Anecdotes of Rabe’a -Part 3

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

1- One night Rabe’a was praying in the hermitage when she was overcome by weariness and fell asleep. So deeply was she absorbed that, when a reed from the reed-mat she was lying on broke in her eye so that the blood flowed, she was quite unaware of the fact.
A thief entered and seized her chaddur. He then made to leave, but the way was barred to him. He dropped the chaddur and departed, finding the way now open. He seized the chaddur again and returned to discover the way blocked. Once more he dropped the chaddur. This he repeated seven times over; then he heard a voice proceeding from a 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 has not the boldness to slink round her. How should a thief have the boldness to slink round her chaddur? Be gone, scoundrel! Do not put yourself to such pains. If one friend has fallen asleep,one Friend is awake and keeping watch.�



2-Two notables of the Faith came to visit Rabe’a, and
both were hungry.
“It may be that she will give us food,� they said to each other. “Her food is bound to come from a lawful source.�
When they sat down there was a napkin with two loaves laid before them. They were well content. A beggar arrived just then, and Rabe’a gave him the two loaves. The two men of religion were much upset, but said nothing. After a while a maidservant entered with a handful of warm bread.
“My mistress sent these,� she explained.
Rabe’a counted the loaves. There were eighteen.
“Perhaps it was not this that she sent me,� Rabe’a
remarked.
For all that the maidservant assured her, it profited nothing. So she took back the loaves and carried them away. Now it so happened that she had taken two of the loaves for herself. She asked her mistress, and she added the two to the pile and returned with them.
Rabe’a counted again, and found there were twenty
loaves. She now accepted them.
“This is what your mistress sent me,� she said.
She set the loaves before the two men and they ate, marveling.
“What is the secret behind this?� they asked her.
“We had an appetite for your own bread, but you took it away from us and gave it to the beggar. Then you said that the eighteen loaves did not belong to you.
When they were twenty, you accepted them.�

“I knew when you arrived that you were hungry,� Rabe’a replied. “I said to myself, How can I offer two loaves to two such notables? So when the beggar came to the door I gave them to him and said to Almighty God, ‘O God, Thou hast said that Thou repayest tenfold,and this I firmly believed. Now I have given two loaves to please Thee, so that Thou mayest give twenty in return for them.’ When eighteen were brought me,I knew that either there had been some misappropriation, or that they were not meant for me.