Rabe’a Al-’Adawiya & Al-Hasan Al-Basri

Once Rabe’a passed by Hasan’s house. Hasan had his head out of the window and was weeping, and his tears fell on Rabe’a’s dress. Looking up, she thought at first that it was rain; then, realizing that it wasHasan’s tears, she turned to him and addressed him.“Master, this weeping is a sign of spiritual languor.Guard your tears, so that there may surge within you such a sea that, seeking the heart therein, you shall not find it save in the keeping of a King Omnipotent’.”These words distressed Hasan, but he kept his peace.

Then one day he saw Rabe’a when she was near a lake.Throwing his prayer rug on the surface of the water, he called,“Rabe’a, come! Let us pray two rak’as here!”

“Hasan,” Rabe’a replied, “when you are showing off your spiritual goods in this worldly market, it should be things that your fellow-men are incapable of displaying.”And she flung her prayer rug into the air, and flew upon it.“Come up here, Hasan, where people can see us!”she cried.Hasan, who had not attained that station, said nothing.Rabe’a sought to console him.“Hasan,” she said, “what you did fishes also do, and what I did flies also do. The real business is outside both these tricks. One must apply one’s self to the real business.”

Once Rabe’a sent Hasan three things—a piece of wax, a needle, and a hair.“Be like wax,” she said. “Illumine the world, and yourself burn. Be like a needle, always be working naked. When you have done these two things, a thousand years will be for you as a hair.”

“Do you desire for us to get married?” Hasan asked Rabe’a.“The tie of marriage applies to those who have being,” Rabe’a replied. “Here being has disappeared,for I have become naughted to self and exist only through Him. I belong wholly to Him. I live in the shadow of His control. You must ask my hand of Him,not of me.”

“How did you find this secret, Rabe’a?” Hasan asked.“I lost all ‘found’ things in Him,” Rabe’a answered.

“How do you know Him?” Hasan enquired.“You know the ‘how’; I know the ‘howless’,” Rabe’a said.

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Tadhkirat al-Auliya

by Farid al-Din Attar