—for a while, and they allowed a word or two about this world to slip in. When they rose to leave, she said to her servant: “If that shaykh and his companions return, do not admit them, for I have seen that they are attached to the world.”

Abū Yasār Mismaʿ related: I came to see Rābiʿah and she said to me, “You found me while I was cooking rice, yet I preferred listening to your words over tending the rice. When I went back to the pot, it was already cooked.”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā reported: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn told us; ʿUbays ibn Maymūn the perfumer told me; ʿAbdah bint Abī Shawwāl—who used to serve Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyyah—told me: “Rābiʿah would pray throughout the entire night. When dawn appeared she would lie down for a brief while, until the light of morning spread, and I would hear her say:
“O soul, how long will you sleep and how long will you rise? Soon you will sleep a sleep from which you will not awake until the Day of Resurrection.”

Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān said: I entered with al-Thawrī to visit Rābiʿah. Sufyān exclaimed, “Alas for our grief!” She replied, “Do not lie—say rather, ‘How little is our grief!’”

Hammād narrated: I entered with Salām ibn Abī Muṭīʿ to see Rābiʿah, and Salām began speaking of worldly matters. She said, “One speaks only of something that is truly something; as for a thing that is no thing, then no.”

Shaybān ibn Farrūkh reported: Riyaḥ al-Qaysī told us: “I used to attend the lessons of Shumayṭ along with Rābiʿah. On one occasion she said, ‘Come here, lad,’ took my hand and supplicated to Allah. Suddenly there appeared a green jar filled with pure white honey. She said, ‘Eat, for by Allah, no bee has produced this.’ I was alarmed at what I saw; we rose and left it.”

Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī said: “As for Rābiʿah, people have transmitted from her a great deal of wisdom. Sufyān, Shuʿbah and others quoted her in ways that refute the accusations leveled against her, and she herself expressed it in these words:”—