Rabia al-Adawiyya

A famous female saint of early Sufism who taught worshipping God out of pure love.

Life

Ascetic of Basra

Rabia came from a poor family in Basra. According to tradition, as a child she was sold into slavery after her family's fortunes collapsed, and was later freed by her master, who was struck with awe after seeing her pray devoutly at night. She never married, living as a reclusive ascetic, and became famous in Basra's religious circles for her extremely simple way of life and her all-night prayers.

Divine Love

Sufi practitioners of the time mostly stressed worshipping God out of fear of the punishment of hell or desire for the rewards of paradise. Rabia instead argued that such self-interested motives should be abandoned and that God should be worshipped purely out of love for God himself. This idea of "Divine Love" became an important turning point in Sufi mysticism, and she attracted many disciples and visitors who came to seek her teaching.

Saint and Legend

She is widely recognized as one of the earliest and most important women in the history of Sufism, and her idea of "loving God more than fearing Him" profoundly influenced later Sufi poetry and theology. Because she left no reliably attested original writings of her own, the sayings and anecdotes that survive were mostly recorded secondhand in later Sufi literature, and their authenticity is difficult to verify one by one; scholars still speculate and disagree about many details of her life.

Legacy

Rabia is regarded as an early representative of the idea of "Divine Love" in Sufism and as one of the most revered women ascetics in Islamic religious history. She held that worship should spring neither from fear of punishment nor from hope of reward, an idea that later Sufi poets inherited and developed. Because direct contemporary accounts are lacking, her life and sayings are known mainly from hagiographies compiled centuries later by Attar and others, and scholars differ on the reliability of their details.

Major works & achievements

• Proposed the idea of worshiping God purely out of love
• Known for asceticism and all-night prayer
• Influenced later Sufi poetry and theology

Key dates

• 717Born c. in Basra
• 735Said to have been enslaved and later freed
• 750Lives as a reclusive ascetic, and her fame grows
• 770Taught the doctrine of Divine Love
• 790Attracted many disciples seeking instruction
• 801Died in Basra