Rabia Al Adawiyy – Wikilédia

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Rabia Al Adawiya Al Qaysiya (Arab: Rabaa Al -Adawiya Al -Qaisiya ) or simply Rabia Basri (713/717–801) is a mystical and a Muslim poet that lived in Bassrah. It is a major figure in Sufism.

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The reputation that surrounds it and the transmission of its teachings suggest that it has really been a historical figure. It is considered one of the members of “Dhai Qalandar” [ Note 1 ] . However, information on his biography is mainly due to the late hagiographies we have. One of the best known sources, the Memorial des Saints (in) , the Farid al-Din Attar, date you xii It is century. And as they develop, these sources are more and more marvelous. Rabia’s mystical and literary figure has therefore developed over several centuries, gradually enriching themselves with legends [ first ] .

Under these conditions, it is undoubtedly preferable to approach Rabia as “a profile of archetypal holiness” which has been built gradually, and not as a character whose historical portrait is paint [ first ] .

However, it seems quite sure that she lived in Bassrah – a city whose role was fundamental in the development of Sufism at that time [ 2 ] – And where it is considered one of the Saintes (wali). She must come from a poor family, and perhaps she was still stolen as a child to be sold as a slave, and according to legend, she would have managed to survive by becoming a singer-which may correspond, notes Pierre Lory, To a theme of very widespread Christian hagiography: the conversion of women to dissolved customs. She becomes the disciple of the great Sufi Hassan Al-Basri (m. 728) [ 2 ] .

She also kept strict celibacy [ 3 ] , something that was amazing in Islam, which erected marriage as a model and rejects monasticism. She also rejected many requests in marriage, wanting to give herself only to God, his loved one. But that did not prevent him from having many visitors, some of whom were important mystics, and his renown attracted her disciples who joined her to follow her teachings, often given in poetic form [ 4 ] , and his immense influence earned him the veneration of his contemporaries.

Farid al-Din Attar reports different anecdotes that show the esteem in which Hassan Al-Basri held his disciple. Thus, after a night and a day spent with Rabia to converse on the sprouting path, he declared [ 5 ] : “When in the end we finished this discussion, I recognized that I was only a needy and she a rich in a sincere heart. »»

Several stories also report miracles: wonderful appearance of food for his hosts, light emanating from his body which made it possible to do without lamp … for legendary as they are, these stories clearly mark the status of saint and friend of God (Waliyya) of Rabia.

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In addition, a dialogue reported by Attar suggests that Rabia was vegetarian [ 3 ] : One day when Al-Béri was surprised to see antelopes approaching and staying with Rabia, he asked her from where it came from and why the same antelopes fled him. “” What have you eaten today, Hassan? ” she asked. – “(…) Puree that I cook with a piece of fat.” -“You who eat their fat resumed Rabia, how would they not flee to you?” [ 6 ] » For the Islamologist Annemarie Schimmel, such a remarks suggests that Rabia was attributed to a complete abstinence of animal products, which is why the animals approached her. And Schimmel specifies that such legends are also reported about North African saints, and that some of them were even refrained from killing insects [ 7 ] .

Rabia has not left writings. What we know about it essentially consists of fragments, which is found in particular in collections of lives of Sufis, as the famous Memorial of Saints Defarid Al-Din Attar [ 8 ] . The hagiographical tradition, however, attributes prayers, answers and verses [ first ] .

Divine love [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

According to the little that we know of this work, she seems to have especially celebrating love ( Maḥabba ) and privacy ( ‘us ) of God [ 4 ] , and the poems we have left for her one of the first cantors of divine love [ 2 ] .

Pierre Lory speaks in this regard of “doctrine of integral love”, an attachment to God alone – which undoubtedly explains why she rejected marriage and maternity. She said, “Wedding is necessary for who can choose. As for me, I have no choice of my life. I am to my Lord and in the shadow of his commandments; My person has no value. »» [ first ] His love for God is absolute, there is no place for the love of anything else, and the world has no importance in his eyes [ 9 ] . In the spring, it went so far as to close the windows without paying the slightest attention to new flowers to absorb completely in the contemplation of the creator of these flowers and spring [ ten ] .

