XII. The Position Attained by the Woman Saint

We have already noted the high position attained by the woman saint among the following of Islām, and we find that writers on religion hold up the woman saint as an example not only to other women, but to men as well. So al-Ghazālī says by way of exhortation to his male readers: Consider the state of the God-fearing women and say (to your own soul), “ O my soul, be not content to be less than a woman, for a man is contemptible if he comes short of a woman, in respect of her religion, and (her relation) to this world “. So we will now mention something of the (spiritual) states of the women who have devoted themselves to the service of God,… and he proceeds to hold up before his readers the example of several well-known women saints and to shew the degree in the spiritual life to which they attained. Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya was undoubtedly the greatest of the women mystics of Islām and made the greatest contribution of any woman towards the development of Sufism, but there were other women of her time, and many after her, who were revered as saints and had some contribution to make. Before Sufism arose, women were recognised as saints, such as Amina, the mother of the Prophet, and Fatima, his daughter, who enjoy the veneration of all Muslims because of their relationship to Muhammad. Apart from these, the earliest Muslim woman saint of whom we have a record is Umm Harām, whose tomb is to be found near Larnaka in Cyprus. This saint was a historic personage^1,2,3 and is mentioned by several of the early Arab writers. She was the daughter of Milhan, and of the kindred of Muhammad. Her husband was ‘Ubayda b. alŞāmit. Her name is given variously as Rumaysa, Rawla and Sahla, while others say that her own name was unknown. A full account of her is given in a Turkish manuscript dated about A.D. 1800 by Sh. Ibrāhīm b. Mustafa, who had collected information from earlier sources. This biographer writes in glowing terms of the virtues of this lady, saying: Lauds without number are most meet to be ascribed to the Majesty of Him, the Self-Existent, Who, having distinguished with perfect honour the noble companions and venerable female friends of Muhammad… favoured them with perfect grace and made them the source of many virtues… He (the Prophet) especially delighted the taste and quickened the noble heart of Umm Haram with the pleasing announcement, “Thou art of the first”. Again he speaks of… that exalted lady, the intercessor interceded for, who (through the mercy of the Lord of the worlds and the guidance of the prince of the apostles) was made a manifestation of wonders and of sanctity, a source of chastity and purity of life. Umm Harām, being anxious to take her share in the holy war, after a dream by the Prophet, was declared by him to be of the first of the troop which was to war at sea, and was allowed to go. In A.H. 27 permission was given by ‘Uthman to wage war by sea, and ‘Ubayda b. al-Samit, with his wife Umm Harām and several of the Companions, started from Medīna and entered Damascus and then Jerusalem. By way of^4,5,6 Ramla they went to Tripoli in Syria and thence embarked for Cyprus. This was in the year A.H. 28 of 29. When they landed, Umm Harām set out with her husband, but was thrown by her mule and killed. According to her biographer, “they were attacked by Genoese infidels, and falling from her beast, she broke her pellucid neck, and yielded up her victorious soul, and in that fragrant spot was at once buried”. Balādhuri adds that her grave is called “The grave of the holy woman”. By her death while engaged in the holy war, Umm Harām attained to martyrdom. Like other saints, she was credited with miracles. Her biography includes, among the miracles of that exalted lady, this story: On her journey from Jerusalem to Ramla, she alighted on her way as a guest at the house of a Christian monk. She beheld in the house three huge stones like columns, and to shew a marvel and display saintship, she desired to buy the said stones from the monk. The monk, fully persuaded of the impossibility of transporting the stones and carrying them away, gave them as a present to the exalted lady. She accepted them, and said, “Let them remain by way of trust; in due time they will be taken away”, and departed. And on the evening of her burial the said stones, by the might of the Lord of the worlds, moved from their place and, walking in the sea-a wonderful sight-appeared in this fragrant place; and one of them set itself at her sacred head, one at her holy feet and the other stone, as though suspended over them, rested there by the power of God. And now, if we look to be instructed, the elevation and juxtaposition with other stones of a stone so huge, must be deemed an impossibility. It is therefore clear and manifest that the stone is suspended. These marvels are of the number of prodigies and saintly works of that source of wonders, and of the signs of her high rank. And even now many holy marvels of hers are seen,^7,8,9,10 and those witnessed by pilgrims who seek her trustfully and by the servants who live about her pleasant shrine, are such as none may number and count. May God be pleased with her and benefit us through her intercession. We pray Thee, O God, for uprightness in her service and to exalt us under her banner, through the favour of the chief of the apostles. Another early saint was Rabi’a bint Isma’il of Syria, whose name is sometimes spelt Raiy’a (with the ya instead of ba) by some writers. She was early confused with her greater namesake, Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya, but since she was a married woman and lived and died in Syria, and also is said to have died fifty years before Rabi’a of Başra, her history is sufficiently distinctive to have made confusion unnecessary. The