Rabia al-Adawiyya
The sayings handed down from her teach that God should be loved for his own sake, not from fear of hell or hope of paradise.
Placement
Early Sufi of Basra: God is to be loved for his own sake, not out of fear of hell or hope of paradise. No writings survive; her sayings and prayers were transmitted by later authors such as Attar.
Key ideas
- Selfless love of God
- Neither fear of hell nor hope of paradise
- Asceticism and poverty
Influence
Influenced 1
al-Ghazali
influenced
In the Book of Love of his Revival of the Religious Sciences al-Ghazali quoted and explained Rabia’s verses on the two kinds of love for God. al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum al-din, Kitab al-mahabba, tr. E. Ormsby, Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment (2011); M. Smith, Rabia the Mystic (1928)
Evidence: AI draft
al-Ghazali › 1058–1111
Position
Rabia stands at the origin of the Sufi doctrine of selfless love of God. The sayings ascribed to her turn the earlier asceticism of fear into a mysticism of love: she is said to have wanted to burn paradise and extinguish hell so that God might be worshipped for himself alone, neither from fear of punishment nor from hope of reward. Al-Ghazali quotes her in his “Revival of the Religious Sciences”, and later Sufis treat her as an authority. Because the sources are late and legendary, scholars read her as a figure of the tradition rather than a documented author; her influence, however, is historical.
Life & context
Rabia al-Adawiyya (c. 714–801) lived in Basra in present-day Iraq. According to the hagiographical tradition, especially Attar’s “Memorial of the Saints” (early 13th century), she was born poor, sold into slavery, freed because of her piety and lived as an ascetic, refusing offers of marriage. No contemporary record of her exists, and the sayings, prayers and poems attributed to her were written down centuries later.
Main works
- No writings survive; sayings and prayers transmitted in Attar’s Memorial of the Saints (Tadhkirat al-Awliya, c. 1220) and earlier Arabic sources
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