Rabia Balkhi (Arabic : رابعة بنت كعب, Persian : رابعه بلخی) also known as Rabia al-Quzdari (or Khuzdari), [a] was a 10th-century writer who composed poetry in Persian and Arabic. She is the first known female poet to write in Persian.
A non-mystic poet, her imagery was later transformed into that of a mystic poet by authors such as Attar of Nishapur (died 1221) and Jami (died 1492). She became a semi-legendary figure, famous for her love story with the slave Bektash.
Her shrine is located in the mausoleum of the 15th-century Naqshbandi Sufi Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa (died 1460) in the city of Balkh, now present-day Afghanistan. She is celebrated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran through various schools, hospitals, and roads being named after her.
She is known by various names, Rabia Balkhi, Rabia al-Quzdar (or Khuzdari), and anonymously as a "daughter of Ka'b". Most of her life is considered to be obscure. [1] Rabia was said to have been descended from an Arab family that had settled in Khurasan following the Muslim conquest. [2] The Iranologist Vladimir Minorsky considered her last name, Quzdari, to connect her to the city of Khuzdar in Balochistan. The German Orientalist Hellmut Ritter dismissed the narrative that Rabia's father was an Arab who ruled over Balkh, which the modern historian Tahera Aftab considers to indirectly support Rabia's connection to Khuzdar. [4] According to the Iranologist Hamid Dabashi, Rabia was a Persianized Arab. [5]
Rabia lived during the same period as the poet Rudaki (died 940/41), and is the first known Persian woman poet. [2] She felt strongly about Sufism, and composed poetry in Persian and Arabic. [1] The 14th-century poet and anthologist Jajarmi states that Rabia wrote a Persian poem which used Arabic for the shahada and lahwalah, which according to the Iranologist Francois de Blois demonstrates her enthusiasm for bilingual tricks. [6]
Rabia appears in the Lubab ul-Albab , a compilation of Persian poets made by the 12th and 13th-century writer Awfi (died 1242). The compilation says the following about her: "The daughter of Ka'b, although she was a woman, was superior to men in accomplishments. She possessed great intelligence and sharp temperament. She used to continuously play the game of love and admired beautiful youths." [1] Rabia is amongst the thirty-five female Sufis mentioned in the 15th-century Persian work Nafahat al-Uns, a biographical compilation made by Jami (died 1492). Referring her as the "daughter of Ka'b", Jami narrates the story through the prominent Sufi master and poet, Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (died 1049), reporting that she fell in love with a slave. [7]
A romanticized version of this story appears in the Ilahi-nama of the Sufi poet Attar of Nishapur (died 1221), under a story named Hikayat Amir-i Balkh wa ashiq shudan dukhtar-i o ("the story of the chieftain of Balkh and his daughter's falling in love"). The story narrates Rabia's love affair with Bektash, a slave of her brother Haris, and concludes with the death of both Rabia and Bektash. Attar does not use the name "Rabia" either when referring to her, and instead calls her Zainu'l Arab ("the ornament of the Arabs"). He reports that she was so attractive that it was almost impossible to describe her beauty. Francois de Blois dismisses Attar's story, considering it to have "no value as a biographical source" for Rabia. [7]
The modern historian Sunil Sharma notes that Rabia initially started out as non-mystic figure, being portrayed by Awfi as a "boy-chasing intelligent woman", and was only later portrayed as a mystic poet by authors such as Attar and Jami. [3] Dabashi notes that Rabia later became a "semi-legendary figure who putatively wrote her last poems with her blood on the prison walls of the jail in which she had been incarcerated because of her love for a slave named Bektash." [8] Her love story with Bektash encouraged the 19th-century writer Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat (died 1871) to write the romantic epic of Golestan-e Eram or Bektash-nama, which tells the story of the two pairs. [9] [10]
Rabia's shrine is located in the mausoleum of the 15th-century Naqshbandi Sufi Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa (died 1460) in the city of Balkh, now present-day Afghanistan. [11] The shrine was renovated between 2012 and 2016. [12] She is celebrated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran through various schools, hospitals, and roads being named after her. Women consider her to serve as a replacement for their lost voice. The 1974 Afghan film Rabia of Balkh not only played a central role in the cinema of the country, but according to Krista Geneviéve Lynes "also in the figuration of a proto-feminist political agency, one that in many respects resembles the ethnical call for justice in Sophocles's Antigone ." [11]
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi, was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih (jurist), Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian (mutakallim), and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.