husband of Rabi’a of Syria was Ahmad b. Abi al-Hawwārī, himself a well-known ascetic and a servant of Abū Sulayman, another ascetic. When he became betrothed to Rabi’a, then a widow, he told her that he did not trouble himself about women, being too much occupied with his own spiritual state, to which she replied that she was more concerned with her spiritual condition than he was with his, and that she had no inclination towards men, but she had inherited from her late husband 300,000 dīnārs, lawfully earned, and these she wished to bestow upon Ahmad and his brothers, knowing them to be pious men, and this money, she thought, might prove to be a way to God Most High. Her betrothed sought out his master, Abū Sulayman,^11,12,13,14 and reported what Rabi’a had said (Abū Sulayman having warned Ahmad, as a Sufi, against marriage, saying: “Not one of our friends has married without changing for the worse”), and he relates: “Abū Sulaymān put his head under his garment and was silent for a while, then he lifted up his head and said, ‘O Ahmad, marry her, for this woman is one of the saints of God, and this is the speech of those who are sincere (in their faith)”. So Ahmad married her, but their relations seem to have remained Platonic. We are told elsewhere that she said to him, “I do not love thee with the love of a wife, I love thee with the love of a sister, and my desire towards thee is only to serve thee”. Certainly she acted generously towards him, for he tells how he married three other wives (not having taken to heart the advice of his master, it would seem) and Rabi’a used to cook good things for him and treat him well and say, “Go with your food and your cheerful company to your wives”. At the time when she was cooking the food, she would say to her husband, “Eat from this food, for none of it was cooked apart from praise (i.e. I was praising God all the time I was cooking)”- a story which calls to mind Brother Lawrence. She was noted for her prayers and her fasts. She used to spend the whole night in prayer, and wore herself out with ascetic practices, so that her husband and her friends were distressed at the effect upon her. Among the sayings attributed to her is one pointing to the exclusive claim of God to the service of His chosen: “If the servant is obedient, God makes him look beyond his work and he occupies himself with Him to the exclusion of His creatures”.^{15,16,17,18,19,20}

She is reported to have said: I never hear the call to prayer, without remembering the trumpet-call of the Day of Resurrection, and I never see the snow without remembering the fluttering of the records (i.e. the record of their deeds given into the hands of those who are to be judged), and I never see a swarm of locusts without remembering the Assembly (for the Last Judgment). It is said that she used to see the Jinns and the houris quite plainly, and she would say, “I saw the houris (the heavenly spouses awarded to good Muslims in Paradise) and they used to veil themselves from me with their garments”. She was famed for her attainment of the mystic states (ahwal). Sometimes passionate desire and love took possession of her, sometimes intimacy (with the Divine) and sometimes fear. When the state of Love took possession of her, she used to say: My Beloved there is none like unto Him, and none shares my heart with Him, My Beloved is absent from my sight and my person, but He is not absent from my heart. Her husband related that when she was under the influence of Fear he heard her saying: My provision is small, I do not see it to be sufficient for me, But do I weep for that, or because Thou art so far from me? Wilt Thou burn me with fire, O Goal of my desire? This is my hope from Thee, this is what makes me fear. One day her husband called to her and she did not answer him; then, after a while, she answered him and^{21,22,23,24,25} said, “What prevented me from answering you, was that my heart was filled with joy in God, and I was unable to answer you”. Among her miracles, such as the majority of Muslim saints are credited with, her husband relates that one day there was a bowl before her and she said, “Take away this basin, for I see written on it that the Commander of the Faithful, Hārūn al-Rashid, is dead”. Inquiries were made; on that same day Hārūn al-Rashid had died. Rabi’a bint Ismā‘il was held in high respect among the Sufis of her time and they used to consult her and to seek information from her about the mystic states. She may claim to be one of the earliest of Muslim mystics, since, as we have noted above, asceticism rather than mysticism was the characteristic of the Sufis of this early period. Rabi’a of Syria is said to have died in A.H. 135, and she was buried at the top of Mount Tor near Jerusalem. It is said that she was the first to be buried there, and Ibn Khallikān says that her tomb was an object of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Of this Rabi’a, Abū Tālib says that her position among the people of Syria was comparable to that of Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya among the people of Başra. Another famous woman ascetic of the early period was Mu’adha al-‘Adawiyya, who was contemporary with Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya, and among her associates. She was the daughter of ‘Abdallah al-‘Adawi and was surnamed Umm al-Şahbā, and was among the devotees^{26,27,28,29,30,31} of Başra. Jāmī says of her that, from humility, for forty years she never lifted up her face to the sky. She never ate anything by day, nor did she sleep by night. Her friends said to her, “Will you not do much harm to yourself?” But she said, “No harm will come to me; I have transferred the sleep of the night to the day, and eating from the day to the night”. It was related of her by Muhammad b. Fudayl that when day broke, Mu’adha used to say, “This