Rabi'a al-Adawiyya's Devotion to God
Keywords:
Purification, Rabia's Teaching Methodology, Ecological Implications of SainthoodAbstract
It took Ibrahim Ibn Adhem fourteen years to reach the Kaaba in pilgrimage, because he said long prayers at every shrine along the way ... but when he got there, there was no Kaaba to be seen. "What is this?" he asked himself. "Have I gone blind?"."No," a Voice said, "you can't see the Kaaba because it has gone out to meet a woman." Burning with jealousy, Ibrahim ran toward the outskirts of Mecca till he ran into Rabi'a, who was just arriving. He turned around, and saw the Kaaba back in its usual place. Then he turned to Rabi'a.
References
Qur'an 51:20-21: AI-Our' an, translated by Ahmed Ali (Prince- ton University Press. 1988).
Mircea Elide. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. translated by Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1959). p. 213.
Maria Harris' adaption of Christopher Loque's poem Ode to the Dodo, quoted in Harri,' book. Women and Teaching New York: Paul's Press, 1998)" pp. 72-73.
Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs (New York: St. Martin', Press, 1967).
Annemarie Schimmel. Mystical dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1986), p. 40. 5. Upton, Doorkeeper, p, 30.
Charles Upton. Doorkeeper of the Heart : Versions of Rabi'a (Vermont: Threshold. 1987). pp, 10-11.
Idries Shah, The Sufis. with an Introduction by Robert Graves (New York: Double- day, 1971), quoting Rabi'a, p. 186.
Margaret Smith, Rllbi'a the Mystic And Her Fellow Saints in Islam (Cambridge University Press, 1928).
