HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Rabia Balkhi, also known as Rabia al-Quzdari (or Khuzdari) was a 10th-century writer who composed poetry in
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. 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 Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1145 – c. 1221; fa, ابو حامد بن ابوبکر ابراهیم), better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn () and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur (, Attar means apothecary), was a PersianRitter, H. ...
(died 1221) and
Jami Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī ( fa, نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as J ...
(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 Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. She is celebrated in the
Balochistan province Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...
of
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, Afghanistan and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
through various schools, hospitals, and roads being named after her.


Background

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. Rabia was said to have been descended from an
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
family that had settled in Khurasan following the
Muslim conquest The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He esta ...
. The
Iranologist Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...
Vladimir Minorsky Vladimir Fyodorovich Minorsky (russian: Владимир Фёдорович Минорский;  – March 25, 1966) was a Russian Orientalist best known for his contributions to the study of Persian, Lurish and Kurdish history, geography, ...
considered her last name, Quzdari, to connect her to the city of
Khuzdar Khuzdar ( Brahui/ bal, ; ur, , ), historically known as Qusdar ( ar, قصدار, quṣdār), is the capital city of Khuzdar District in the central part of Balochistan Province, Pakistan. Khuzdar is the 2nd-largest city of Balochistan provin ...
in
Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...
. The German Orientalist
Hellmut Ritter Hellmut Ritter (27 February 1892 – 19 May 1971) was a leading German Orientalist specializing in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and an authority on Sufi ritual and mystical beliefs. Biography The son of a Protestant minister, his brothers wer ...
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. According to the Iranologist
Hamid Dabashi Hamid Dabashi ( fa, حمید دباشی; born 1951) is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City. He is the author of over twenty books. Among them are ''Theology of Disc ...
, Rabia was a
Persianized Persianization () or Persification (; fa, پارسی‌سازی), is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Persian society becomes "Persianate", meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Persian ...
Arab.


Biography

Rabia lived during the same period as the poet
Rudaki Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; fa, رودکی; 858 – 940/41) was a Persian poet, singer and musician, who served as a court poet under the Samanids. He is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. Said to have composed more tha ...
(died 940/41), and is the first known Persian woman poet. She felt strongly about Sufism, and composed poetry in Persian and Arabic. The 14th-century poet and
anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically catego ...
Jajarmi states that Rabia wrote a Persian poem which used Arabic for the ''
shahada The ''Shahada'' ( Arabic: ٱلشَّهَادَةُ , "the testimony"), also transliterated as ''Shahadah'', is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there i ...
'' and ''lahwalah'', which according to the Iranologist Francois de Blois demonstrates her enthusiasm for bilingual tricks. Rabia appears in the ''
Lubab ul-Albab ''Lubab ul-Albab'' (لباب الالباب) is a famous anthology written by Zahiriddin Nasr Muhammad Aufi in the early 13th century in eastern Persia. It is considered as the oldest extant biographical work in Persian literature and the most im ...
'', a compilation of Persian poets made by the 12th and 13th-century writer
Awfi Sadīd ud-Dīn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad 'Aufī Bukhārī (1171-1242) ( fa, سدید الدین محمد عوفی), also known under the laqab Nour ud-Dīn, was a Persian historian, philologist, and author. Biography Born in Bukhara, Aufi claimed de ...
(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." Rabia is amongst the thirty-five female Sufis mentioned in the 15th-century Persian work ''Nafahat al-Uns'', a biographical compilation made by
Jami Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī ( fa, نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as J ...
(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. A romanticized version of this story appears in the '' Ilahi-nama'' of the Sufi poet
Attar of Nishapur Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1145 – c. 1221; fa, ابو حامد بن ابوبکر ابراهیم), better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn () and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur (, Attar means apothecary), was a PersianRitter, H. ...
(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. 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. 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." Her love story with Bektash encouraged the 19th-century writer
Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat ( fa, رضاقلی خان هدایت; 8 June 1800 – 29 June 1871) was a Persian literary historian, administrator, and poet in 19th-century Qajar Iran. Biography Hedayat was born in Tehran on 8 June 1800 to a renowned fa ...
(died 1871) to write the romantic epic of ''Golestan-e Eram'' or ''Bektash-nama'', which tells the story of the two pairs. 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 Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. The shrine was renovated between 2012 and 2016. She is celebrated in the
Balochistan province Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...
of
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, Afghanistan and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
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 In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & R ...
''."


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * *


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balkhi, Rabia 10th-century Persian-language poets People from Khorasan Women of medieval Persia 10th-century women writers Persian women writers Persian-language women poets Persian-language poets Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Samanid-period poets 10th-century births