is the day in which I shall die”, and she did not sleep until evening, and when night fell, she said, “This is the night in which I shall die”, and she did not sleep until morning came. When the cold weather came, she used to dress in thin garments so that the cold should prevent her from sleeping. Her woman-servant related that Mu’adha used to pass the night in prayer and if sleep overcame her, she rose and walked about in her court-yard, saying, “O my soul, sleep is before thee. If thou hadst died, how long would have been thy sleep in the tomb!” And she would be thus until the morning came. She used to pray six hundred rak’as each day and night and she used to say: “I wonder at the eye which sleeps, knowing the length of the sleep in the grave ”. Mu’adha was no celibate, but had a son and a husband, who both went out on a military expedition, and the father said to his son,” O my son, go forward and fight, that I may be content with thee “, and he flung himself on the unbelievers and fought until he was killed. Then his father advanced and did likewise. The women came together to his wife Mu’adha (to console her), and she said,” Welcome, if you have come to congratulate me and if you have come with any other purpose, you may return whence you came ”. From which we may gather that Mu’adha was of the^32,33 same Spartan type as the daughter of Abū Bakr, who would not suffer her son ‘Abdallah to wear a shirt of mail when fighting in the cause of righteousness. Of Mu’adha we are told that after her husband’s death she carried self-mortification so far that she never rested her head upon a bed until the day of her death. Mu’adha is a faithful representative of the school of Hasan al-Başri, concerned with asceticism rather than mysticism, and believing that the mortifying of the flesh in this world offered the greatest hope of salvation in the next. Hers would seem to have been the same grim faith as that of Hasan, living always under the shadow of fear of the wrath to come, and her acquaintance with Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya does not seem to have led her to seek the way to God through Love, or to find that joy in the service of the Beloved characteristic of both Rabi’a of Syria and Rabi’a of Başra. An ascetic who was famed chiefly for her godly sorrow was Sha’wāna, of whom Jāmī writes: She was a Persian and dwelt in Ubulla. She had a beautiful voice and used to discourse in melodious tones, also she used to recite many things to the ascetics and disciples and Sufis who came to listen in her assembly (i.e. the gathering of the Sufis together round a well-known pir or teacher, such as Sha’wāna evidently was). She was among the women zealous in service, who feared God, who wept and made others to weep. Her friends used to say to her, “We are afraid that you will lose the sight of your eyes from much weeping”, but she said, “Verily to be blind in this world through much weeping is better, to my mind, than to be blind in the next through the fires of Hell”. One of her associates, Yahyā b. Bustam, says: I used to be present at Sha’wana’s assembly and I used to see what she did in the matter of lamentation and weeping, and I said to a friend of mine, “Suppose we come to her when she^34,35 ceases and tell her to have pity on herself “, and he said,” You are right “, and we came to her and said,” If only you would have pity on yourself and abate this weeping somewhat, and then you would have more strength to do what you want “. She wept, then she said,” I would that I might weep till the fount of my tears were dried up; then would I weep blood till there should remain no drop of blood in my members. I must weep, I must weep “, and she did not cease weeping until she lost consciousness. And he goes on to say,” We rose up and parted from her and we left her in that state, and she was crying out, ‘O ye dead, sons of the dead, and brethren of the dead “. She used to say,” Let the one who is not able to weep pity those who weep, for the one who weeps, weeps only because he knows himself and his sins and that towards which he is going “. Again, she used to say that” the eyes which are prevented from beholding the Beloved, and yet are desirous of looking upon Him, cannot be fit (for that Vision) without weeping “, and her friends said that this sorrow overcame her to such an extent that she neglected prayer and worship. In a dream there appeared to her one who said: Shed tears when you are sorrowful: for your sorrow will heal those in grief. Be diligent and arise and fast continually, wasting away (with emaciation), For emaciation is one of the works of the obedient. She returned to obedience and used to intone these verses, weeping, and the women weeping with her. Among her prayers is the following:” O my God, Thou knowest that the one thirsting for Thy love is^36,37 never satisfied “, and al-Ghazālī tells how Sha’wana in her prayers used to say: O my God, how great is my desire to meet with Thee and how great is my hope of Thy reward. Thou art gracious, there is no disappointment from Thee, the Hope of all who hope; there is no frustration with Thee, Thou Desire of all who yearn. O my God, if I am unworthy of Thee and my works do not bring me near unto Thee, yet my weakness has made confession of my sins, and if Thou dost forgive-Who has more power (to forgive) than Thyself, and if Thou dost punish-Who is more just to perform it than Thyself? O my Lord, my tears have flowed for my soul in looking upon her, but there remains for her the beauty of looking upon Thee, and woe be to my soul if she rejoices not therein. O my God, let not faith fail me all the days of my life, nor cut off from me Thy benevolence after my death. I have hoped that He Whose goodness has followed me all the days of my life will be near me with His pardon at the hour of death. O my Lord, how