She seeks to love God only for him, beyond any fear or expectation, of any fear of hell or desire of paradise [ first ] . Thus, she declares in this subject celebrates the ardor of the disinterested love of God [ 4 ] : “God, (…) If it is for fear of hell that I use you, condemn me to burn in his fire, and if it is by the hope of arriving in paradise, prohibited-m ‘in access; But if it is for you alone that I serve, do not refuse me the contemplation of your face [ 11 ] . » And in an equally famous remarks, reported to xiv It is century by Aflaki [ first ] , she answers someone who asks her where she is going, with a torch lit in one hand and a bucket filled with water in the other: “I go to the sky, to throw fire on the paradise and the ‘Water on hell, so that both disappear and men look at God without hope or fear. »»

She also made fun of the hopes of pleasures with celestial wives, the delights of the presence of God being, in his eyes, infinitely superior [ first ] . In his eyes, the promises “of Houris and Châteaux” in paradise are only sails masking eternal divine beauty: “When he makes Houris and Paradise shive in your mind, be of course that he holds you away from himself [ 9 ] . »

In this sense, she seems to be the first soufie to speak of a god jealous . Orthodoxy already knew this aspect of the divine, but it only saw it as a ban on adoring anything other than him. Rabia goes further. As Margaret Smith says, “God can only suffer anyone who shares with him this love due to him alone. »» [ ten ] She thus declares in a remarks [ 4 ] : “I stopped existing and I left my own person. I became one with God and am completely his. There is the trace of Rabia’s meditation on the fact that divine love precedes man’s love, as the Koranic verse says: “God will soon come from men; He will love them and they too will love him. (5:54, trad. Denise Masson) » Subsequently, this verse was also taken up by the Sufis of the following generations as proof of the merits of their theories on mutual love between God and his creatures [ ten ] .

It is interesting to note that this conception of divine love was taken up by Joinville, the biographer of Louis IX, at the end of xiii It is century, to whom the legend of Rabia had reached, which makes her the first figure of Sufism to enter European literature [ ten ] . Joinville reports with precision the anecdote of Rabia carrying a torch and a bucket of water, although he located it in Damascus [ first ] , [ Note 2 ] . Later, at xvii It is century, the Bishop of Belley, Jean-Pierre Camus, will base his book on this story Caritée or the portrait of true charity: devout history drawn from the life of Saint Louis [ twelfth ] (1641), in which he defended the doctrine of pure love [ first ] , [ 13 ] .

Here is another example of a poem:

“May you be sweet, when life is bitter! / May you be satisfied with me, / While men are furious (against me). / The precipice that separates me from you, can it be filled! / Everything would be bearable to me, if you deigned to love me! (Yes). / Everything that exists here below is just dust on dust. (Salih Khlifa translation) [ 14 ] »

Place in Sufism [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Rabi’a al-Adawiya is a major figure in Sufi spirituality, whose orientations it has permanently marked. The second century of the Muslim era where she lived marks an important step in the formation of the currents of mysticism Sufi [ first ] . This is an era that sees above all individual vocations of characters who seek above all asceticism and solitude, among which we can put Rabia and Hassan al-Basri [ 2 ] .

In this classic age of Sufism, Rabia explores, like others, the trails of this mystique. Ibn Arabi evokes his poetic work in Mecca Illuminations . And Attar describes it as second Marie [ first ] .

Rabia is perhaps the first great voice of Sufism. These ascetics of the early hours of Islam were at that time on the sidelines of society and appeared as warnings for the people, demonstrating by their very existence the vanity of certain Muslims to enclose the mind in the letter. Thus she rejected the state by which humanity reinforces in carelessness or ease and that the Sufis judge in contrast to a state of quest.

This first spiritual movement will be structured several centuries later in what will be called Sufi brotherhoods.

Pierre Lory notes that the character of Rabia “inspired several contemporary works”, and that his life – romanticized – was brought to the screen in 1963, in a famous Egyptian film entitled Rabea El Adawaya . Directed by Neyazi Mustafa, this feature film notably features her supposed career of flute player, followed by her conversion. Rabia is embodied by actress Nabila Obeid, while Oum Kalsoum interprets the songs due to Mohammed Abdel Wahab [ 15 ] .

Notes [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

  1. ↑ (in) ‘ Rabia Basri » , on Qadri Shattari Silsila’s Online Platform (consulted the )
  2. ↑ See Jean de Joinville, History of Louis IX , text established by Natalis de Wailly, Paris, Jules Renouard, 1868, p. 158 [ read online (page consulted on 2020-11-12)] . Below, translation in Historians and chroniclers of the Middle Ages , Paris, Gallimard, coll. “La Pléiade”, 1952, p. 299 . “It is in fact the story of Brother Yves Le Breton who” knew the Sarrazin “and who sees in the streets of Damascus an old woman who crossed the street and wore in her right hand a bowl full of fire and in The left a vial full of water. Brother Yves asked him: “What do you want to do with this?” She replied that she wanted, with fire, to burn paradise and, with water, to extinguish hell, so that there was never any again. And he asked him: “Why do you want to do this?-Because I want nobody to do good to have the reward for paradise, nor for fear of hell, but precisely to have the love of God, which is so much worth, and which can do us everything as possible. ”

