Rābiʻa the Mystic & her fellow-saints in Islam

Preface

K of Basra, the subject of this memoir, has long been known to students of Sūfism, and to a lesser extent to those interested in Mysticism generally, as a unique personality among the early Süfts, one who, in spite of her early date—she died in A.D. 801—was a true mystic. The material for this account of her life and teachings is derived from one or two short biographical notices and from scattered references to be found in Arab and Persian writers on Süfism and is the first biography of this early Muslim saint to appear, which aims at being complete, so far as the sources at present available make this possible.

In the compiling of this biography, originally undertaken for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London, I have been indebted for valuable references to Professor L: Massignon, of the Collége de France, and to Prof. Ritter of Constantinople, and I take this opportunity of offering my thanks to both of these distinguished scholars.

My grateful thanks are due also to Sir Thomas Arnold, from whom I have had constant help and advice in the writing of this memoir, and to Professor Nicholson of Cambridge, whose writings first inspired me to study Süfism, and whose unrivalled knowledge of the subject has been most generously placed at my disposal for the purposes of this book.

"MARGARET SMITH

London, June 1928

Table Of Contents

Survey of Sources : : s ‘ : f page xiii

Part One

Chapter I. The place of women among the Süfis. High place given to Rabi‘a of Basra. Her birth and early years. Period in slavery. Release and devotion to the ascetic life. Legend of Rabi‘a and Ibrahim b. Adham I

\/ Chapter II. Offers of marriage. Choice of celibacy. Her associates. Hasan of Basra. Rabah al-Qays. Sufyān al-Thawrī. Dhū al-Nün. Women associates IO Chapter III. Asceticism of Rabi‘a. Fasting. Dependence

on God. Renunciation. Resignation to the Will of God.

Prayer-life .. ; i . : A : ; 20

Chapter IV. The miracles of Muslim saints. Story of a thief. Miracle of the twenty loaves. Miracle of the bird and the onion. Rābiʻ2’s friendship with the wild animals. Miraculous flight of locusts. Restoration of a dead camel to life. Flying on a prayer-mat. Miraculous provision of light. The pot that boiled without a fire . 31

V” Chapter V. Rabi‘a’s declining years. Her attitude towards death. Rābi'a's last illness. Visits from her friends. Her last moments. Appearance in visions after her death ; i : : . : ; 39 x TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part Two

Chapter VI. Estimate of Rabi‘a’s teaching by the Sifi writers. Brief outline of Süfi doctrine. The Way and its stages. The Goal . : . . A . Page 47 lāčus VII. Repentance. The Sifidoctrine. Rabi‘a’s teaching. Anecdotes. of Ibn Mansūr and Sufyàn al- Thawrī. Rābi'a's view of Sin. Patience. Al-Qushayri’s and al-Ghazālī's view of Patience as essential to Faith. Rabi‘a’s practice and teaching. Gratitude. Al-Qushayri’s definition. Rābi'a's teaching. No Pantheism in her views É . i i i ; A

Chapter VIII. Hope and Fear. Teaching of al-Hujwīrī and al-Sarraj. Al-Qushayri’s definition of Hope. Eschatological teaching of the Süfis. Rabi‘a’s loftier conception

J Chapter IX. Poverty. Sūfī estimation of the poor. Comparison with Christian doctrine. Rābi'a and the Poverty of the adept. Renunciation. Views of Süfi writers. Merging of the personal will in the Will of God. Dependence upon God. Rabi'a's teaching on other-worldliness. Account of Rabi‘a’s vision ;

Chapter X. Love, including satisfaction, longing and intimacy. Satisfaction, two-sided. Al-Hujwiri’s classification of the satisfied. Longing. Abū Sa‘id’s conception of longing. Intimacy. The Süficonception of Love. Al-Hujwiri’s view. The effect of Love. The Vision Beautiful. The attainment of Union. Rābi'a”s doctrine of disinterested love. Her teaching on Satisfaction. On Longing. Her verses on Intimacy. Various accounts of her teaching on Love. Her verses on the two loves. Abū Tālib's commentary on these verses. Al- Ghazili’s explanation of the verses. Comparison of the Sifi view of the Vision with that of Plotinus. Summary of Rabi‘a’s teaching on Love. The attainment of the Goal .

TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

Part Three

Chapter XI. The position of woman in Muslim lands in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times. Principle of female descent and the woman’s dominance in marriage. Independent spirit of Bedouin women. Buhaysa bint Aws b. Hāritha. Story of Salma bint ‘Amr. ‘A’isha bint Yahya. ‘A’isha bint Talha. Degradation of women under the Islamic régime. Better condition of Muslim women where Muhammadan legislation has been ignored. The * Atāyfa” of Arabia and Dongola. The Berber women and the modern Tuaregs. Muslim views of woman’s incapacity for religion. Admission by some Muslim writers of woman’s right to spiritual blessings page 111

Chapter XII. The position of the woman saint. Umm Haram of Cyprus. Rābi'a bint Isma‘il of Syria. Mu‘adha al-Adawiyya of Basra. Sha*wana the Persian. The Lady Nafisa. Ishi Nili of Nīshāpūr. The Shaykhas. Fatima, daughter of Shah Jahan. ‘A’isha bint M. b. ‘Abd Allah of Morocco. Sidqi the Turkish Süfi poetess. xd al-‘Ayn the Babi martyr . i „137

Chapter XIII. Celibacy in Islam. Orthodox views. Süfi preference for the celibate life. Celibacy and the monastic life among women. Early convents for women in Egypt. In Mecca and North Africa . . 165

Chapter XIV. The Communion of Saints in Islam. Visions of Rabi‘a and Sha^wana after their death. Reverence for the shrines of saints. The tombs of Fatima and the women of the Prophet’s family. Shrines of women saints in Syria. Tombs of Indian women saints. Shrine of Lalla Imma Tifellūt and other Kabyle tombs . $ : i : : : : . 176

SR b xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter XV. The cult of the saints in modern Islam. The Dervish orders. The Qadiriyya. The Rifa‘iyya. The Khalwatiyya. The Suhrawardiyya. The Mevlevis. Local orders. The Chishti of India. The Sanüssi. Organisations of the orders. Women adherents of Dervish orders. Dervish practices. The Dhikr. The Mawlid. Mawlids of Sayyida Zaynab and Lalla Imma Tifellàt. Modern shrines. The Magām. The Wali. The Hawitha. Sacred trees associated with saint-worship. Mysticism and the cult of the saints the most vital elements in Islam of to-day . page 190

List of Authors Quoted

Index .

SURVEY OF SOURCES he sources from which information is to be derived about

the life and teachings of Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya give us evidence which at the best is fragmentary and in many cases unreliable, chiefly because her biographers lived at a considerable distance of time after her death, and legend has played at least as great a part as history in the account given of the story of her life. This, however, is no uncommon thing where saints are concerned, be they Muslim or Christian, and the accounts given shew us at least the estimation in which Rābi'a was held by those who came after her, and are a clear indication that she had a great reputation during her life-time. Belonging to the sex to which Muslim theologians commonly attributed little capacity for thought, and less for religion, only a woman of outstanding character and gifts could have won a place among the greatest of the Süfi teachers, renowned as much for her teaching as for the blameless sanctity of her life.

A small point, but one of great significance, is that she is constantly referred to by later writers as “Rabi‘a” pure and simple, proving that both to the writers and to those for whom they wrote, she was a personality too well known to need further description.

The earliest writer who mentions her is a/-Japiz (the Goggleeyed) of Basra (0b. A.D. 869), a well-known thinker, who gave his name to a sect of the Mu'tazilites. He wrote the Kstab al-Hayawan ( = The Book of Animals) and the Kitāb a/-Bayan wa al-Tabyin, a popular book on rhetoric. In both of these he mentions Rābi'a al-Qaysiyya. His references to her are of the first importance, because of his early date, and the fact that he may have known Rābi'a in his early childhood and in any case is likely to have known those who were personally acquainted with her. As a native of Basra, her own city, he would be in close touch with all types of religious thought and religious thinkers in that place.

