VII. Repentance, Patience, Gratitude

Repentance (tawba) was the first stage on the Way to God. It found a place also in orthodox Muslim doctrine. In the Qur’an punishment is laid down for the sinner, “Except those who repent (after apostasy) and amend, then surely Allah is forgiving, Merciful”. Yet there may be repentance which is unacceptable, “Surely those who disbelieve after their believing, then increase in unbelief, their repentance shall not be accepted and these are they that go astray”. “Repent”(lit. to come back to) is used of the sinner, meaning to return to God, to a state of obedience to Him, and also of God Himself to express the Divine act of the acceptance of repentance. The same idea is expressed in the following Sūra: “Repentance with Allah is only for those who do evil in ignorance, then turn soon, so these it is to whom Allah turns, and Allah is ever-Knowing, Wise”. “And repentance is not for those who go on doing evil deeds until when Death comes to one of them he says, ‘Surely now I repent ’, nor (for) those who die while they are unbelievers. ” Al-Hujwīrī says,” There is no right service without repentance. Repentance is the first of the ‘stations ‘in this Path “. He considers that there are three things involved in Repentance: (a) Remorse for disobedience, (b) Determination not to sin again, (c) Immediate abandonment of sin. This corresponds to a later exposition of the Sufi doctrine^1,2,3,4 of repentance, as involving first conviction of sin, then contrition, which in its turn must lead to a purpose to amend. “Some Sufis”, says al-Hujwiri, “take the view that Repentance consists in not forgetting sins, but always regretting them. Junayd and others take the view that repentance consists in forgetting the sin, for the penitent is a lover of God, and the lover of God is in contemplation of God, and in contemplation it is wrong to remember sin, since remembrance is a veil between God and those who contemplate Him.” This is the repentance of the adept in the mystic life. Al-Hujwīri regards Repentance as a Divine strengthening: “God hath said, And he turned towards him (Adam), for He is the Disposer towards repentance, the Merciful”(Al-Qur’an, II, 35 (37)). Repentance may be from what is wrong to what is right-the common kind, from what is right to what is more right-that of the elect, and from selfhood to God, which belongs to the degree of Divine love. Again, he quotes Dhū al-Nūn as saying that there is the Repentance of return (tawba al-ināba), through fear of the Divine punishment, and Repentance (tawba alistibya) through shame of Divine clemency. “ The repentance of fear is caused by revelation of God’s majesty, the repentance of shame by the vision of God’s Beauty. “This is the repentance spoken of by Abū al-Husayn al-Nūrī when he said,” Repentance is repenting (turning away) from all save God Most High “, and the same idea that the highest type of repentance is entirely different from the type normally practised is found in the^5,6,7,8,9 statement that “The sins of those who are near (to (God) are the good deeds of the righteous”. Rabi’a, like all the great saints of God, had a deep sense of the exceeding sinfulness of Sin and the need for Repentance and Forgiveness, and the Sufi writers, in their chapters on the stage of tawba, more than once mention her teaching on this subject. In a fragment quoted by Hurayfish, which he appends to her verses on the two loves, she prays thus: O Beloved of hearts, I have none like unto Thee, Therefore have pity this day on the sinner who comes to Thee. O my Hope and my Rest and my Delight The heart can love none other but Thee. And in one of her prayers quoted by the same writer she speaks of God as a Comforter in sorrow, and as the One Who can cleanse her from her sin. In verses already quoted, she addresses her Lord as “Healer of Souls”, and says that her soul has been healed through Him. That Rabi’a sorrowed constantly for her sins is plain from the frequent mention of her grief. ‘Attār says, “It is related that Rabi’a was always weeping and it was said to her, ‘Why do you weep like this? ‘She said, ‘I fear that I may be cut off from Him to Whom I am accustomed, and that at the hour of death a voice may say that I am not worthy ”. Someone asked her,” If a person commits many sins and repents, will (God) accept him? “She replied,” How can anyone repent unless his Lord gives him repentance and accepts him? “and she emphasised her conception of Repentance as a” gift from God “in another saying of hers, to the effect that” Seeking forgiveness with the tongue is the sin of lying. If I seek repentance of myself, I shall have need of repentance again “.^{10,11,12,13,14}

