Rabia' s love for god - A Muslim

September 29, 2005

http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/sufi/rabia

Rabia al BasriDocument Actions

Rabia al Basri 717-801

View: Rabia Poems

Not much is known about Rabia al Basri, except that she lived in Basra in Iraq, in the second half of the 8th century AD. She was born into poverty. But many spiritual stories are associated with her and what we can glean about her is reality merged with legend. These traditions come from Farid ud din Attar a later sufi saint and poet, who used earlier sources. Rabia herself though has not left any written works.

After her father's death, there was a famine in Basra, and during that she was parted from her family. It is not clear how she was traveling in a caravan that was set upon by robbers. She was taken by the robbers and sold into slavery.

Her master worked her very hard, but at night after finishing her chores Rabia would turn to meditation and prayers and praising the Lord. Foregoing rest and sleep she spent her nights in prayers and she often fasted during the day.

There is a story that once, while in the market, she was pursued by a vagabond and in running to save herself she fell and broke her arm. She prayed to the Lord .

"I am a poor orphan and a slave, Now my hand too is broken. But I do not mind these things if Thou be pleased with me. "

and felt a voice reply:

"Never mind all these sufferings. On the Day of Judgement you shall be accorded a status that shall be the envy of the angels even"

One day the master of the house spied her at her devotions. There was a divine light enveloping her as she prayed. Shocked that he kept such a pious soul as a slave, he set her free. Rabia went into the desert to pray and became an ascetic. Unlike many sufi saints she did not learn from a teacher or master but turned to God himself.

Throughout her life, her Love of God. Poverty and self-denial were unwavering and her constant companions. She did not possess much other than a broken jug, a rush mat and a brick, which she used as a pillow. She spent all night in prayer and contemplation chiding herself if she slept for it took her away from her active Love of God.

As her fame grew she had many disciples. She also had discussions with many of the renowned religious people of her time. Though she had many offers of marriage, and tradition has it one even from the Amir of Basra, she refused them as she had no time in her life for anything other than God.

More interesting than her absolute asceticism, however, is the actual concept of Divine Love that Rabia introduced. She was the first to introduce the idea that God should be loved for God's own sake, not out of fear--as earlier Sufis had done.

She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e. hindrances to the vision of God Himself.

She prayed:

"O Allah! 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.”

Rabia was in her early to mid eighties when she died, having followed the mystic Way to the end. By then, she was continually united with her Beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, "My Beloved

vijay · September 30, 2005

Great article I had a look for more stories about her, seems like she attained quite a high rasa,

Brief Notes:

Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya,

an 8th Century Islamic Saint from Iraq

By Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

____________________

[Citations and data are from Margaret Smith, The Way of the Mystics: The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sufis, NY: Oxford University Press, 1978. See the Islamic Bookstore for sample pages. I strongly recommend her book].

One of the most famous Islamic mystics was a woman: Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya (c.717-801). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions. Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq. She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186). Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186). She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).

As Cambridge professor Margaret Smith explains, Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching. As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director. She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222). A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid. The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)

Rabi'a was of this second kind. She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca: "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219). During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.

"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?' I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them. I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)

When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,

"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me? Is it not God Who wills it? When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will? It is not well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)

She was an ascetic. It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187). She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world. A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill. Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,

"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?" (186-7)

A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold. She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him. And she added an ethical concern as well:

"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)

She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself. The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other. When they asked her to explain, she said:

"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)

She was once asked where she came from. "From that other world," she said. "And where are you going?" she was asked. "To that other world," she replied (219). She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end. Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love. In this quest, logic and reason were powerless. Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).

Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition. Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved. Through this communion, she could discover His will for her. Many of her prayers have come down to us:

"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." [224]

Another:

"O my Joy and my Desire, my Life and my Friend. If Thou art satisfied with me, then, O Desire of my heart, my happiness is attained." (222)

At night, as Smith, writes, "alone upon her roof under the eastern sky, she used to pray":

"O my Lord, the stars are shining and the eyes of men are closed, and kings have shut their doors, and every lover is alone with his beloved, and here I am alone with Thee." (222)

She was asked once if she hated Satan.