should I despair of the beauty of the Vision of Thyself after my death, when Thou hast bestowed upon me nought but good in my life-time? O God, if my sins have made me afraid, verily my love to Thee has protected me (or brought me near unto Thee). O my Lord, if it were not for the sins I have committed, I would not have feared Thy chastisement, and if I had not known Thy grace, I should not have hoped for Thy reward. One who served her said,” From the time my eyes fell upon Sha’wāna, I never turned towards the world, because of her blessed influence, and I never despised one of the faithful “. It is said that in her old age Fudayl b. ‘Iyād used to visit her and discuss with her, and once when he asked for her prayers on his behalf, she said to him: “ O Fudayl, is there anything between you and God, so that if I pray, that will be the cause of an answer?” i.e. is there any hindrance to your approaching God directly, that you ask for a mediator?^38,39,40

Fudayl, when he heard her reply, burst out sobbing and then fainted away. Sha’wāna may certainly claim a place among the mystics as well as among the ascetics, for her prayers quoted above shew plainly that she followed the way of Love, like Rabi’a, and that her eyes were not only blinded by tears of penitence, but dazzled by the radiant glory of the Beloved, and that what she looked for after this life was the Vision of her Lord in His perfect Beauty. Her prayer shews also that in her life she was in conscious communion with her Friend, feeling herself to be in His personal presence, a relationship to which the Sufis of the earliest ascetic school hardly dared to aspire. It was undoubtedly the recognition that she was possessed of the mystic gnosis, and truly walked with God, that made her an acknowledged teacher and spiritual guide to the Sufis of her day. Another great saint, but of a different type from these early mystics, was Nafisa, great-granddaughter of Hasan, son of the Khalifa ‘Alī, who was born at Mecca in the year A.H. 145 and brought up at Medīna, to a life spent in good works and the worship of God. She married Ishaq, son of the Imam Ja’far al-Şādiq, and bore him two children, al-Qāsim and Umm Kulthūm. After her marriage, she went to Egypt with her cousin Sakīna al-Madfūna, and settled down to live not far from the Khalifa’s palace in Cairo. Like the other ascetics of Islām, she used to fast all day and spend the night in prayer. She was reputed to know the Qur’an and the commentaries by heart and was so versed in religious knowledge that even her great contemporary, the Imām al-Shafi’i, used to come and listen to her discourses and enter into discussions with her; the degree of his respect for the scholarship of this saintly woman^41,42 and for her sanctity also, may be judged from the fact that he used to pray with her the special prayers for Ramadan. She was famed throughout Egypt and wherever she went her reputation followed her and she gained the full approbation of all, both individuals and the people generally, who revered her for her good works, her frequent pilgrimages, her lengthy fasts and her nights spent in prayer. She died in Cairo in the month of Ramadan, in the year A.H. 208. One of her biographers relates that when she was at the point of death, and, as usual, fasting, those with her tried to compel her to break her fast, but she refused, saying, “This would seem a strange thing to me. For thirty years I have been asking God that I should meet with Him when I was fasting, and shall I break my fast now? This shall not be.” Then she repeated the Sūra al-An’am and when she reached the part where God said, “For them is an abode of peace with their Lord”, she passed away. The same writer tells us that during her life-time she had dug her grave with her own hands and had descended into it and prayed and there repeated the whole Qur’an six thousand times. When Nafisa died, the people assembled from all the villages and towns in the neighbourhood and lighted candles that night and the sound of the wailing for the dead was heard from every house in Cairo, and they prayed over her body, while many bore witness that they had seen none like her. Then she was buried in the grave which she had dug in her own house. Up to the time of the writer, and even to the present time, her shrine has been a place of pilgrimage for travellers from afar. Her husband, indeed, wished to convey her body to Medina,^{43,44,45,46,47} for burial in the sacred city, but the people of Cairo begged that she should be buried among them. Many miracles, shewing her charity towards others, were attributed to Nafisa. The story is told of how one year the Nile failed to rise in flood at the usual time, and the people were in great distress, fearing that for lack of water for their crops they would perish from famine, and in this extremity they came to the saint, appealing for her help. She gave them her veil and bade them cast it into the river, and when they had done so, immediately the river rose in an unusually high flood and the people were saved. Another miraculous story related of the Lady Nafisa tells how, in a neighbour’s house, there was a poor Jewish girl, completely crippled by arthritis. One day her parents, having to leave her to go to the market, asked their saintly neighbour to take charge of the invalid. Nafisa came and prayed beside her and through the saint’s prayer the sick girl regained the use of her limbs, and both she and her parents hastened to embrace the religion of their benefactress. The biographer of Abū Sa’id b. Abi al-Khayr gives an account of a woman saint contemporary with the Shaykh, named Ishi Nīlī, who lived in Nīshāpūr. He says: “She was very devout and an ascetic, and members of the great families and the worthies of Nīshāpūr used to come and visit her and to gain blessing from her. For a period of forty