I See pp. 133 ff.

xiv RABI‘A THE MYSTIC

Abi Nasr al-Sarraj (ob. A.D. 988), who was born at Tis, and was surnamed the “Peacock of the Poor”,! mentions Rābi'a once in his Kz/ab al-Luma‘, one of the earliest treatises on Sūfism, which it was the author's intention to justify as being in accordance with the Ourān and the Traditions, and as the knowledge directly revealed by God to His saints.* Al-Sarrāj is concerned to give the views of Sūfī thinkers, not his own theories. He quotes from both books and oral traditions and in most cases states his authorities. Because of his early date and also because of his method of dealing with his subject, al-Sarrāj's work is of great importance, though not so complete or so clear a statement of Süfi doctrine as the Ost alQulub of his contemporary Abū Talib, nor so concise and readable as the Risā/a of al-Qushayri.3

Abū Talib al-Makki (ob. A.D. 996), an ascetic who lived and taught in Mecca, Basra and Baghdad, was the author of the Oūt al-Qulib ( = The Food of the Hearts), another very early treatise on Süfism, and in it he mentions Rabi‘a al-Adawiyya several times, giving incidents from her life, referring to her associates and, most valuable of all, quoting her well-known verses on the “two loves",* and giving his own comments on these verses at considerable length. Abū Talib is a Safi author of great authority, and he is also a careful writer, for we note that he admits that different authors have been suggested for the vetses above mentioned, but he himself believes that Rabi‘a was responsible for them.

Another Süfi writer contemporary with these two was M. b. I. al-Kalabadhi (ob. c. A.D. 1000), the author of the “Kitab al- Ta‘arruf li-Madhab ahl al-Tasawwuf” ( = Book of Enquiry as to the Religion of the Süfis) and the “‘ Ma‘ani al-Akhbar” ( = The Hidden Meanings of the Traditions), which are to be found only in MS. Both of these contain references to Rabi‘a, and the former includes a version of her poem on Love, which gives a slightly different reading from that of Abi Talib.

I Jami, NNafahāt al-Uns, p. 319. No reason is given for the title.

2 Kitab al-Luma', p. 203.

3 See below, p. xv. 4 See p. 102.

SURVEY OF SOURCES XV

Al-Hamādhānī (ob. A.D. 1007), surnamed the “ Wonder of the Age", a native of Ecbatāna, in his “Shakwa al-Gharib” ( = Complaint of the Stranger), of which only MSS. are available, speaks of Rābi'a's engagement to ‘Abd al-Wāhid b. Zayd, who was her contemporary and one of the same school of thought.

Abū Nu'aym al-Isfahani (ob. A.D. 1038) was one of the earliest to write a biography of the saints and his “Hilya al-Awliyā”, known also as the “Hilya al-Abrar”, is an authority of the greatest importance. There are several references to Rābiʻa in Abū Nu‘aym’s accounts of other early Sūfīs and there is said to be a complete biography of her in one of the MSS. of this work in Constantinople, but I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of it. If it could be found, it would probably throw much light on Rabi‘a’s life and teachings, as being the earliest biography of her available. |

A very important authority is Abū a/-Oāsim al-Qusbayri (ob. A.D. 1074), who was born at Naysábür in A.H. 986. He made a study of Islamic mysticism and was also a teacher of the Traditions at Baghdad towards the end of his life. His Résd/a ( = Treatise) is one of the most valuable books of reference on Süfism written in Arabic and that he is a conscientious and reliable writer is proved by the fact that he is careful to quote his authorities and in the case of a traditional statement to give the chain of witnesses back to the original speaker. In the Risāla he mentions Rābi'a frequently, quoting her teaching or some anecdote illustrating her practice, in connection with most of the stages of the mystic Way. As we have noted, she is accepted by these leading writers as a Süfi teacher of recognised authority.

