Personally, he kept himself apart from the world and is known to have
observed: “This world is a bridge which you cross but upon which you
should not build.”As his learning was proverbial, a large number of students
used to come to seek knowledge from him.
It is said that at times the fear of God would seize him so powerfully,
that it seemed to him as though hellfire was created for him alone. The
story goes that one day a friend saw him weeping, and asked him the reason
for his sorrow. He replied that he was weeping for fear that he might have
unintentionally done something wrong or committed some mistake or
spoken some word which was so displeasing to God that He might respond
by saying: ‘Begone, for you are no longer in My favour.”
Rabi’a al Adawiyya Basri
Rabi’a Basri (713-801) was a younger contemporary of Hasan Basri.
Both of them knew each other well. She was born in Basra and spent her
whole life there. She belonged to a poor family and during a famine she
was sold into slavery. She used to worship God whenever she could. Finally,
her master, impressed by her piety and her perseverance, set her free.
From then on, she devoted all her time to God.
Rabi’a believed true piety was grounded in
tawakkul,
or trusting
acceptance of God’s will, and total dependence on Him. From this she
developed the concept of Divine Love and the idea of possible intimacy
with God. She used prayer as a medium of free and intimate communication
with God.To her, this was not just a means of avoiding hell and of entering
paradise, but a means of gaining access to God’s Presence. Her prayers
were a spontaneous outpouring of the heart and often had a mystical touch
to them. Her mystical sayings were so influential that they took on the
form of proverbs.
Th e Ea r l y De v e l opme n t 26
