabia, meaning ‘fourth’. She was born in a poor but respectable family. Her parents were so poor that there was no oil in the house to light a lamp, nor a cloth to wrap her in when she was born. Her mother requested her husband to borrow some oil from a neighbour but he had resolved to never ask anything of anyone except the Creator; he pretended to go to the neighbor’s door and returned home empty-handed.
In the night the Prophet appeared to Rabia’s father in a dream and said, “Your newly born daughter is a favorite of the Lord and shall lead many Muslims to the right path. You should approach the Amir of Basra and present him with a letter in which should be written this message; ‘you offer Durood to the Holy Prophet one hundred times every night and four hundred times every thursday night. However, since you have failed to observe the rule last thursday, as a penalty you must pay the bearer four hundred dinars’.
Rabia’s father went to the Amir with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. The Amir was delighted on receiving the message. He realized that he was in the vision of the Prophet and as thanksgiving he distributed 1000 dinars to the poor and gave 400 to Rabia’s father and requested him to come to him whenever he required anything, as he would benefit from the visit of a soul dear to the Lord.
Rabia’s parents died in her childhood and some time later when Basra was in 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.

“Rabia’s worldly possessions are said to have been
a broken jug from which she drank, an old rush mat to sit upon and a brick for a pillow. She spent each night in prayer and often chided herself for sleeping as it prevented her constant contemplation and active love of God.”
Little is known of her early years except that she spent her youth as a slave and was later freed. What we do know of her however, is that throughout her life her asceticism was absolute and unwavering as was her love for God. Poverty and self-denial were Rabia’s constant companions. For example, her worldly possessions are said to have been a broken jug from which she drank, an old rush mat to sit upon and a brick for a pillow. She spent each night in prayer and often chided herself for sleeping as it prevented her constant contemplation and active love of God. She refused all offers of marriage – of which there were many – because she had no room for anything in her life that might distract her from complete devotion to God. Indeed, in this same manner she rebuffed anything that could distract her from the Beloved, i.e. God. More interesting than her absolute asceticism however, is the concept of Divine Love that Rabia introduced. She was the first to introduce the idea that God should be loved for His own sake and not out of fear- as earlier Sufis had done. For example, she is reported to have walked the streets of Basra with a flaming torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When her intentions were questioned, Rabia replied: “I want to pour water into Hell and set fire to Paradise so that these two veils disappear and nobody worships God out of fear of Hell or hope of Paradise, but only for the sake of His eternal beauty.”
In her master’s house she fasted by day and spent the night praying. 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. For a while she served God in a hermitage and according to one version returned to her master some days later, playing a flute with the skill of a professional musician. Determined to perform the pilgrimage she then set out for the desert to pray and became an ascetic. Unlike many sufi saints she did not learn from a teacher or master but turned to God himself.
It is said that on the way to the desert the donkey carrying her bundle died. She entreated the Lord saying “O my God, do kings deal thus with a woman, a stranger and the 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 and came to life.
Rabia was a mystic of the newly emerging Sufi order. She often spoke of the concept of 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.”

“She was so singularly devoted towards achieving divine union that all other attractions were meaningless to her.”

Though she had many offers of marriage from admiring Sufi companions (including a proposal from Hasan al-Basri), she refused them all as she had no time for anything in her life other than God. On being asked about marriage she remarked “If anyone can give me the answer to these four questions, I shall marry him. First; what will the judge of the world say of me when I die – whether I am a muslim or a non-believer? Second; when I am put in the grave and Munkar and Nakir question me, shall I be able to answer them satisfactorily or not? Third; when the people are assembled at the Resurrection and the books are distributed, will I be given mine in the right or the left hand? And fourth; 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.
As her fame grew she had many disciples. She also held discussions with many of the renowned religious people of her time. She often performed miracles to expose the contradictions in the relationship between men and women. Rabia confounded her male contemporaries with her unconventional ideas. The esteemed Sufi leader Hasan-al-Basri was one such man humbled by her spiritual and intellectual power. In a short Sufi narrative he declares, “I passed one whole night and day with Rabia speaking of the Way and the Truth and it never passed through my mind that I was a man nor did it occur to her that she was a woman. At the end when I looked at her I saw myself as bankrupt and Rabia as truly sincere.”
There are many other narratives written about the interaction between Hasan-al-Basri and Rabia which show Rabia surpassing her male counterpart. In one story Rabia is seen by al-Basri meditating near the bank of a river. To get her attention al-Basri placed his prayer carpet on top of the water, sat on it and called out to Rabia to float over and converse with him. Understanding his intention was merely to show off his spiritual powers to others, Rabia tossed her prayer carpet high into the air and floated up to it. “Oh Hasan,” she said, “come up here where people will see us better.” Hasan became silent because he knew it was not within his power to fly. “Oh Hasan,” Rabia continued, “that which you did a fish can do . . . and that which I did a fly can do. The real work for the sufi lies beyond both of these.”