Al-Qushayri, in dealing with the subject of “tawba”, gives a similar account of Rabi’a’s view when he says, “A man said to Rabi’a, ‘I have sinned much and rebelled (against God). If I repent, will He accept my repentance? ‘and she answered, ‘No, but if He turns towards you, you will turn towards Him”. In the “Siyar al-Şāliņāt ”, her biographer gives a vivid picture of the impression made by her deep grief for her sins, saying: ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Isā said,” I entered Rabi’a’s presence and I saw the light on her face, and she used to weep much, and a man related of her that at every mention of fire (representing the punishment of the unrepentant sinner), she swooned, and I heard the falling of her tears on the ground like the sound of (water) filling a vessel “, and he reports that Ibn Manşūr said: I came into Rabi’a’s presence and she was worshipping, and when I reached my place, she raised her head, and lo, the place of her worship was like a marsh from her tears and I saluted her. Then she received me and said,” O my son, do you need anything? “and I said,” I came to you to greet you “, and she wept and said,” May God censure thee! “Then she rose up for (the ritual) prayer and said,” I ask forgiveness of God for my lack of sincerity when I say (those words) ‘I ask forgiveness of God ”, and the writer adds in comment, “How God has blessed her! God has illuminated her heart among those who are dearest to Him”. Jāmī relates that Sufyan al-Thawri exclaimed once in her hearing, “Alas for my sorrow”, and Rabi’a rebuked him, saying, “Do not lie. If you were really sorrowful, life would not be so pleasant to you”. Again she said, “My sorrow is not for the things which make me grieve, but my sorrow is for the things for which I do not grieve”.^15,16,17

Sha’rānī also tells how Rabi’a wept and sorrowed much, and of her emotion at the mention of fire (so often synonymous with the torments of hell to the Muslim), and how she used to say “Our asking forgiveness of God, itself needs forgiveness”, and he also adds that her oratory was like a swamp of water from her tears. Rabi’a, then, felt and taught that Sin was hurtful in the highest degree to the soul, since it was a cause of separation between the soul and its Beloved. This conviction of sin as a barrier between the servant and his Lord must lead to godly sorrow, contrition. This sorrow evinced itself in her case by the outward signs of grief, the constant weeping, which is recorded of her and of other saints as a mark of godliness, and also in remorse for sins of commission and omission, and this burning grief left no place for taking pleasure in the transient delights of this world. Sin to Rabi’a was hateful because it separated her from God, not because it involved punishment hereafter. Rabi’a’s teaching on Repentance, as we have seen, includes the doctrine that “tawba” is the gift of God, not something due to the effort of the sinner- “If God turns towards thee, thou wilt turn to Him” and this is quite in accordance with her general view that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above”, and that only God has the power so to touch the sinner’s heart that he will turn away from his wickedness and repent. This is, of course, also the Christian view, set forth by St Paul, “Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”^18,19,20

But for the sincere penitent forgiveness is sure, since repentance is a sign of grace, and sin and grace are incompatible in the same soul. As al-Ghazālī expresses it, “Darkness cannot dwell with light, nor filthiness abide with the whiteness of the fuller’s soap”. So if the Lord grants repentance, He will not withhold forgiveness, and since faith is the beginning, justification will be the end. Patience (sabr) is dealt with at length by the Sufi writers as an essential stage in the progress of the spiritual life, or perhaps rather as an essential quality to be acquired by the saint. Hujwīrī quotes a saying of Hasan al-Başrī to the effect that Patience is of two sorts, firstly, patience in misfortune and affliction, and secondly, patience to refrain from the things which God has commanded us to renounce and has forbidden us to pursue. Abū Tālib gives us the view of the Sufis that Patience has three stages, first, to leave off complaining, and this is the stage of the repentant; second, to be satisfied with what is decreed, and this is the rank of the ascetics; third, to