References [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

  1. ↑ A b c d e f g h i j and k Lory 2013.
  2. ↑ A B C and D Denis Gril, “The beginnings of Sufism” in A. Popvic and G. Veinstein (dir.), The ways of Allah , Paris, Fayard, 1996, p. 31-32 .
  3. ↑ a et b ‘ The mother of the good », The power of women another story of philosophy , Philosophy Magazine publisher, , p. sixty one (ISBN  9782900818091 )
  4. ↑ A B C and D Dominique and Janine Sourdel, Historical dictionary of Islam , Paris, Puf, , 1010 p. (ISBN  978-2-130-47320-6 ) , p. 699-700
  5. ↑ Attar 1976, p. 90.
  6. ↑ Attar 1976, p. 89.
  7. ↑ Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam , Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011 [1975], 542 p. (ISBN  978-0-807-89976-2 ) p. 358
  8. ↑ Denis Matringe, “Sufi literature” in A. Popvic and G. Veinstein (dir.), The ways of Allah , Paris, Fayard, 1996, p. 175 .
  9. ↑ a et b (in) Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam , Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, ( first re ed. 1975), 542 p. (ISBN  978-0-807-89976-2 ) , p. 38-40
  10. ↑ A B C and D Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam , Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011 [1975], 542 p. (ISBN  978-0-807-89976-2 ) p. 38-40
  11. ↑ Attar 1976, p. 98-99.
  12. ↑ Jean-Pierre Camus, CARITEE, or the pourth of true charity: devout history drawn from the life of S. Louys , ( read online )
  13. ↑ Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam , Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011 [1975], 542 p. (ISBN  978-0-807-89976-2 ) p. 7
  14. ↑ Madani , ‘ May you! » , on Civil Method , (consulted the )
  15. ↑ (in) Rabia Al Adawiyya on the Internet Movie Database .

Document utilisé pour la rédaction de l’article: document used as a source for writing this article.

Sources [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Translations [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

  • Recluse songs , translation of Arabic by Mohammed Oudaimah and Gérard Pfister, afterword of Louis Massignon, Arfuyen, 1988.
  • One States, Raised with fire and tears , Paris, Albin Michel, coll. “Living spiritualities”, , 144 p. (ISBN  978-2-222-32019-3 )

Studies [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

  • Jean Annestay, The UNEmé Soufiy enslam : Rabi a , Entrlelacs, ( first re ed. 2001), 461 p. (ISBN  978-2-908-60658-4 )
  • Margaret Smith, Rābi’a the mystic and her fellow-saints in Islām : Being the life and teachings of Rābi’a al-’Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya of Basra together with some account of the place of the women saints in Islām , Cambridge, 1928
  • Jamal-Eddine Benghal, The life of Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya: a Muslim Holy Muslim VIII It is century , ED. Iqra, 2000
  • Nadira Khayyat, “Free love at Rabiʿa al-ʿadawiya and Jean de Dalyata”, in Alain Desreumaux (dir.), Syriac mystics , Paris, Geuthner, coll. “Syriac studies”, vol. 8, 2011, p. 79 -eighty six.
  • Jad Hatem, Pure hyperbolic love in Muslim mysticism , Paris, Cygne editions, , 166 p. (ISBN  978-2-849-24138-7 , Online presentation )
  • Jad Hatem, Three saints: Râbi‘a al-‘Adawiyya, Marie des Vallées, Mâ Ananda Moyî , Beirut, Saer al Machrek, 2021 (to be published).
  • Pierre Lory, «Rab Zain Al-‘adawya” , in Audrey Fella (dir.), Dictionary of mystical women , Paris, Laffont, coll. “Bouquins”, , 1087 p. (ISBN  978-2-221-11472-8 ) , p. 805-810 . Ouvrage utilisé pour la rédaction de l'article
  • Claude-Brigitte Carcenac, «  Research test of a typology of holy mysticism in Islam and Christianity from the case study of Rabia Adawiyya », Memorial canned , n O 14 “The saints and holiness”, ( read online , consulted the ) . Ouvrage utilisé pour la rédaction de l'article

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On other Wikimedia projects:

  • Abdelwahab Meddeb, “Interview with Salah Stétié on his book Raised with fire and tears  », France culture, « Culture d’Islam », , on YouTube.com [ Listen online (page consulted on November 12, 2020)] / 49 min.
  • The film Rabea El Adawaya On YouTube.com [ (With) see online (page consulted on 2020-11-12)] / 1h35

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