Rabia - Al - Adawiyya - a threat to systemic existence

A saint who denounced divine intervention for personal favours

by Afreeha Jawad

Analyzing Rabia's intellectual eminence, Sunday Observer staffer Afreeha Jawad notes the relative state in systemic provisions be it good or bad while the absolute remains otherwise.

To treat the relative/absolute dichotomy as two distinct entities she believes is what is most needed today. To lesser mortals that seek the pomposity of systemic indulgence, the scholarly and illuminating life of one of Islam's greatest jewels Rabia - Al - Adawiyya is more than noteworthy. Born amid abject poverty in the second half of the 8th century AD, orphaned in early childhood, a slave who passed through more than one hand, battered yet unsmothered amid ignominious circumstances, Rabia - an outstanding and vivacious personality had just one treasure intact - her unsullied and gain worthy spiritual clout whose inexorable luminosity is a pride to humanity.

Born in what came to be later known as the port city of Basra - Iraq's commercial hub, her birth ostensibly edified a messiah in the making. Contributing to this was that divine moment which swirled upon her when she was a hired slave dancer compelled into swelling her master's coffers. Having deserted him much to his disgust she took to the desert, renounced worldly fetters into a journey of spiritual bliss.

Significantly Rabia's intellectual eminence against the backdrop of her own socio-econ-cultural milieu - needless to say the intensity of such in contemporary forces portrays the dormant and untapped human potential. The heinous crime of serving a false system for the sake of status and pecuniary benefit projected as it were as service to God makes man truly a sinner - Jesus Christ's oft' quoted and heavily misunderstood reference to man. The Buddhist view point of birth as a human being as being one of great fortune takes a paradigm shift as man turns that very fortune into misfortune, sinning all along in his placement quest within systemic enclave. The diverse institutional arrangements, social stratification and to top it all - a highly competitive and fierce political economy is to say the least most intolerant of Rabia and the like of her for their increasing numbers dull and threaten systemic layout. In fact they are dubbed amid current circumstances as insane and ruled out as non-performers.

This then is nothing new. All religious leaders had in like manner their fair share of 'successful' labelling imposed on them. Yet nothing could withhold their spiritual clout as they forced their way enmasse into intended abode.

Subject to social pressure, ordinary man succumbs to social control for fear of being labelled in one way or another. Spiritual luminaries of her calibre equipped with inner force and stamina took on systemic onslaught never bending backwards, forging ahead safely lodged in the courage of their convictions. God or truth was uppermost their mind. Carrying with them the Dhamma or righteousness, engulfed in Takwa and Parama Sathya (God or truth consciousness) aligning themselves with a higher and noble purpose, the indifference these evolved, colourful personalities displayed to worldly glamour certainly is exemplary in a world of spiritual poverty. There was this instance when Rabia through a friend's magnanimity was gifted a newly built house. Rabia had walked in, surveyed it from one end to the other, then turning her head towards the benefactor said, "But this surely will separate me from my God.

She retreated into her hut much to the amazement of onlookers. It even brought to this writer's mind significantly a parallel coming off Mother Theresa on entering the White House. Dressed in her sandles and blue bordered white saree, she bowled out President Bush and the rest when she asked, "In this very place how many houses could be built for the poor," surveying the length and breadth of those sprawling precincts.

The current systemic characteristic of unending wants and stiff competition fosters greed, hatred, envy and anger throwing a wet blanket over man's purposeful existence and ability into higher spiritual realms. Weighing him down are external forces leaving little or no room for his natural inclination into self location. These externalities from which spring his thoughts and actions - all a relative state served as a bench mark for Rabia towards ego annihilation and intellectual stature - so amply displayed in her most profound and prolific utterances. She once prayed,

"Oh! lord if I ask to be sent to heaven, please shut its doors

And if I ask to be kept off hell, burn me there.

But if I want to see thy face, please do not deny me that grace."

In another instance she was seen running down the streets of Basra carrying a bucket of water in one hand and fire torch in the other. When asked why, she replied,

"With the water I'm going to douse the flames in hell and with the fire torch I'm going to burn the joys of heaven because if not for heaven and hell God will never be remembered."

Truly our remembrance of that external force, light, cosmic intelligence, Allah or God regretfully is only in times of peril and in anticipation of joy - a conditional remembrance as it were far removed from all unconditionality of remembering the absolute purely for the love of such. Most distasteful to Rabia was the system's compelling nature to ask God for personal favours.

That the systemic hold on man understandably weighs him down to exhausting point is evident in her following pronouncement,

"The eagle flieth high' but if it had a weight tied down to its wings, she could no more fly high. So man for the weight of earthly things cannot fly high to attain the state of perfection."

Little wonder then, why Prophets, saints and sages preferred solitude and renunciation amid natural settings like caves, deserts and mountains for self discovery.

The Buddha under the Bo-tree, Prophet Muhammed in Mt Hira and Moses in the Sinai desert remain few yet alarming examples of nature's contribution towards soul enrichment. Rabia herself according to Dr. Margaret Smith whose doctoral thesis was on Rabia's life and times stood atop roof at night and reached out to perfection with hands outstretched into the starry skies.

To the boastful, overjoyed by the presence of wealth, status, sons and might Rabia's message is certainly overpowering.

"Despise the world, for it is the pleasantest thing for you when you look down upon it.

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