years she had not gone out of her house nor gone to the warm baths. She had a nurse who always waited upon her and when Shaykh Abū Sa’id came to Nīshāpūr, and the fame of him was spread about the city, to the effect that a Shaykh had come from Mayhana, whose miracles were evident, who was speaking in the assembly and who had an answer to give to anyone amongst the congregation who had some problem⁴⁸ on his mind, Ishī said one day to this nurse: ‘Rise up and go to the assembly of the Shaykh and take note of what he says, so that when you return, you may repeat it to me ’. The nurse came into the Shaykh’s congregation while the Shaykh was preaching, and she could not remember the words of his discourse, but the Shaykh recited these verses: I have a dang and a half almost; I have bought two bottles (of wine) -not quite full, On my lute there remains neither treble string nor bass, To whom (except me) should you talk of Kalandar-ship and ecstasy? “When the nurse returned, Ishī asked what the Shaykh had said; she remembered only these verses and repeated them. Ishī said, ‘Go and wash your mouth (because you have told a lie). Are these words of the kind that ascetics and wise men use? ‘The nurse went and washed her mouth.” Now this Ishi was accustomed to make eye-salve for the people and to give it away to them. That night, while asleep, she saw something horrible in a dream; she sprang up and both of her eyes felt painful, and although she used salve, they did not recover. She had recourse to all the physicians, but could find no cure. For twenty days and nights she was complaining of this pain. “One night in a dream she saw (one who said), ‘If you wish your eyes to be cured, go and seek to satisfy the Shaykh of Mayhana and gain his precious favour ’. So the next day Ishī took a thousand dirhams and put them in her purse and gave them to her nurse and said, ‘Go to the Shaykh and when he has finished his discourse, give them to him ’.” When the Shaykh was free, the nurse came to him and greeted him, and placed the silver before him. It was the custom of the Shaykh, when the assembly was⁴⁹ over, to have a novice bring him a piece of dry bread and a toothpick. The Shaykh used to eat that bread and use the toothpick. The Shaykh was using the toothpick when the nurse gave him that money. When she wished to return (to her mistress), the Shaykh said, ‘O nurse, come hither and take this toothpick and give it to your mistress and tell her to stir it in water and wash her eyes with that water, so that her outward eyes may be cured and tell her to put out of her heart contempt and enmity towards this sect, so that her inward eye may also be healed ’. The nurse came and told Īshi, who followed the advice of the Shaykh and washed the toothpick in water and with that water bathed her eyes and immediately they were cured. “The next day she rose up and took all she possessed in the way of jewels and ornaments and raiment and came to the Shaykh and said, ‘O Shaykh, I have repented, and cast out contempt and enmity from my breast ’. The Shaykh said, ‘May it be blessed (to you) ’, and bade them take her to the mother of Abū Tahir, that she might be invested with the patched robe (of the Dervishes) and the Shaykh bade her choose the service of this order that she might be esteemed in this world and the next. Ishi went to carry out the Shaykh’s behest and donned the patched robe and occupied herself in the service of the devout women of that order and all that she had-ornaments and property and all else-she gave away and reached a high degree in the Way and became a leader among the Sufis.” Other saintly women there were, famous for their good deeds and their charity, or for their wisdom or their writings, some devoting themselves to religious learning and known as Shaykhas. Such was the famous Shuhda, daughter of Abū Nasr Ahmad Ibn Al-Faraj b. ‘Umar al-Ibari, who is frequently mentioned by biographers of the saints. Ibn⁵⁰ Khallikān gives an account of her in his Biographical Dictionary. Her family belonged to Dinawar in Persia, but she herself was born and died in Baghdad. She was surnamed Fakhr al-Nisa ’ (= the Glory of Women) and al-Katiba (= the woman scribe). By her learning she gained a great reputation and was considered one of the first scholars of the age; she wrote a beautiful hand and gave instruction to large numbers of students in the Traditions, which she herself had learned from the highest authorities; thus she formed a link between the traditionists of the rising generation and those of the past. She died in 1178, aged upwards of ninety years, and was buried outside the Abraz Gate of Baghdad. Another of these Shaykhas, or religious teachers, was Zaynab, daughter of Abū al-Qāsim ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Shārī, the Sufi. She was born at Naisapūr in A.D. 1130 and died there in A.D. 1218-19. She was esteemed as a woman of great learning who had studied under the best scholars of her time and from them she obtained certificates authorising her to teach these subjects, especially the knowledge of the Traditions, which she had studied under their tuition. Among these masters was Abū al-Qāsim, the Qur’an reader, and ‘Abd al-Mun’im al-Qushayri. She was granted licences to teach also from the hafiz ‘Abd al-Ghafir al-Fārisī and the commentator al-Zamakhsharī (ob. 1143-4), the learned author of the Kashshaf. In her turn she granted licences to her pupils, among whom was her biographer, Ibn Khallikān. Ibn Battuta gives several references to Shaykhas of this type, who were accepted as teachers and whose opinion was sought by the scholars of their time. When^51,52,53 he was travelling in Syria, he was given a licence and permission to teach in Damascus by the pious Shaykha, Umm Muhammad ‘A’isha bint Muhammad b. Muslim b. Salāma al-Hawānī, and the virtuous Shaykha Ruhla