Source: Patheos

by Dan Peterson

I’m beginning to write up a brief introductory discussion of the great early Muslim mystic Rābiʿa al-‘Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya.  In order to do so, I’m drawing first upon the discussion of her that is given by the late British scholar Margaret Smith (1886-1970) in Muslim Women Mystics: The Life and Work of Rābiʿa and Other Women Mystics in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001).  Here are a handful of my notes:

In the history of Islám, the woman saint made her appearance at a very early period, and in the evolution of the cult of saints by Muslims, the dignity of saintship was conferred on women as much as on men.  As far as rank among the “friends of God” was concerned, there was complete equality between the sexes.  (19)

So the title of saint was bestowed upon women equally with men, and since Islám has no order of priesthood and no priestly caste, there was nothing to prevent a woman from reaching the highest religious rank in the hierarchy of Muslim saints.  (20)

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