Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya - from the depths to the heights
Born in 717 CE in Basra, in Iraq.
Not much else is known about the details of her life. Scholars disagree. So I will tell you what a wandering Sufi dervish once told me:
Her parents died during a famine when she was young. As a homeless female child, she was very vulnerable with family to help her. And so she was captured by slave traders. She went through considerable hardship - rape, enforced prostitution, beatings, and the like. As in our own time, the weak and poor were not well treated. After many years, she eventually freed by her owner.
For a while she lived in poverty earning a little to survive by working as a seamstress, a washerwoman, and as a flute player.
Then one day, after many years, with no teacher to guide her, alone in a small desert cave, she fully and completely awoke. The dream no longer held her - she became a fire burning with love and grace.
My God and my Lord: Eyes are at rest,
the stars are setting,
hushed are the movements of birds in their nests,
of monsters in the deep.
And you are the Just who knows no change,
the Equity that does not swerve,
the Everlasting that never passes away.
The doors of kings are locked and guarded by their henchmen,
but your door is open to those who call upon you.
My Lord, each lover is now alone with his beloved
And I am alone with you.
In love with God
I have no time left
to hate the devil My love to God has so possessed me that nothing remains but Him
I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
But my body is available for those who seek its company,
And my body is friendly towards its guests,
But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul.
It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?
The one who explains, lies.
How can you describe
the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
