Rabe’a al-Adawiya- Part 2

-LEARN TO LOVE YOUR LORD FROM THIS WOMEN SUFI SAINT Rabe’a al-Adawiya-

When Rabe’a had become a little older, and her
mother and father were dead, a famine came upon
Basra, and her sisters were scattered. Rabe’a ventured
out and was seen by a wicked man who seized her and
then sold her for six dirhams. He purchaser put her to
hard labour.
One day she was passing along the road when a
stranger approached. Rabe’a fled. As she ran, she fell
headlong and her hand was dislocated.
“Lord God,” she cried, bowing her face to the ground,
“I am a stranger, orphaned of mother and father, a helprabe‘

less prisoner fallen into captivity, my hand broken. Yet
for all this I do not grieve; all I need is Thy good pleasure,
to know whether Thou art well-pleased or no.”
“Do not grieve,” she heard a voice say. “Tomorrow
a station shall be thine such that the cherubim in heaven
will envy thee.”
So Rabe’a returned to her master’s house. By day she
continually fasted and served God, and by night she
worshipped standing until day. One night her master
awoke from sleep and, looking through the window of
his apartment, saw Rabe’a bowing prostrate and praying.
“O God, Thou knowest that the desire of my heart
is in conformity with Thy command, and that the light
of my eye is in serving Thy court. If the affair lay with
me, I would not rest one hour from serving Thee, but
Thou Thyself hast set me under the hand of a creature.”
Such was her litany. Her master perceived a lantern
suspended without any chain above her head, the light
whereof filled the whole house. Seeing this, he was
afraid. Rising up he returned to his bedroom and sat
pondering till dawn. When day broke he summoned
Rabe’a, was gentle with her and set her free.
“Give me permission to depart,” Rabe’a said.
He gave her leave, and she left the house and went

into the desert. From the desert she proceeded to a hermitage
where she served God for a while. Then she
determined to perform the pilgrimage, and set her face
towards the desert. She bound her bundle on an ass. In
the heart of the desert the ass died.
“Let us carry your load,” the men in the party said.
“You go on,” she replied. “I have not come putting
my trust in you.”
So the men departed, and Rabe’a remained alone.
“O God,” she cried, lifting her head, “do kings so
treat a woman who is a stranger and powerless? Thou
hast invited me unto Thy house, then in the midst of
the way Thou hast suffered my ass to die, leaving me
alone in the desert.”
Hardly had she completed this orison when her ass
stirred and rose up. Rabe’a placed her load on its back,
and continued on her way. (The narrator of this story
reports that some while afterwards he saw that little
donkey being sold in the market.) She travelled on
through the desert for some days, then she halted.
“O God,” she cried, “my heart is weary. Whither am
I going? I a lump of clay, and Thy house a stone! I need
Thee here.”
God spoke unmediated in her heart.
“Rabe’a, thou art faring in the life-blood of eighteen
thousand worlds. Hast thou not seen how Moses

prayed for the vision of Me? And I cast a few motes of
revelation upon the mountain, and the mountain shivered
into forty pieces. Be content here with My name!”

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