Scripture: Rabi'a's Prayer

UU World: The Magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Mar/Apr 2003 by al-'Awliya', Tadhikrat

O Lord, if I worship you out of fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship you in the hope of paradise, forbid it to me. And if I worship you for your own sake, do not deprive me of your eternal beauty.

Tadhikrat al-'Awliya'

Sufi Muslim (Persian), 1230 C.E.

This prayer by Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya, the most famous female Sufi saint, appears in Memorial of the Friends of God, a Persian hagiography by Faridu d-Din 'Attar. Rabi'a is said to have lived in the ninth century in Basra, which is in modern-day Iraq.

From Early Islamic Mysticism, translated and edited by Michael A. Sells, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1996). C 1996 by Michael A. Sells; reprinted by permission of Paulist Press.