love whatever his Lord does with him, and this is the stage of the true friends of God. Al-Qushayri speaks of patience as being as necessary to faith as the head to the body. Al-Ghazālī, in dealing with sabr, regards it as a necessity for the saint, whose spiritual life must be a militant one, making war upon the passions and seeking after victory. In this world trials and misfortunes must come, losses, pain, injury to feelings, and the saint may expect that these will come with greater force to him, since^{21,22,23,24,25} “whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth”, that through the fire of affliction, the faith of the saint may shine more brightly. By patient endurance the saint may cease to feel the effects of adversity, and in the end, for his patience, he will win the greater reward. Rabi’a’s life is her plainest teaching on this subject, and many of the anecdotes related in her biography witness to her practice of this virtue. In her early years we note her patience under the heavy affliction of slavery, and she met the trials and adversities of life in the same spirit. The loss of her goods, the poverty and discomfort of her life, the sufferings of mind and body she was called upon to endure, were all accepted as part of the will of God for her and as a training of her character. We have already seen how Rabi’a, when in pain, reminded those who called her attention to her injury, that her concern was to accommodate herself to her Lord’s will and to occupy herself with something better than physical affliction. The secret of her patience is to be found in her answer to Sufyan, when he tempted her to seek what she desired from God, and she said, “If I will a thing, and my Lord does not will it, I shall be guilty of unbelief”, thereby confirming the view of both al-Qushayri and al-Ghazālī that Patience is an essential part of faith. The faithful servant must accept in patience what is sent to him, since if he doubts either his Lord’s wisdom or His loving care for those who depend on Him, he commits kufr, and Rabi’a did not fail to teach this lesson both by precept and example, as we have already seen.^{26,27,28,29,30,31}

Gratitude (shukr) is the complementary quality to Patience, representing the same attitude towards God’s benefits that Patience represents towards His chastisements. Like the other qualities to be acquired at the different stages on the mystic Way, gratitude contains the elements of faith, feeling and action. Faith must accept the fact that all benefits come from God and are His free gift, which He might have withheld, and that He has not withheld them is due to His unfailing goodness towards His elect. This faith that all good gifts come from God must produce the feeling of joy for the gift but humility before the Giver. Joy comes from the sense of the graciousness which is the sign of God’s love for us, but also because the act of giving establishes a relation between us, the beneficiaries, and the Lord who bestows the benefit and to the Sufi; this relationship will mean ultimately union with the Giver. These feelings of joy and humility and aspiration will lead to action-acts of gratitude, taking the form of praise and thanksgiving to God for His beneficence and the recipient of His bounty will seek to do all things in accordance with His Will and to avoid all that is contrary to it. Gratitude must extend to misfortunes as well as blessings and here it joins forces with Patience, but whereas the latter is but a passive form of the virtue, the former is an activity arising from it. “Real resignation consists not in bowing down under the Will of God, but in rising up into it”. Even in adversity we can be thankful because our misfortunes might always be greater than they actually^32,33,34,35 are, our spiritual state might be worse than it is; in any case all temporal adversity is less than we deserve for our unworthiness, and finally, all comes from God Himself and is the outcome of the Divine Volition. Al-Qushayri goes to the heart of the matter when he says that “Gratitude is the vision of the Giver, not of the Gift”, and he goes on to say that “Gratitude is a gift from God Himself”. Rabi’a both taught and practised this quality of shukr. Much of her time was spent in praise to her Lord for His goodness to her, and her prayers, already quoted, are full of thanksgiving. She says in one, “Thou hast given me life and hast provided for me, and Thine is the glory”, and again she says, “How many favours hast Thou bestowed on me, gifts and grace and help”. There is one story told of her, in which she made her teaching on Gratitude very plain. Her biographer says: It is related that at one time she saw someone who had a bandage bound about his head. She said, “Why is this bandage bound (round your head)?” He said, “My head is paining me”. Rabi’a asked him how old he was. “Thirty years old”, he replied. She asked him, “Were you in pain and trouble for the greater part of your life?” “No”, he answered. Then she said, “For thirty years (God) has kept your body fit and you have never bound upon it the bandage of gratitude, but for one night of pain in your head you bind it with the bandage of complaint”.^{36,37,38,39,40}

