Rabia of Basra
Eighth-century Iraqi Sufi mystic and poet whose teaching of mahabba — pure, disinterested love of God 'for God's sake alone, not for fear of hell or hope of heaven' — became one of the foundational threads of Islamic mysticism and influenced every later Sufi master. Born around 717 CE in Basra (modern-day Iraq), she was orphaned young, sold into slavery, and (according to traditional accounts) freed by her master after he witnessed her in nightlong prayer surrounded by light. She lived the rest of her life in voluntary poverty, refusing all marriage offers (including from the great Hasan al-Basri), eating little, sleeping less, and pouring her life into love of God. She died around 801 CE in Basra. Her poetic prayers and sayings, preserved in collections by later Sufi biographers (notably Farid al-Din Attar in the Memorial of the Friends of God), have been translated and re-translated across twelve centuries — and remain among the most-quoted texts on the love of God in any tradition.
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Quotes by Rabia of Basra
107 quotes“They asked, Where is your home? I said, In the heart of the Beloved.”
“My peace is in solitude. My friend is in the desert.”
“I have made out of His love a friend who never sleeps.”
“And His remembrance is the company that does not depart.”
“In love, there are no questions and no answers.”
“There is only the silent kiss of the Beloved on the lips of the lover.”
“They asked, Hast thou ever sinned? I said, Such a question I dare not consider.”
“For if I had been free from sin, my Lord would not have shown me the door of repentance.”
“And if my Lord had not opened that door, I would never have known His mercy.”
“Refuge in Him from all but Him.”
“My family is the Beloved.”
“Marriage would distract me from the One who is my husband, my child, my mother, my father, my friend.”
“I am not for any man.”
“My poverty is my pride.”
“What I lack in this world, I gain in the next.”
“What you call poverty, I call freedom.”
“What you call lack, I call enough.”
“What you call alone, I call with the Beloved.”
“O God, if I worship Thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell.”
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