Rabi'a bint Isma'il

Rabi'a bint Isma'il was a devout woman of Syria and wife of Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari; Ibn al-Jawzi gives her entry in Sifat al-Safwa (no. 823), drawing most of her reports from her husband. ^{1 2} The editor refers for her to Ibn al-Jawzi's al-Muntazam under the year 229 AH. ¹

Ibn al-Jawzi notes that Ibn Abi al-Dunya gave her lineage thus, and that Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami said Rabi'a al-Adawiyya shared her name and her father's name; he then reports that the reports about Ahmad's wife generally spell her "Rayi'a" with a ya', the Adawiyya being of Basra and this one of Syria, and, from Abu al-Ghana'im al-Narsi: "Rabi'a with a ba' is the Basran, and Rayi'a with a ya' is the Syrian." ^{1 2}

One night when she rose, her husband said to her, "We saw Abu Sulayman and worshipped with him, yet we never saw anyone rise at the very start of the night." She said, "Glory be to God — does someone like you say this? I rise only when I am called." When he sat to eat and she kept reminding him of the hereafter, he said, "Let us enjoy our food," and she replied, "You and I are not among those whose food is spoiled by the mention of the hereafter." ²

Ahmad said she had many states — at times love overcame her, at times intimacy, at times fear — and in each she recited lines of verse. ² She is reported as saying: "I never heard the call to prayer without remembering the caller of the Resurrection, never saw snow without seeing the scattering of the records of deeds, and never saw locusts without remembering the Gathering." ³ She also told him: "Did you know that when a servant acts in obedience to God, the Compeller shows him the faults of his deed, so that he is busy with it rather than with people?" ²

From Ahmad: he married three other wives, and she would feed him meat and say, "Take your strength to your wives," asking him to leave her to her fasting by day and her prayer by night. ³ He also relates that one day she said, "Take that basin away from me, for on it is written: the Commander of the Faithful Harun al-Rashid has died" — and they found that he had died that day. ³