Among the minor authorities who mention Rābi'a is a/- Sarrāj al-Oārī (ob. A.D. 1106) of Baghdad, the writer of the Masari‘ aL-Usbsbáq (= Poems about Lovers), including an account of a dream of Rabi'a's not given by any earlier writer and an anecdote found also in Abū Nu‘aym’s “ Hilya”’.

AI-Ghazali (ob. A.D. 1111), surnamed the “Proof of Islam”, was born at Tüs in A.D. 1059 and is such an outstanding figure in Islamic literature that his testimony to Rābi'a is of the greatest value. He was a lecturer at Naysābūr and later a professor at Baghdad. Having turned from orthodox Islam to the study of xvi RABI‘A THE MYSTIC

Süfism, which he made it his business to reconcile, so far as he could, with the traditional faith, he went to live in Damascus, and after visiting Jerusalem and Alexandria, returned to his native town and died there. His greatest work is the I?yā ‘Uliim al-Din ( = The Revivification of the Religious Sciences), in which he sets forth the Süfi doctrine as he conceived it, quoting in all cases the early Süfi teachers as his authorities. His work is scholarly and critical in the highest degree and he is too careful a writer for his conclusions not to be accepted as representing all the sources and knowledge to be obtained in his time, while his wide learning and also his extensive travels put a great deal of material at his disposal. He refers to Rābi'a (without any further distinguishing title) among the leading teachers of Süfism and accepts her teaching and her views as of at least equal authority with those of the great mystic shaykhs. He quotes the verses already referred to,* and gives his own interpretation of them. It is on the stage of Love (on the mystic Way) that he considers her views as most important, and this is of great interest as an indication of her special contribution to this doctrine.3

The Persian writer M. b. al-Munawwar (ob. A.D. 1203) mentions Rābi'a in his Asrār al-Tawhid (= The Secrets of Unification), which is an account of the life and sayings of his greatgrandfather, the mystic Abū Sa‘id b. Abi al-Khayr, a very well-known Süfi teacher who died in A.D. 1049, and whose quatrains represent some of the most exquisite Persian mystical poetry that is known. The Asrār al-Tawbid sets forth very clearly the mystical doctrines of the Süfis of this period, based open the teaching of those earlier Süfis of Rabi‘a’s time.

I. A. A. b. Ghanim al-Maqdisi (ob. c. A.D. 1279) wrote a considerable number of works on Mysticism, amongst them the **Kashf al-Asrar wa manāgib al Abrār” (= The Unveiling of Mysteries and the Merits of the Righteous) in which he devotes a page to Rābi'a, giving some verses of hers not found in any othre writer, but found in a very corrupt form in a MS. without title or author, under the heading “Tawba Rābi'a al-Adawiyya? ( = The Conversion of Rābi'a al-‘Adawiyya).4 The lines as given by Maqdisi

I See above, p. xiii. 2 See above, p. xiv. 3 See Part 11, Chapter x. 4 Berlin, Bibl. Wetg stein, II, 230.

SURVEY OF SOURCES xvii are quite characteristic of Rabi‘a and it seems probable that both these and the whole poem quoted in a corrupt form by this unnamed writer, are derived from some oldet source, now missing. The “Kashf al-Asrar” and the “Tawba” are found only in MS.