“She often spoke of the concept of 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.”
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 doorway was barred. He dropped the chador and approached the exit finding it open this time. He seized the chador again and as he began to exit, the doorway got barred again. He repeated this seven times, utterly perplexed, when he heard a voice coming from the corner of the 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 is awake and keeping watch.” Such was the reciprocity awarded to Rabia by her Divine Friend and Beloved.
Rabia 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 deserve for their sins but also offered them far greater hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God’s servants. Emotions like fear and hope were like veils – hindrances to the vision of God Himself.

In her later years about seven years before she died, Rabia moved to the Mount of Olives [Tur] in Jerusalem with a woman companion and attendant. There she bought a small house with some land surrounding it and lived as a hermit inside the Tomb of Pelagia near the Chapel of Ascension where she was eventually laid to rest. Everyday she would walk down to Al-Aqsa mosque where she prayed and gave sermons to the people. Both men and women comprised her following – they 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 made her a means of manifesting Himself to those who sought Him. 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 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.
Rabia was in her eighties when she died, having followed the mystic way to the end. By then she was continually united with her beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, “My beloved is always with me.” 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 as 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 united with the beloved.
Rabia’s final departure from this world is recorded in a beautiful account 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, 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].

PHILOSOPHY

Rabia was the one who first set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. Much of the poetry that is attributed to her is of unknown origin. After a life of hardship she became spontaneously realized. When asked by Sheikh Hasan- al-Basri how she discovered the secret, she responded: “You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.”
On one occasion she was asked if she hated Satan. Hazrat Rabia replied: “My love for God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save Him.”
When Hazrat Rabia would not come to attend the sermons of Hazrat Hasan Basri, he would deliver no discourse that day. People in the audience would ask him why he did that and he would reply, “The syrup that is held by the vessels meant for elephants cannot be contained in the vessels meant for ants.”

There are many folk lore attached to her – whether true or not is not the issue – the important thing is that she was quite an enigma for the people of her times. It is said that once Hazrat Rabia was on her way to Mecca and half-way there she saw the Kaaba coming to meet her and she said, “It is the Lord of the house whom I need, what have I to do with the house? I need to meet Him who said that whosoever approaches me by a span’s length, I will approach by the length of a cubit. The Kaaba which I see has no power over me; what joy does the beauty of the Kaaba bring to me?”

“Rabia al Basra was a woman of courage, love,
dedication – an example of a woman master in her own right.
She never claimed to be a master,
yet her life and her words worked as perfect catalysts
to transform the lives of many seekers.”
At that same time, the great sufi saint Hazrat Ibrahim-bin-Adham arrived at the Kaaba but he did not see it. He had spent fourteen years making his way to the Kaaba, because in every place of prayer he performed two rakats. Hazrat Ibrahim bin Adham said: “Alas! What has happened? It maybe that some injury has overtaken my eyes.” An unseen voice said to him: “No harm has befallen your eyes; the Kaaba has gone to meet a woman who is approaching this place.” Ibrahim Adham ran to see who it was and saw Rabia arriving and the Kaaba was back in its place. When he saw that he said: “O Rabia! what is this disturbance and trouble and burden which you have brought into the world?” She replied: “I have not brought disturbance into the world; it is you who have disturbed the world because you delayed arriving at the Kaaba by fourteen years.” He said: “Yes, I have spent fourteen years in crossing the desert because I was engaged in prayer.” Rabia said: “You traversed it in ritual prayer (Salat) but with personal supplication.” Then, having performed the pilgrimage she returned to Basra and occupied herself with the work of devotion.
It is hard to believe that a woman of her stature survived the Islamic conservative clergy. Rabia al Basra was a woman of courage, love, dedication – an example of a woman master in her own right. She never claimed to be a master, yet her life and her words worked as perfect catalysts to transform the lives of many seekers.
It is said in sufi literature that miracles were given as a sanction to the prophets, but to the saints they were granted as a test. Though endowed with such miraculous powers, Rabia knew the value of humility. Divine riza or God’s 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 a cure. She replied that he should be aware that God had willed her suffering and knowing that, how could he bid her to request Him the contrary of His will. She ended saying that it was not proper to oppose one’s Friend. She had reached such a level of spiritual synchronicity with the ‘divine will’ that to wish for anything else was a grievous sin.

“No harm has befallen your eyes;
the Kaaba has gone to meet a woman
who is approaching this place.”