"My love to God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save Him." (222)

To such lovers, she taught, God unveiled himself in all his beauty and re-vealed the Beatific Vision (223). For this vision, she willingly gave up all lesser joys.

"O my Lord," she prayed, "if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty." (224)

Rabi'a was in her early to mid eighties when she died, having followed the mystic Way to the end. By then, she was continually united with her Beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, "My Beloved is always with me" (224).

October 3, 2005

http://www.crescentlife.com/dietnutrition/vegeterian_muslims.htm

Who says Muslims can't be Vegetarian?

Yahya Monastra

The option to be vegetarian has always existed in Islam, whether or not it was actualized at any time or place. The great Sufi Rabiah al-‘Adawîyah of Basrah was an early Muslim vegetarian. In recent times, the renowned Sufi shaykh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was a notable vegetarian Muslim. Nowadays there are more and more Muslims in different countries choosing to be vegetarian, although they have mostly kept quiet about it.

Sometimes we get negative, hostile, indignant, or incredulous reactions from other Muslims who have never considered the possibility. One common line of attack goes, "You can't make harâm what Allah has made halâl! That is a sin!" Excuse me, but who ever said anything about making anything harâm? Why even bring that issue into it? Why do they have to think of everything in life in terms of force and compulsion and forbidding? In Islamic law there are more categories than just obligatory and harâm. There are various shadings of desirable and undesirable, and in the middle there is the neutral (al-mubâh). The choice of what halâl food to eat is a neutral one---it doesn't have any direct bearing on what is forbidden or obligatory. I'm not making meat "harâm." I just don't wish for any, thank you.

Some Muslims will tell you that in Islamic law you are not allowed to refuse to eat meat. This is mere opinion unsupported by any evidence from the sources of the Shari‘ah. Suppose they establish the "Islamic State," then how will they enforce this ruling? Hold me down, force my mouth open, and shove kebabs down my throat? Come on, I don't think so.

Others try to persuade you by saying that the Prophet, peace be upon him, ate meat, so you should too. Well, let's look closer at that argument. We all know that we should try to emulate the Prophet's sunnah. And what is more important in the Sunnah: to observe specific details of the Prophet's personal taste which others may or may not share? Or to abide by the great universal principles of behavior and character that he exemplified?

The Prophet recognized that each person is a unique autonomous individual with his or her own personality. When giving advice to individual Companions, he would specifically tailor the advice according to that person's own characteristics. He did not enforce any overbearing uniformity on the people. Especially when it came to eating, he recognized that different people have different tastes. And for that matter, not even the Prophet and his Companions ate meat all the time; it was only once in a while that they did, not every day. Some Muslims seem to be under the impression that eating meat is the sixth pillar of Islam or something, but clearly there is no reason for thinking so.

The one overall guideline on food that the Prophet gave was: Eat of what is halâl and what is agreeable to you. That says it all. Within the wide range of halâl food, each individual can choose to eat whatever suits him or her.

If people want to follow the Prophet's sunnah of eating, consider this: The Prophet ate what he liked and he left aside what he didn't like. That's all we vegetarians are doing! Furthermore, he never coerced anyone else into eating what they didn't like. How about imitating this sunnah?

There was a Bedouin tribe whose custom it was to eat lizards, and the Prophet never forbade them from doing so. But he himself would never eat a lizard. This shows that just because something is "halâl," that doesn't require you to eat it if you don't want to.

The bottom line is: no one has the authority to dictate to you what halâl food you can choose to put into your body. I slamic law is completely neutral on this issue; it is only a private matter for each individual to decide for his or her self.

Moreover, note that the Qur'ân does not simply say to eat halâl meat: it says to eat what is good and wholesome (tayyib), and what is halâl. Therefore, if any food is not tayyib, the Qur'ân does not encourage us to eat it. Considering the diseases linked with meat eating (hardening of the arteries, which causes circulatory failure and stroke, in addition to other ills; gout; E. coli infection; and Mad Cow Disease), the hormones artificially put into animals, the filthy conditions of feedlots and slaughterhouses, and the danger of meat going bad, I can only conclude that meat does not pass the test of being tayyib, so Muslims are better off without it.

