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Rabia Basri

Female Sufi scholar and saint (died 801)

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Biography

Very little is known about the life of Rabi'a, notes Rkia Elaroui Cornell.

What historical information can be ascertained from the earliest sources on Rabi'a? As stated above, there is very little except to confirm that a Muslim woman ascetic and teacher named Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya or Rabi'a al-Qaysiyya (the name 'Adawiyya refers to her clan and the name Qaysiyya refers to her tribe) lived in or around the city of Basra in southern Iraq in the eighth century CE. [...] The commonly accepted birth date of 717 CE and death date of 801 CE come from a much later period and the ultimate source of these dates is unclear.

Cornell further notes that she was mentioned by two early Basran authors. "Because of this, they were familiar with her reputation. This local reputation is the best empirical evidence we have that Rabi'a actually existed." She also writes, "To date, no written body of work has been linked conclusively to Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya."

Despite this, narratives about Rabiʿa grew over the centuries, and a considerable hagiography developed. Attar of Nishapur, a Sufi saint and poet who lived some four centuries later, recounted a now-famous story of her early life. Many of her hagiographies depict her using literary or philosophical tropes where she, like her Christian counterparts, embodied idealized religious individuals.

According to Margaret Smith, she is said to have died in Basra in 185 AH/801 CE. Others report that she passed around 180 AH, at about 80 years old.

In his work, Dhikr al-niswat al-mutaʿabbidāt al-ṣūfiyyāt (pp. 27, 54, 59), Sulamī mentions two other female Sufis with the same name besides Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya. One of them is Rābiʿa al-Azdiyya from Basra, the wife of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd (d. 177/793), one of the famous Sufis of the time, and the other is Aḥmad b. Abū al-Ḥawārī's wife was Rābiʿa bint Ismāʿīl of Damascus (d. 228/844). The existence of three different Rābiʿas in the same period has led to conflicting information about Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya in the sources.

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