Faridoldin Abu Hamed Mohammad Attar Neyshaburi, better known by his pen-names Faridoldin (فریدالدین) and ʿAttar of Nishapur, was an Iranian poet, theoretician of Sufism, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Sufism. He wrote a collection of lyrical poems and number of long poems in the philosophical tradition of Islamic mysticism, as well as a prose work with biographies and sayings of famous Muslim mystics. The Conference of the Birds, Book of the Divine, and Memorial of the Saints are among his best known works.
Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan. It is located approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the northwest of the provincial capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and approximately 74 kilometres (46 mi) to the south of the Amu Darya and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border. In 2021–2022, the National Statistics and Information Authority reported that the town had 138,594 residents. Listed as the eighth largest settlement in the country, unofficial 2024 estimates set its population at around 114,883 people.
Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī, also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as Jami or Djāmī and in Turkey as Molla Cami, was a Persian Sunni poet who is known for his achievements as a prolific scholar and writer of mystical Sufi literature. He was primarily a prominent poet-theologian of the school of Ibn Arabi and a Khwājagānī Sũfī, recognized for his eloquence and for his analysis of the metaphysics of mercy. His most famous poetic works are Haft Awrang, Tuhfat al-Ahrar, Layla wa Majnun, Fatihat al-Shabab, Lawa'ih, Al-Durrah al-Fakhirah. Jami belonged to the Naqshbandi Sufi order.
Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Turkey, regions of Central Asia, South Asia and the Balkans where the Persian language has historically been either the native or official language.
Rudaki was a poet, singer, and musician who is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. A court poet under the Samanids, he reportedly composed more than 180,000 verses, yet only a small portion of his work has survived, most notably parts of his versification of the Kalila wa-Dimna, a collection of Indian fables.
Mahsati was a medieval Persian female poet who was reportedly one of the first poets to compose ruba'iyat (quatrains) in her native language.
Sufi literature consists of works in various languages that express and advocate the ideas of Sufism.
Rābiʼa al-ʼAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya or Rabia Basri was a poet, one of the earliest Sufi mystics and an influential religious figure from Iraq. She is regarded as one of the three preeminent Qalandars of the world.
Sufi music refers to the devotional music of the Sufis, inspired by the works of Sufi poets like Rumi, Hafiz, Bulleh Shah, Amir Khusrow, and Khwaja Ghulam Farid.
Abu 'l-Hassan Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Salmān al-Kharaqāni was one of the master Sufis of Islam. He was born in 963 of Persian parents in Khorasan in the village of Qaleh Now-e Kharaqan and died on the day of Ashura in 1033.
Balkhi may refer to:
Ibrahim ibn Adham also called Ibrahim Balkhi and Ebrahim-e Adham ; c. 718 – c. 782 / AH c. 100 – c. 165 is one of the most prominent of the early Sufi saints known for his zuhd (asceticism).
Tazkirat al-Awliyā – variant transliterations: Tadhkirat al-Awliya, Tazkerat-ol-Owliya, Tezkereh-i-Evliā etc. – is a hagiographic collection of ninety-six Sufi saints and their miracles (karamat) authored by the Sunni Muslim Persian poet and mystic Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭar of Nishapur who lived from 1145 to 1221.
Shahid Balkhi was a scribe, philosopher and poet active in the Chaghaniyan and Samanid courts. He is notable being for one of the first composers of New Persian poetry.
Al-Fuḍayl ibn ʻIyāḍ was a great Islamic Sunni Scholar.