Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Pure Love (Ḥubb)
Worship and love God for God’s own sake alone — purifying devotion of its self-interested motives (fear of punishment, hope of reward) so that love is given freely, not transactionally.
Rābiʿa’s purified love in brief: Before any act of devotion, pause. Ask honestly why — to avoid punishment? to gain reward? to be seen? Set down the bargain. Offer the act freely, for its own sake, expecting nothing. Rest in the love that remains when fear and hope are subtracted. “If I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell… but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine Eternal Beauty.”
What it is
Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya’s most distinctive teaching is not a technique of repetition or posture but a purification of motive: to love and worship God for God’s own sake alone, not from fear of Hell and not from hope of Paradise.
The tradition preserves this through her most famous prayer, recorded by ʿAṭṭār four centuries later: > “O my Lord, if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee from hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty.”
(Attributed to Rābiʿa; ʿAṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ; trans. tradition via Margaret Smith.) The practice distilled here is the deliberate examining and reaiming of why one does what one does in devotion — catching the transactional motive (I do this to get that) and releasing it, until the act is offered freely. This is distinct from ʿAṭṭār’s consuming ʿishq (passionate longing for union — ): Rābiʿa’s signature contribution is the question of motive itself — love as disinterested giving, not as yearning to possess. It is also distinct from gratitude or loving-kindness practices, which radiate or receive; here the work is to subtract the self-interest from love already present.
The Method
Rābiʿa left no treatise; this renders, faithfully, the practice her attested prayers and example embody. It is an orientation of intention, not a prescribed drill.
- Pause before the act. Before prayer, service, or any devotion, stop for a breath. Rābiʿa’s prayers show devotion entered consciously, not by reflex.
- Name the real motive honestly. Ask: Why am I doing this — truly? Is it to avoid a feared consequence? To secure a reward (here or hereafter)? To be seen as good? Name it without shame; the naming is the work.
- Set down the transaction. Let go of the bargain — the if I do this, I get that. In her image, one would “burn Paradise and quench Hell” so that God might be loved for Himself, not for fear or gain.
- Offer the act for its own sake. Turn the same act toward God as a free gift, expecting and bargaining for nothing. Feel the difference between paying and giving.
- Rest in the love beneath. What remains when fear and hope are subtracted is, in her teaching, love itself — the “love that is worthy of Thee.” Dwell there briefly before acting. She distilled the same distinction in verse: > “I have loved Thee with two loves — a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee. As for the love which is selfish, therein I occupy myself with Thee, to the exclusion of all others. But in the love which is worthy of Thee, Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee.”
(Attributed to Rābiʿa; widely transmitted, e.g. R. A. Nicholson / Margaret Smith.) *(Sourcing note: these steps render the orientation Rābiʿa’s preserved prayers embody; they are a faithful framing, not quoted instructions, since she prescribed no steps.)*
Source & Lineage
Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya of Basra (c. 717–801 CE) is among the earliest and most revered figures of Sufism and the foremost early voice of maḥabba / ḥubb — selfless Divine Love — as the heart of the path, in an age when ascetic devotion was more often framed around fear of judgement.
She left no writings; her teaching survives in attributed sayings, prayers, and stories, most fully in Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ (Memorial of the Saints, c.
1200), and is gathered critically in Margaret Smith’s Rabi’a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam (1928). Her doctrine of disinterested love flows forward into the whole later Sufi tradition (ʿAṭṭār, Rūmī, and beyond).
Common refinements
Turning it into self-flagellation. Naming a self-interested motive is diagnosis, not crime. Note it gently and reaim; don’t punish yourself (which is just fear wearing a new mask).
- Faking purity. You cannot will the motive clean in one stroke. Start by seeing honestly; the purification is gradual.
- Mistaking it for Attar’s longing. This is not the ache to possess the Beloved but the willingness to give love freely, asking nothing back.
- Throwing out reverence with self-interest. Releasing fear-of-Hell and hope-of-Paradise as motives does not mean contempt for them; it means love is given a higher seat than either.
- Confining it to formal prayer. The same examen applies to service, work, and relationship — anywhere a hidden bargain hides inside an apparent gift.