Circa 714 - 801
Sufi Saint

A Great Woman Saint. Rabi'ah al-'Adawiyyah, also known as Rabi'ah al-Qaysiyyah, was born in the second decade of the eighth century and died in her native city of Basrah in 801. Along with the well-known female ascetics and hadith transmitters Mu'adhah al-'Adawiyyah and Umm al-Darda', Rabi'ah was one of the three great woman saints of Basrah. Her tomb on the outskirts of Basrah was revered as a place of pilgrimage for centuries. Little objective information is available about Rabi'ah's life. She was a client (mawlat) of the Arab tribe of Adiyy ibn Qays, which adopted her and allowed her to use its name. In the Umayyad period, every convert to Islam had to be adopted by a member of an Arab tribe, which served as the convert's patron. Thus, Rabi'ah's relationship of clientage to this Arab tribe indicates that either she, or perhaps...