By far the most extensive and complete biography of Rabi‘a extant is that of the Persian poet Farid al-Din ‘Attar (ob. A.D. = 1230), who was born near Nīshāpūr about A.D. 1120. He followed the calling of a druggist when young, hence his surname of ‘Attar, but later became a contemplative and gained a deep knowledge of Süfism. His Tadbkirat al- Awliyā ( = The Memoirs of the Saints) is the oldest book in Persian dealing exclusively with the lives of the saints. He gives no precise indication of the sources upon which he drew for his information, but no doubt he used earlier biographies or treatises on Süfism available to him, such as the *Hilyaal-Awliya" of Abū Nu‘aym and the Risāla of al-Qushayri already referred to. He is at pains to make his biographies as complete as possible, giving a full account not only of the lives of his subjects, but of their reputed miracles and their sayings and teachings, so that we may assume that he searched all possible sources in pursuit of information and doubtless he had access to documents long since destroyed. Obviously, legends had grown up around the memory of the saints he portrayed and he has not hesitated to insert them, and probably to add considerably to them, along with what may well rest on historical facts and, for the modern student of his work, it is no easy task to disentangle the two. Yet by inference we may find corroboration for many of his statements, apart from any documentary confirmation, e.g. he speaks of Rabi‘a as having been a slave in her youth and gives a circumstantial account of the events which led to her being sold into slavery and what brought about her manumission. Other writers describe her as a freed woman. Now, it is a curious fact that Rabi‘a, though given a tribal surname, is never called by the name of her father, as every unmarried Muslim woman is, to the present day. Her namesake, Rabi‘a of Syria, who died fifty years before our Rābi'a, is always called Rabi‘a bint Ismā'īl ( = daughter of

1 See pp. 140 ff.

xviii RABI‘A THE MYSTIC

Ishmael) and details are given of her parentage. The fact that Rābi'a has no patronymic and is called only by the name of her tribe, is strong evidence of her having been a slave and therefore of no known parentage. The same would be the case to-day, in countries where slavery is prevalent or has prevailed up to recent years.

Again, a Muslim freewoman in practice is always under the guardianship of a male relative, father, husband, brother or uncle, and this guardian has the right to marry his ward to whom he will, and though technically, according to Muslim law, her consent is necessary, actually she will not be allowed to remain unmarried. There is no suggestion in any of the biographies that Rabi‘a was under any such guardianship, and on the contrary it is plain that she was free to refuse the offers of marriage made to her,! and that she could—and did—live the celibate life is again strong proof that she had no known relatives, in her youth at least, to oblige her to follow the invariable custom for Muslim womanhood. A freed slave would be able to choose for herself and none would have the right to coerce her. So in this respect *Attār's account is supported by other circumstances.

A Süfi writer of considerable importance was Shihab al-Din ‘Umar b. A. al-Subrawardi (ob. A.D. 1234), who studied Süfism in Basra, and was later known as a preacher and teacher in Baghdad. His best known work is the ‘Awarif al-Ma‘arif ( = The Bounties of Knowledge) and in this he mentions Rabi‘a and quotes her teaching several times. |

J. Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi (ob. A.D. 1257) was the author of the ** Mir’at al-Zamān” (= The Mirror of the Age), containing a biography of Rabi‘a of considerable length, which is of importance because it is most probably derived from the “‘Safwa al-Safwa" ( = The Cream of the Cream) by his grandfather Ibn al-Jawzi, which is a résumé of the “Hilya” of Abū Nu'aym. No available MS. of the “Safwa al-Safwa” contains the biography of Rabi‘a which is known to form part of the complete work, and therefore this account, though at second-hand, is of interest.

One of the most famous of Rabi‘a’s biographers is Ibn Khallikan (ob. A.D. 1282), who was born at Arbela in A.D. 1211. After

1 See Part 1, Chapter 11.

SURVEY OF SOURCES xix living for a time at Aleppo and Damascus, he went to Cairo and there began his great biographical dictionary, the Wafayat al-A‘ydn ( = Obituaries of Eminent Men). In his preface he explains clearly his motive and his method. He says that he adopted the alphabetical order, because he judged it to be more convenient than the chronological (which is the order we usually find employed by Oriental biographers). He says further:

I have spoken of all these whose names are familiar to the public and about whom questions are frequently asked... .I have fixed, with all possible exactness, the dates of their birth and death; I have traced up their genealogy as high as I could. . .and I have cited the traits which may best serve to characterize each individual, such as noble actions, singular anecdotes, verses and letters, so that the reader may derive amusement from my work.: Unfortunately, in his account of Rabi‘a, he has confused her to some extent with Rābi'a, sometimes spelt Rā iy‘a, bint Isma*il of Syria: At the same time, his notice of her is very valuable, because he gives his sources and it is possible therefore to fall back on earlier authorities to supplement his statements. Ibn Khallikān has put posterity under a great obligation to him for his invaluable work.

