Rabia al adawiyya biography of williams brothers

Rabia bint Esmail al-Adawiya, born in humble circumstances and sold into slavery as a child, later settled in Basra where she attained great fame as a saint and a preacher and was highly esteemed by many of her pious contemporaries. The date of her death is given variously as and To her, a lifelong celibate, is attributed a large share in the introduction into Islamic mysticism of the theme of Divine love.

Her tomb used to be pointed out near Jerusalem. Rabia, her birth and early life If anyone says, Why have you included Rabia in the rank of men?

This work is a study

The root of the matter is not form, but intention, as the Prophet said, Mankind will be raised up according to their intentions. Moreover, if it is proper to derive two-thirds of our religion from Aisha, surely it is permissible to take religious instruction from a handmaid of Aisha. When a woman becomes a man in the path of God, she is a man and one cannot any more call her a woman.

The night when Rabia came to earth, there was nothing whatsoever in her fathers house; for her father lived in very poor circumstances. He did not possess even one drop of oil to anoint her navel; there was no lamp, and not a rag to swaddle her in. He already had three daughters, and Rabia was his fourth; that is why she was called by that name.

Go to neighbour So-and-so and beg for a drop of oil, so that I can light the lamp, his wife said to him. Now the man had entered into a covenant that he would never ask any mortal for anything. So he went out and just laid his hand on the neighbours door, and returned. They will not open the door, he reported. The poor woman wept bitterly.