al-Dunya (= the goal of everyone’s journey), Zaynab bint Kamal al-Din Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Rahim b. ‘Abd al-Wahid b. Ahmad, of Jerusalem. This was in A.D. 1326. In June of the following year, Ibn Battuta was in Baghdad, where he listened to the Imam Sirāj al-Din, explaining the Musnad of Abū Muhammad ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-Rahman, and in his explanation the Shaykh said, “We have been instructed in it by the virtuous Shaykha, of recognised authority, the mistress of kings, Fatima, daughter of the upright Taj al-Din, Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī b. ‘Alī b. Abi al-Badr”. She related the chain of witnesses through whom the tradition had been transmitted. At a much later period, we find a very interesting figure, among the women saints of Islām, of a type distinct from those already mentioned, an Indian princess who lived in the seventeenth century of our era. This was Fatima, best known as Jahān-Ārā, the favourite daughter of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān and his empress Mumtaz Mahall (to whose memory her devoted husband erected the famous Taj Mahall). Her brother was Dārā Shakūh (who wrote a biography of the saints, called the Ship of the Saints) and the two appear to have been bound together not only by the tie of strong affection, but also by a common seeking after God and a desire for union with Him. Dārā Shakūh became a novice in the Sufi Way under the spiritual direction of the famous teacher and saint,^54,55,56 Mullā Shāh, and impressed by her brother’s account of him, the princess also desired to be admitted as a novice. An account of Mulla Shah’s relations with the princess is given by his biographer, Tawakkul Beg, himself a disciple of the saint. The princess wrote to the master several letters expressing her desire to renounce the world and enter upon the mystic Way: he read them all, but left them unanswered for a time. Being convinced at last that she was sincere and determined, he decided to give her his support and consented to her initiation, though he had not even seen her. The princess herself wrote an account of her initiation in a work entitled, “Risāla-i sāhibiyya”, from which Tawakkul Beg quotes. She describes how she had offered her faith to Mulla Shah and had begged him to be her spiritual guide, and how he had consented to her initiation according to the rule of his fraternity. She tells of the deep impression made upon her by her first sight of the blessed form of the master, from her hiding-place behind the purdah, when Mullā Shāh paid a visit to her father, then staying in Kashmir. She says that her faith in him became a thousand times more fervent than it had been, and ecstasy filled her soul. The following day her brother, acting for the saint, initiated her into the Way, which required the recital of the formula of the Qadir dervishes and of the order of Mulla Shāh. She goes on to tell how afterwards she repaired to the chapel of her palace and remained there until midnight praying, and then went back to her apartments and became absorbed in contemplation. There she had a vision, as she believed, of the Prophet and the saints, and, filled with gratitude at this sign of the Divine favour, when she came to herself, she prostrated herself^57,58,59 before the throne of Absolute Being. There she poured out her soul in thankfulness to God for the “immeasurable happiness” He had vouchsafed to a “ weak and unworthy woman “. She offers thanks for having been allowed to conceive of the Absolute Being in the way which she had always desired. Those who do not attain to the knowledge of God are not worthy to rank as human beings, they are still brutish. The one who attains to this knowledge represents the perfection of created things. His personal and individual existence is absorbed into the absolute existence; he becomes as a drop in the ocean, a mote in the sunbeams, a part (swallowed up) in the whole. The saint, raised to this state of exaltation, whether man or woman, is always the most perfect of beings. God can grant this grace to whom He will. The princess became a true mystic and we are told that she reached such a degree of perfection that she attained to pure union with God and to the gnosis which comes from the Vision of God. Mullā Shah had a great affection for all his pupils, but he felt a special attachment to the princess and even said that her degree of mystic knowledge was so great that she would be worthy to act on his behalf as his deputy. We hear of a woman mystic of the same ecstatic type, and of much the same period, who was well known in Morocco, Umm ‘Abd Allah ‘A’isha bint M. b. ‘Abd Allah, to whom the Divine revelation was vouchsafed, through the guidance of her brother, Sayyid Ahmad, in the year 1655-6. She was the first of his followers to receive this blessing. She was seized by an overwhelming illumination, and a mighty^60,61 ecstasy took possession of her and deprived her of her senses. It is said that she gave permission to her husband to marry (another) and gave him the choice between that or having patience with her present state, and she begged him to excuse her (for this action). She spent all her fortune and gave it as alms for the sake of God, and divided it all among her relatives, until nothing remained. Her husband complained of her action to the Sayyid Qāsim and said to him: “What am I to do with her? She is like one who is on fire and the fire catches her garments and she begins to throw them from her without discrimination.” He wished to say that the fire of (the Divine) love had consumed the ties which attached her to this world, as the fire consumes the clothing which clings to the body of the one it overtakes and he has to throw them off and they are scattered without discrimination on his part. She had an inclination towards solitude, and when she sat among other women, God cast her into a trance-like state so that she did not know what was said. She had a strong affection for her brother, Sayyid Ahmad, and was unable to refrain from looking at him. Her husband, Abū ‘Abd Allah Sayyid M. ‘Asim alAndalusī, at first was unable to attain to the degree of sanctity which he beheld in her, and the reserve she shewed towards him as well as to the attractions of the world, but one day an ecstasy seized him and he grew faint and lost consciousness. He was carried away, by the order of Sayyid Ahmad, and brought in to her, and she thanked God fervently that he had attained to the same state as herself, and so her mind was at rest concerning him. She died in 1660 and was buried the same day under the dome of her father’s tomb.⁶²