A well-known chronicler who mentions Rābi'a is a/-Dhahabi (ob. A.D. 1348), who in his Mizdn al-I‘tidal ( = The Balance of the Equilibrium) quotes the opinion of her held by the traditionist Abū Dawid (ob. A.D. 889).

The Sufi writer M. b. a/-H. b. Al al-Isnani Imad al-Din (ob. A.D. 1363), who studied in Cairo and Damascus and was also for some time a professor at Hamat, was the author of the Haya al-Oulūb ( = The Life of the Hearts) in which Rābi'a's eschatological teaching is referred to.

Another of these later Süfi writers was Yafi% al-Sbafi'i (ob. A.D. 1367), who was born in Yemen and travelled to Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo, and died in Mecca. He wrote extensively and in his Rawd a/-Riyabin fi bikāyāt al-Salibin (= The Garden of the Perfumes in the Lives of the Virtuous”) he gives several of Rabi‘a’s sayings.

Among the Persian biographers who mention Rābi'a is Aflākī, contemporary with these two last mentioned. He was a Mevlevi

1 Ibn Khallikān, ed. de Slane, 1, p. 3.

XX RABI‘A THE MYSTIC dervish, who wrote a history of Jalal al-Din Rimi and his successors called *Manàqib al-‘Arifin” (= The Merits of the Gnostics) which is not very exact chronologically, but contains some interesting anecdotes, including one of Rabi‘a not found elsewhere. Aflaki spent the years from A.D. 1310 tO A.D. 1353 in compiling this history, but though he claims to have obtained his information from trustworthy witnesses, much of what he writes is plainly incredible.

A writer who has a good deal to say of Rabi‘a and quotes as hers verses not given elsewhere is a/-Hurayfish (ob. A.D. 1398), an Egyptian. He wrote A/-Raw4 al-Fa’iq ( = The Super-Excellent Garden), a collection of anecdotes about famous men and women, and apart from his specific account of Rābi'a, his personal opinion which prefaces it is interesting because in it he takes pains to prove that God had bestowed His favours and promises upon women, equally with men. He makes at least one mistake in regard to Rābi'a, but there is little evidence for or against his credibility as a whole.

A late writer Tagi al-Din al-Hisni (ob. A.D. 1426), of aus has written a whole book on the virtuous women of Islām called the **Siyar al-Salihat” (= Lives of Good Women), which contains an account of Rābi'a, but not very much that is otiginal. He has evidently derived his information from both al-Jahiz and Ibn Khallikān, but his book is interesting because he has thought it worth while to devote a whole volume to the women saints and has found no lack of material.

The Persian ‘Abd al-Rabmdan, surnamed Jami from his birth-place in Khorasan (ob. A.D. 1492), was a man of great learning and a poet, and among his books wrote a history of famous saints entitled Nafabat al-Uns ( = The Breaths of Fellowship) which includes a section devoted to women, the first of whom is Rabi‘a al-Adawiyya. This history is a recension of an earlier work, the “'Tabaqat al-Süfiyya" (= The Classes of the Süfis) by ‘Abd Allah b. Muhammad al-Ansārī (0b. A.D. 1088) which Jami originally intended to re-edit,! but actually he limits himself to only the most prominent personalities among the Sifis. These *'Tabaqat" exist in MS. in Calcutta, but there is no copy

1 Nafabat al-Uns, p. 2.

SURVEY OF SOURCES xxi available in Europe. Another still earlier source, which he mentions in connection with the women saints, is the “'Tabaqat al-Sūfiyya ” of Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmaan al-Sulami (ob. A.D. 1021), which is extant in MS. but not in a complete form. Jami also made use of Yāfiī' and Hujwiri? and a number of other Süfi authors, including Ibn al-‘Arabi.3 Jami is undoubtedly a reputable authority and his wide learning and great ability would enable him to make the fullest use of all sources available in his time.

