Rabe’a al-Adawiya - Part 4

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

Anecdotes of Rabe’a

3- One day Rabe’a’s servant girl was making an onion stew; for it was some days since they had cooked any food. Finding that she needed some onions, she said,
“I will ask of next door.”
“Forty years now,” Rabe’a replied, “I have had a covenant with Almighty God not to ask for aught of any but He. Nevermind the onions.”
Immediately a bird swooped down from the air with peeled onions in its beak and dropped them into the pan.
“I am not sure this is not a trick,” Rabe’a commented.
And she left the onion pulp alone, and ate nothing
but bread.
Rabe’a had gone one day into the mountains. She was soon surrounded by a flock of deer and mountain
goats, ibexes and wild asses which stared at her and made to approach her. Suddenly Hasan of Basra came on the scene and, seeing Rabe’a, moved in her direction.
As soon as the animals sighted Hasan, they made off all together, so that Rabe’a remained alone. This dismayed Hasan.
“Why did they run away from me, and associated so tamely with you?” he asked Rabe’a.
“What have you eaten today?” Rabe’a countered.
“A little onion pulp.”
“You eat their fat,” Rabe’a remarked. “Why then should they not flee from you?”



4- Once Rabe’a passed by Hasan’s house. Hasan had his head out of the window and was weeping, and his tears fell on Rabe’a’s dress. Looking up, she thought at first that it was rain; then, realizing that it was Hasan’s tears, she turned to him and addressed him.
“Master, this weeping is a sign of spiritual languor.
Guard your tears, so that there may surge within you such a sea that, seeking the heart therein, you shall not find it save in the keeping of a King Omnipotent’.”
These words distressed Hasan, but he kept his peace.
Then one day he saw Rabe’a when she was near a lake.Throwing his prayer rug on the surface of the water, he called,“Rabe’a, come! Let us pray two rak’as here!”

“Hasan,” Rabe’a replied, “when you are showing off your spiritual goods in this worldly market, it should be things that your fellow-men are incapable of displaying.”
And she flung her prayer rug into the air, and flew up on it.
“Come up here, Hasan, where people can see us!” she cried.
Hasan, who had not attained that station, said nothing. Rabe’a sought to console him.
“Hasan,” she said, “what you did fishes also do, and what I did flies also do. The real business is outside both these tricks. One must apply one’s self to the real business.”



5- One night Hasan with two or three friends went to visit Rabe’a. Rabe’a had no lantern. Their hearts yearned for Light. Rabe’a blew on her hunger, and that night till dawn
her finger shone like a lantern, and they sat in its Radiance.



6- Once Rabe’a sent Hasan three things—a piece of wax, a needle, and a hair.
“Be like wax,” she said. “Illumine the world, and yourself burn. Be like a needle, always be working naked. When you have done these two things, a thousand years will be for you as a hair.”
“Do you desire for us to get married?” Hasan asked
Rabe’a.
“The tie of marriage applies to those who have being,” Rabe’a replied. “Here being has disappeared,for I have become naughted to self and exist only through Him. I belong wholly to Him. I live in the shadow of His control. You must ask my hand of Him, not of me.”
“How did you find this secret, Rabe’a?” Hasan
asked.
“I lost all ‘found’ things in Him,” Rabe’a answered.
“How do you know Him?” Hasan enquired.
“You know the ‘how’; I know the ‘howless’,” Rabe’a said.



7- Once Rabe’a saw a man with a bandage tied round his head.
“Why have you tied the bandage?” she asked.

“Because my head aches,” the man replied.
“How old are you?” she demanded.
“Thirty,” he replied.
“Have you been in pain and anguish the greater part of your life?” she enquired.
“No,” the man answered.
“For thirty years you have enjoyed good health,” she remarked, “and you never tied about you the bandage of thankfulness. Now because of this one night that you have a headache you tie the bandage of complaint!”


8- One spring day Rabe’a entered her apartment and put out her head.
“Mistress,” her servant said, “come out and see what the Maker has wrought.”
“Do you rather come in,” Rabe’a replied, “and see the Maker. The contemplation of the Maker pre-occupies me, so that I do not care to look upon what He has made.”


9- A party visited her, and saw her tearing a morsel of meat with her teeth.
“Do you not have a knife to cut up the meat?” they asked.
“I have never kept a knife in my house for fear of being cut off,” she replied.