The Turks have produced several poetesses of note and among them a Sufi poetess, Sidqi, daughter of Qamr Muhammad, one of the learned men of Constantinople in the reign of Sultan Muhammad IV. Sidqi appears to have lived the celibate life; she died in 1703 and is buried beside her father near the Adrianople Gate, near the convent of Amir Bukhārā. Her poetry is full of mysticism and of the pantheism of the later Sufis. She wrote two mystical poems called The Treasury of Lights and The Collection of Information, and among her poems is the following Gazel: He who union with the Lord gains, more delight desireth not! He who looks on charms of fair one, other sight desireth not. Pang of love is lover’s solace, eagerly he seeks therefor, Joys he in it, balm or salve for yonder blight, desireth not. Paradise he longs not after, nor doth aught beside regard; Bower and Garden, Mead, and Youth, and Hūrī bright, desireth not. From the hand of Power Unbounded draineth he the Wine of Life, Aye inebriate with Knowledge, learning’s light, desireth not. He who loves the Lord is monarch of an empire, such that he, King of Inward Mysteries-Sulyman’s might, desireth not. Thou art Sultan of my heart, aye, Soul of my soul e’en art Thou; Thou art Soul enow, and Sidqi other plight desireth not. Latest in point of time, but with an equal claim to a place among the women saints of Islām, is Zarrin-Tāj, known as Qurrat al-‘Ayn, the Bābī teacher and poetess, who was martyred in A.D. 1852. Though Bābīism, in its full development, diverged so widely from orthodox Islām that its adherents could hardly be reckoned as Muslims at all, yet it originated in the Shi’a quest for the hidden Imām, the Manifestation of God in the^63,64 flesh, whom Mirza Muhammad ‘Alī, the Bāb, declared himself to be, and the position of the Bäb, before this declaration, corresponded to that of the Sufi Shaykh or Pir. With regard to the relationship between Bābīism and Sufism, it is stated by an authoritative writer that “Sufis and mystics regard Bābīism as a systematised and organised Sufism, essential in its doctrines with their own pantheistic beliefs; and consider its fundamental teaching to be the divine spark latent in man, by the cultivation of which he can attain to the degree of fanā fi’allah or ‘Annihilation in God ’, wherein he may cry out, like Manşūr-i-Hallāj, ‘Ana’l-Haqq ’, ‘I am the Truth ’, or ‘I am God ”. In her fearless proclamation of her faith, as in the heroic witness of her death, Qurrat al-‘Ayn shewed herself a worthy successor of the great Sufi martyr. She was the daughter of Haji Mulla Şāliḥ, known as the sage of Qazrin, the erudite doctor. She, according to what is related, was skilled in diverse arts, amazed the understandings and thoughts of the most eminent masters by her eloquent dissertations on the exegesis and tradition of the Perspicuous Book, and was a mighty sign in the doctrines of the glorious Shaykh of Ahsā. At the Supreme Shrines (i.e. Kerbela and Nejef), she borrowed light on matters divine from the lamp of Kāzim (i.e. Hāji Sayyid Kazim of Resht, spiritual director of the Bab) and freely sacrificed her life in the way of the Bab. She discussed and disputed with the doctors and sages, loosing her tongue to establish her doctrine. Such fame did she acquire that most people who were scholars or mystics sought to hear her speech and were eager to become acquainted with her powers of speculation and deduction. She had a brain full of tumultuous ideas, and thoughts vehement and restless. In many places she triumphed over the contentious, expounding the most^65,66 subtle questions… In short, in elocution she was the calamity of the age, and in ratiocination the trouble of the world. Of fear or timidity there was no trace in her heart, nor had the admonitions of the kindly-disposed any profit or fruit for her. Although she was of (such as are) damsels (meet) for the bridal bower, yet she wrested pre-eminence from stalwart men, and continued to strain the feet of steadfastness until she yielded up her life at the sentence of the mighty doctors in Teheran. During the life-time of Haji Sayyid Kazim of Resht (mentioned above), Qurrat al-‘Ayn visited Kerbela, where she became acquainted not only with Sayyid Kāzim himself, but with many of his chief followers, including Mulla Husayn of Bushraweyh, and to him she wrote begging that he would inform her if he should succeed in finding the spiritual guide whom they were expecting. Husayn, on his conversion to Bābīism, handed this letter to the Bab, who recognised the rare qualities of the writer and included her among the eighteen Letters of the Living (Hurufat hayy) who made up the “First Unity” of the Babi hierarchy. Qurrat al-‘Ayn continued for some time at Kerbela, where, seated behind a curtain, a precaution made desirable by her marvellous beauty, she used to lecture and preach to the disciples of the late Sayyid Kāzim. The governor sought to arrest her, and she went to Baghdad and there defended her creed and conduct before the chief Mufti with great ability. The question of whether she was to be allowed to continue her teaching was submitted first to the Pasha of Baghdad and then to the central Government, and she was ordered to leave Turkish territory. On her journey from Baghdad to Kirmanshah and Hamadan, she continued to preach and made several converts to Bābīism.⁶⁷