A writer, who has been described as the “last great Muhammadan theosophist", “Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha‘rani (ob. A.D. 1565), though a weavet by trade, living in Old Cairo, yet became a man of great learning.* He has devoted some space in his Lavāgib al--Amvār (= The Manifestation of the Luminous Truths), otherwise called the a/-Tabagāt al-Kubra ( = The Great Classes), to women saints, including Rabi‘a, but he gives more details concerning women of Egypt, which is natural enough, since he was in a position to gain first-hand information about them, and their shrines, in many cases, were still in existence and were places of pilgrimage in his time. He derived some of his information from the "Futūhāt al-Makkiyya” (= The Meccan Revelations) of Ibn al-‘Arabi (ob. A.D. 1240).

Dawid al-Antaki (ob. A.D. 1599), a late writer, who was born in Antioch and died at Mecca, wrote the Taz yin al- Aswvāg (= The Adorning of the Markets) for which he made use of al-Sarraj’s Masari‘ already mentioned,5 but obviously he had other sources as well. He does not mention Rābi'a by name, but gives some verses by an unnamed woman which he links up with Rabifa's well-known lines on the “two loves”, attributing all to one unnamed author. His testimony is therefore very uncertain and, in the absence of confirmation from more reliable sources, cannot be accepted without qualification.

An authority who is important, though so late as to be classed among modern writers, is “Abd al-Ra’uf al-Mundwi (ob. A.D. 1622) of Cairo, who was a iz: writer. Among his works is “ Al-

1 See above, Leet 2 See below, p. xxii.

3 For a complete list of Jami’s sources see W. Iranon, J.A.S. Bengal, xviii, pp. 386 ff. ; XIX, pp. 298 ff.

4 Cf. R. A. Nicholson, Literary History of the Arabs, p. 464. 5 See above, p. xv.

xxii RABI‘A THE MYSTIC

Kawākib al-Durriya” (= The Glittering Stars), in which he gives an account at length of several women saints, including Rābi'a al-‘Adawiyya. Munāvī is a careful writer, and takes pains to avoid the confusion between the two Rabi'as, into which several writers have fallen. He mentions Ibn al-Jawzi as a source for Rabi‘a’s biography and has evidently consulted al-Jāhiz and al-Qushayri; his account is valuable, including much that is not found elsewhere, and it is probable that he had access to sources now lost and unavailable. Since his method is definitely critical, we may suppose that he took pains to consult sources which he believed to be authentic.

The above represent the chief sources for Rabi‘a’s life and teachings, and for the accounts of other women saints included in this book. With regard to Süfi doctrine, in addition to the works of Abū Talib, al-Kalābādhī, Abū Nu‘aym, al-Qushayri and al-Ghazali and others already mentioned, another early writer, who does not mention Rābi'a, is quoted, namely a/- Hujwiri (ob. c. A.D. 1079). He was born at Ghazna and was contemporary with al-Qushayri. He died at Lahore. In his great work, the Kashf al-Mabjub (= The Unveiling of the Veiled), his aim is not, like that of al-Sarraj in the Kitāb a/-Luma‘,' merely to report the opinions of previous Süfi thinkers, but to set forth an exhaustive treatise on Stfi doctrine, including his own personal views. He was already acquainted with the Kitab al-Luma‘ and he also quotes from the ** Tabagāt” of al-Sulami,? and the Risāla of al-Qushayri. As the oldest treatise in Persian on Sūfism the Kashf al-Mabjub is a work of the greatest value to all interested in the early development of mysticism in Islam. 3

There are certain sources for the life and teachings of Rābi'a which at present are unavailable and which might be of the greatest value if they could be discovered.

The first of these is the ** Manāgib Rabi‘a” ( = Biography (lit. Merits) of Rabi‘a), which has been heard of and presumably is in existence, but so far has baffled all efforts for its discovery.

1 See above, p. xiv. 2 See below, p. xxiii.

3 For an account of al-Hujwiri and his writings see Kashf al- Mabjūb, Translator’s Preface. This work is available in an English translation by a master-hand, that of Professor R. A. Nicholson of Cambridge.