At a glance
- Roles
- mystic
- Era
- The Umayyad Period
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Place in the story
Sunni (transmitted)
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Summary
Burda al-Sarimiyya was a devout woman of Basra; Ibn al-Jawzi gives her entry in Sifat al-Safwa (no. 596), and Thabit al-Bunani describes her as a woman of the first generations who wept so much that her sight was ruined. 1
Guests in a strange land
When asked how she was that morning, she would say: "We have woken as guests seeking pasture in a land of exile, waiting to answer the caller." 1
With al-Hasan al-Basri
She was told: "Fear God — are you not afraid your sight will go?" She replied: "If I am of the people of the Fire, may God put me and my sight far away; if I am of the people of the Garden, God will give me eyes better than these." Al-Hasan al-Basri visited her and said, "Burda, your body has a right over you, and your sight has a right over you," and she answered him in the same words. 1
Her intimate prayer
From Ata' ibn al-Mubarak: she was an eminent devout woman who stood the night, and when all movement stilled and eyes were at rest she would call out in a sorrowful voice, telling her Lord she was alone with Him with His love in her heart, and asking Him not to punish her. 1 2 Al-Humaydi reports Sufyan saying that none of those women who lived as neighbours of the sanctuary was more strenuous than she; she wept until her sight went, and when she heard thunderclaps she cried out until she fainted. 2
For young visitors
Burda was a woman of Basra who wept much from awe of God; when people feared for her eyes, she said God would give her better eyes in Paradise.
Connections
- Lived in
- Basra
People and things also explored
Ufayra the Devout· Ajrada al-Ammiyya· Amat al-Jalil bint Amr al-Adawiyya· Amra, wife of Habib al-Ajami· Bahriyya al-Abida· Habiba al-Adawiyya· Hafsa bint Sirin· Kurdawiyya bint Amr al-Basriyya
Sources
- Sifat al-Safwa — Ibn al-Jawzi (ed. Khalid Mustafa Tartusi, Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, Beirut 1433/2012) , p.712
- Sifat al-Safwa — Ibn al-Jawzi (ed. Khalid Mustafa Tartusi, Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, Beirut 1433/2012) , p.713
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Burda al-Sarimiyya”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/burda-al-sarimiyya/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-04.
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