拉比亚·巴斯里传记

诗人的传记

人们对拉比亚·艾尔·巴斯里知之甚少，只知道她生活在公元8世纪下半叶的伊拉克巴士拉。她出身贫寒。但许多精神故事与她有关，我们可以收集到的是现实与传说的融合。这些传统来自后来的苏菲派圣人和诗人法里德·丁·阿塔尔，他使用了更早的资料。拉比亚本人并没有留下任何书面作品。她父亲死后，巴士拉发生了饥荒，在此期间，她与家人分离。目前尚不清楚她是如何乘坐一辆被劫匪袭击的大篷车旅行的。她被强盗抓走，卖为奴隶。她的主人对她非常辛苦，但晚上做完家务后，拉比娅会沉思、祈祷并赞美上帝。在休息和睡眠之前，她晚上祈祷，白天经常禁食。 There is a story that once, while in the market, she was pursued by a vagabond and in running to save herself she fell and broke her arm. She prayed to the Lord "I am a poor orphan and a slave, Now my hand too is broken. But I do not mind these things if Thou be pleased with me. " and felt a voice reply "Never mind all these sufferings. On the Day of Judgement you shall be accorded a status that shall be the envy of the angels even" One day the master of the house spied her at her devotions. There was a divine light enveloping her as she prayed. Shocked that he kept such a pious soul as a slave, he set her free. Rabia went into the desert to pray and became an ascetic. Unlike many sufi saints she did not learn from a teacher or master but turned to God himself. Throughout her life, her Love of God. Poverty and self-denial were unwavering and her constant companions. She did not possess much other than a broken jug, a rush mat and a brick, which she used as a pillow. She spent all night in prayer and contemplation chiding herself if she slept for it took her away from her active Love of God. As her fame grew she had many disciples. She also had discussions with many of the renowned religious people of her time. Though she had many offers of marriage, and tradition has it one even from the Amir of Basra, she refused them as she had no time in her life for anything other than God. More interesting than her absolute asceticism, however, is the actual concept of Divine Love that Rabia introduced. She was the first to introduce the idea that God should be loved for God's own sake, not out of fear--as earlier Sufis had done. She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself. She prayed "O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty. Rabia was in her early to mid eighties when she died, having followed the mystic Way to the end. By then, she was continually united with her Beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, "My Beloved is always with me"