Some Bābīs disapproved and asked the Bab if it was seemly for a woman to preach publicly to men. The Bāb not only sanctioned her preaching and applauded her zeal, but gave her the title of Janab-i-Tahira, and her high position in the Babi church became uncontested. She was present at the first assembly of the Bābīs as a distinct party, held at Badasht, accompanied by a bodyguard of disciples, the most zealous of all the Bābīs present, over whom she exercised absolute authority. She was given the task of encouraging the faithful and stirring up the lukewarm, and preached from an extempore pulpit, with her followers around her. She declared that the time had come when the doctrine of the Bab should cover the face of the earth, and God should be worshipped in accordance with this doctrine. A new light had arisen, a new law was to be born, a new book was to replace the old. Such great things could not be accomplished without suffering and sacrifice on the part of the generation charged with achievement, and it was not too much that women themselves, sharing the labours of their husbands and brothers, should accept all their perils. It was no longer the time for them to be shut up in the depth of the harim and await passively what their menfolk might be able to accomplish. Leaving on one side social rules, the modesty of peaceful times, even their duties, and their native weakness, and above all the timidity so natural to their souls, they ought to shew themselves, in the most absolute sense, the companions of men, to follow them and fall with them on the field of martyrdom. Her hearers were moved to tears and cried out: “Ay jahān”(O my life), “Ay tahira”(O pure one), in beating their breasts. Orthodox Muslims who were present, drawn by curiosity, became Bābīs. This discourse⁶⁸ not only produced a great effect at the time, but it was repeated and commented upon by all who heard it and so reached others. At the time of the Māzandarān insurrection in 1849, Qurrat al-‘Ayn was given up to the Government authorities and sent to Teheran, where she was placed in custody and remained a prisoner till her death. Her gaoler, Mahmūd Khān, came completely under the power of her eloquence and zeal and, hoping to secure her release, he begged her to deny her faith, but instead, she foretold both his death and her own, saying: Do not hope that I shall deny my faith, even in appearance for one moment, for an aim so childish as that of conserving for a few days more a transient form which has no value. No, if I am questioned, and I shall be, I shall have the happiness of giving my life for God. Listen, Mahmūd Khan, now, to what I am going to tell you, and to-morrow my death will serve as a sign that I am not deceiving you. The master whom you serve will not reward you for your zeal; on the contrary, you will perish cruelly, by his order. Before you die, try to have raised your soul to the knowledge of the truth. This prophecy, the utterance of which is well authenticated, was fulfilled in both cases. Qurrat al- ‘Ayn was asked, and refused to abjure her faith, and met a cruel and lingering death with superhuman fortitude. She was famed as a poetess, though little of her work is surviving, at least under her own name, and Prof. Browne ascribes this to the fact that she was too well known as a Bābi for her poems to bear her name, though he was told that many verses written by her were actually among the favourite songs of the people. A Ghazal which is definitely attributed to Qurrat al^69,70 ‘Ayn, is written in the spirit of the Sufis who preceded her. It runs as follows: The thralls of yearning love constrain in the bands of pain and calamity These broken-hearted lovers of Thine to yield their lives in their zeal for Thee. Though with sword in hand my Darling stand with intent to slay, though I sinless be, If it pleases Him, this tyrant’s whim, I am well content with His tyranny. As in sleep I lay at the dawn of day that cruel Charmer came to me, And in the grace of His form and face the dawn of the morn I seemed to see. The musk of Cathay might perfume gain from the scent those fragrant tresses rain, While his eyes demolish a faith in vain attacked by the pagans of Tartary. With you, who contemn both love and wine for the hermit’s cell and the zealot’s shrine, What can I do? For our faith divine you hold as a thing of infamy. The tangled curls of thy darling’s hair, and thy saddle and steed are thine only care; In thy heart the Infinite hath no share, nor the thought of the poor man’s poverty. Sikandar’s pomp and display be thine, the Kalendar’s habit and way be mine; That, if it please thee, I resign, while this, though bad, is enough for me. The country of “I” and “We ” forsake; thy home in Annihilation make, Since fearing not this step to take, thou shalt gain the highest felicity. Here is the complete surrender of the lover to the will of the Beloved, the renunciation of this world and⁷¹ of the self, and finally the absorption in the Divine and the abiding life in Him, characteristic of the teaching of the Sufis from Rabi’a onwards. Such women as these whom we have mentioned, who, by the holiness of their lives and their intimate communion with the Divine, can rightly claim a place among the saints, as well as those whose religious enthusiasm took the form of studying and teaching the sacred lore of Islām, must be reckoned among the religious leaders of their time, and had their definite contribution to make towards the development and the vitality of the religion of Islām.