Ever since I became vegetarian, I feel lighter, fresher, happier, healthier. I can think better. Now, who will argue with that? :-)

Hadith on Milk, Ghee and Beef

This comes from the famous hadith collection Zâd al-ma‘âd by Ibn Qayyim. I have been all through the many hadith books and I have never found any saying that the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, ate beef. In fact, he advised against it. If this guidance from the Prophet would be better known, then it could really help to ease the tensions between Hindus and Muslims over the beef issue, if the Muslims would leave off eating beef on the advice of their own Prophet. Let there be peace and harmony between Hindus and Muslims, peace and harmony in the whole world. I wish that could come true!

First, the hadith in the original Arabic:

‘an suhayb Allâh ‘anhu yarfa‘uhu:

‘alaykum bi-laban al-baqar fa-innahâ shifâ' wa-samnuhâ dawâ' wa-lahmuhâ dâ'.

The Urdu translation:

hazrat suhaib raziyallâhu ‘anh se rivâyat hai keh huzûr-e akram sallá Allâh ‘alaihi va-sallam ne farmâyâ:

"gâ'î kâ dûdh isti‘mâl karnâ lâzim pakaR lo, kyûnkeh us men shifâ hai, aur us ke ghî men davâ kî tâsîr hai, aur us ke gosht men rog hai."

Free translation in English:

The Prophet, peace be upon him, said:

"You should use cows' milk, because it is good for health, and cows' ghee is good for health, but beef is bad for health."

Actually, the literal meaning of the words the Prophet used is much stronger than that. He said that milk is "healing," ghee is "medicine," and beef is "disease."

Urdu commentary by Hafiz Nazr Ahmad:

mustadrak-e hakîm kî kitâbuttibb men pahlî hadîs yeh hai keh rasûlullâh sallallâhu ‘alaihi va-sallam ne farmâyâ, "allâh ne ko'î bîmârî nahîn utârî jis kî davâ nah utârî ho, aur gâ'î ke dûdh men har bîmârî se shifâ kî tâsîr hai." us kitâb kî tîsrî hadîs men shifâ kî vajah yeh farmâ'î, "kyûnkeh gâ'î har dirakht se cartî hai -- fa-innahâ tarummu min kull shajar."

yeh ek haqîqat hai keh ûnT, bhens, bheR, bakrî, aur dusre tamâm janvaron ke muqâbalah men gâ'î kâ dûdh sab se a‘lá hai. tamâm mazarrat se pâk hai aur muta‘addid ‘avâriz ke liye shifâ bakhsh hai. gâ'î ke dûdh kâ makkhan aur ghî bhî kitnî hî bîmâriyon kâ mudâvâ hain. atibbâ' ba-taur-i davâ tajvîz karte hain. dûsrî taraf gâ'î kâ gosht garm hai, aur apnî garm tâsîr ke bâ‘is ba‘z-i ‘avâriz paidâ kartâ hai. lekin hamain yeh bât hargiz farâmosh nah karnî câhi'e keh gâ'î halâl hai aur kisî halâl shai ko apne aur harâm qarâr dene kî hargiz ijâzat nahîn. tibbî nuktah-i nazar se isti‘mâl aur ‘adam-i isti‘mâl kî sûrat aur hai.

In the Book of Medicine of the Mustadrak al-Hakîm [a classical hadith commentary by al-Hakîm al-Nîsaburî], the first hadith is: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings upon him, said: "Allah did not create any disease without creating its cure; and in cows' milk is a cure for every disease." The third hadith in this book says on the subject of healing: "Because the cow grazes from every kind of plant."

It is a fact that, compared to that of camels, buffaloes, sheep, goats, and all other animals, cows' milk is superior. It is free from everything harmful and provides healing for various illnesses. The butter and ghee from cows' milk are a treatment for several more diseases. Physicians prescribe it as medicine. On the other hand, beef is hot in nature, and its heat causes some diseases to occur. But we should not neglect that beef is halâl and it is not permissible to declare that something halâl is harâm. From the medical point of view, the question of using it or not using it is another thing.

This hadith and commentrary were published in a book called Tibb-i nabavî by Hâfiz Nazr Ahmad (Dihlî: Varld Islâmik Pablikeshanz, 1982), p. 226.