Rabia of Basra
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya (714/717/718 — 801 CE) was a female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic.
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Quotes
- Were Women all like those whom here I name,
Woman to man I surely would prefer;
The Sun is feminine, nor deems it shame;
The Moon, though masculine, depends on her.- Literary History of Persia, p. 299
- I so detached my heart from the world and cut short my hopes that for thirty years now I have performed each prayer as though it were my last and I were praying the prayer of farewell.
- as quoted in Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press: 1996), p. 165
- O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell
- and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
- But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
- grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.
- as quoted in Khushwant Singh, The Freethinker's Prayer Book (2013), p. 35
- I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to Allah. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of Allah.
- as quoted in Farid al-Din Attar, Memorial of the Friends of God (c. 1230, 2009 Translation edited by Losensky).