Ali

2. Explain how Rabia, a Sufi woman, is traditionally seen as transforming Sufism during its early history. How have biographies of Sufi women been interpreted with regards to the involvement of women in religious matters at that time? Rabia of Basra was a remarkable woman by all accounts, even among the Sufis of her time, and is considered to be one of the most prominent saints of the early history of Sufism. She was alive around the time when Sufis were just beginning to take the inward turn, as Karamustafa calls it, from asceticism, which focused on rejecting the physical world, to looking within themselves as a source of spirituality and to grow closer to God. It was a time when Sufis were just beginning to realize that perhaps rejecting the physical world wasnt so important as focusing on the inner world of their hearts, for did not the Prophet (pbuh) say, The heart of a believer is the house of God? (Al-Ghazali, Suhrawardi) Rabia represents the Sufis at this time, who lived a curious mixture of asceticism and inner contemplation. There are many stories in which Rabia could be seen as living a purely ascetic way of life. For example, there is the story of the time when her serving girl was preparing soup for her and needed onions. She was about to go to the neighbors to ask them for some when Rabia stopped her, saying that she had made a covenant with the Lord mighty and glorious not to ask for anything from any other than Him. Immediately after this, a bird flew down and dropped onions into her pot. But still, Rabia did not eat the soup, saying Im not safe from being tricked, eating plain bread instead. This shows the ascetic tendency to have a virtual obsession with the fear of being corrupted from consuming something unclean. As a result, she would often fast and was constantly wary of being corrupted from outside sources, especially wealth and food.

Ali At the same time, it cannot be denied that Rabia was also a mystic. One of the most well-known stories about her was the time she was seen running down a street with a

torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When an on-looker asked her what she was doing, she replied that she was going to burn down Paradise and douse Hellfire, so that people would worship and love God for His sake, not for the rewards of the afterlife. This was a drastic change from the ascetics way of thinking, in which it was encouraged to ignore and deny the physical world because the rewards of the hereafter were so much greater. Another way that Rabia transformed the Sufi way of thinking was her surety in the love that God had for her. Where before, many devotees would often weep and lament at their own unworthiness, Rabia would often go so far as to berate God for not showing his love enough to her. One time, when she was on her way to the Kaba, her donkey died beneath her. She turned to God, saying, My God, do kings treat a helpless woman like thiskilled my donkeyand left me alone in the desert. Immediately, her donkey got back up and she resumed her journey to the Kaba. Such outright frankness and almost accusation towards God was something not even most Sufi masters of the day would have done, but Rabia represented a turning point in their way of thinking. God became someone approachable, a friend and loved one who would provide for them if they asked it, rather than someone who was so great that they could only cower in fear before His might. But still, she did not deny the greatness of God, for she often wept and lamented for fear of being cut off from His love and glory. Rabias biography paints a rather startling picture of women in the ancient Islamic world. Rather than being the stereotypical suppressed, oppressed woman with no voice of

Ali her own, Rabia is depicted as a firebrand, a revolutionary who earned great respect from her male counterparts and one who often humbled them as well. For example, it is told that one time Hasan Basri, a famous Sufi of the time, threw his prayer rug onto the Euphrates River and invited Rabia to pray with him. Instead, Rabia threw her own prayer rug into the air, telling Hasan to come pray with her, where people could not see. Rabia constantly took such a role in the stories, humbling the male Sufi masters and warning them against the dangers of egoism. It is a little odd; however, considering the fact that many times in these stories, she

herself seemed highly egotistical. But at the same time, she claimed to be completely filled with the love of and the love for God, so she could not possibly hold herself in highesteem, because there was no self to her. She was simply a vessel filled with Gods love and her own for God. Rabia also remained celibate, refusing to marry no matter how many men asked for her hand in marriage. This is also a drastic difference from the typical view of Muslim women as being married, willingly or not, and made to bear children and care for the family. When asked why she did not marry, Rabia replied that she was so full of love for God that there was no space in her heart for love or hatred of another. She also claimed that she was tied so closely to God that she was, in effect, married to Him, so whosoever married her married God as well. This shows that Sufi women such as Rabia were highly independent and that their views on religion were not discarded or discounted simply because they were women. In fact, Hasan Basri related that one time he stayed with Rabia for a full day and night

Ali discussing the intricacies of religion, and by the end of it, he considered himself a pauper and her a devotee.

This clearly indicates that Rabia, and by extension other Sufi women, were held in high regard by their male counterparts. After all, why would Hasan Basri, a great Sufi master in his own right, spend a full day and night discussing religion with a woman if he did not believe that what she had to say was indeed important and praiseworthy? He even goes so far as to say that she was even more pious and closer to God than he by calling himself a poor person in comparison to her ardent faith in God. It is clear that although Sufi women most likely did face some discrimination based on their gender, they did not let it stop them from being heard. Rabia was quite adamant about making her own religious views known and she gained much respect for it. It is also clear that although in many respects, their beliefs corresponded with their male counterparts, the way in which they viewed God was rather different. Instead of being the Beloved one that they often sought but only rarely entered into communion with intimately, they viewed Him more as a constant lover, one who was always there for them and one who would come as a savior when they faced trial and hardship. For example, when Rabia was a slave, she attempted to escape, but ended up falling and breaking her hand. She entreated God to help her and heard a voice reply, saying to remain faithful and that her trial would soon be over. A couple nights later, her master saw her kneeling in supplication to God, and above her hung a chainless lantern that filled the entire room with light. As a result of witnessing this, Rabias master freed her. In conclusion, Rabia was a woman who represented the inward turn of Sufis. She was one of the foremost leaders in encouraging people to turn inside themselves and

Ali look to their own hearts to find God and not focus so much on this world or the afterlife, but instead to simply focus on the love for God. She also showed how the women of that time were obviously, if not the only leaders, then at the very forefront of religious matters of their time. Her advice was often sought by others, including male Sufi masters, and she was held in great esteem by most everyone as a very pious and religious woman who was very close to God. She was a revolutionary whose actions were sometimes seen as being

radical, and also fiercely independent, needing no one and no thing but God. She is seen as one who advanced the cause of Sufism, that is love for God, and indirectly, the cause of women, to grant them freedom to express their religious views and to be seen as someone to be respected and revered, even.

Work Cited Al-Ghazali and Suhrawardi Hadiths

Ali Karamustafa, Ahmet T. "The Sufis of Baghdad." Sufism: The Formative Period. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Print. Silvers, Laury. ""God Loves Me": The Theological Content and Context of Early Pious and Sufi Women's Sayings on Love." Journal for Islamic Studies 30 (2010). Print. Maria Dakake, Guest of the Inmost Heart: Conceptions of the Divine Beloved among Early Sufi Women, Comparative Islamic Studies 3.1 (2007): 72 Sells, Michael Anthony., and Carl W. Ernst. "4. Rabi'a: Her Words and Life in 'Attar's Memorial of the Friends of God." Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist, 1996. Print.