Another story shews how to her, too, Gratitude meant the vision of the Giver rather than the gift, and how she turned aside from the gifts in order to look up and beyond to Him Who gave them. Once in the spring, she was in the house, giving praise to God, and her servant-maid came to her and said, “O mistress, come out to behold the works (of God)”, but Rabi’a replied, “Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from contemplating what He has made”. In her disregard of the beautiful creations of God, for the sake of their Creator, Rabi’a’s attitude is in contrast to that of the more pantheistic later Sufis, who felt that God was to be seen (and could be worshipped) in all His creation. The view of Mahmud Shabistarī that “Beneath the veil of each atom is hidden the soul-ravishing beauty of the face of the Beloved”, would have met with little response from Rabi’a, and likewise the view of Jāmi, expressed in Yusef u Zulaykha: Each speck of matter did He constitute A mirror, causing each one to reflect The beauty of His visage. From the rose Flashed forth His beauty and the nightingale Beholding it, loved madly. From that fire The candle drew the lustre which beguiles The moth to immolation. On the sun His beauty shone, and straightway from the wave The lotus reared its head. Each shining lock Of Layla’s hair attracted Majnūn’s heart Because some ray Divine reflected shone In her fair face. ‘Twas He to Shirin’s lips Who lent that sweetness, which had power to steal The heart from Parvīz and from Farhad life. His Beauty everywhere doth show itself,^41,42 And through the forms of earthly beauties shines Obscured as through a veil… Where’er thou seest a veil, Beneath that veil He hides. Rabi’a, however, desired to look upon her Lord unveiled, the beauties of His gifts were as nothing in her eyes compared with the Beauty of the Giver, and gratitude to Him outweighed the thought of the things for which she was grateful. In that degree of gratitude which can feel thankfulness for adversity as well as prosperity, Rabi’a went beyond the limits to which her friends among the Sufis managed to attain. She attributed her sufferings to the Will of God and said that she would not oppose her Beloved in seeking to be rid of them. She speaks with gratitude of “warnings” given to her by her Lord, through suffering and affliction, that she might turn wholly to Him and so win the great reward at last. We are told by an old writer that Rabi’a or another of the Sufis said, “If Thou hadst not set me apart by affliction, I had not increased Thy lovers”, i.e. my afflictions have led me to do Thy work and lead others to love Thee. Rabi’a, then, had the faith which accepts all gifts as from God the Giver and regards misfortune and adversity in the same light as favour and happiness. Her^{43,44,45,46,47} faith led her to joy in the chastening of the Lord as being His goodness to her, and to a humble acceptance of all that He might send, and thence to acts of praise and thanksgiving, and an eager looking forward to the great Gift, of which these gifts were but an earnest, of Union, for ever, with the Giver. She might well have identified herself with the words of a later Sufi, Bābā Kūhī of Shīrāz, who wrote: In the market, in the cloister — only God I saw In the valley and on the mountain, only God I saw. Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation; In favour and in fortune — only God I saw. In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation, In the religion of the Prophet — only God I saw. Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance, Qualities nor causes — only God I saw. Like a candle I was melting in His fire Amidst the flames outflashing — only God I saw. Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly, But when I looked with God’s eyes — only God I saw. I passed away into nothingness, I vanished, And lo, I was the All-living — only God I saw.^48,49