Status Updates From Muslim Women Mystics: The L...

Chapter 11 is total blasphemy and full of contradictions and finally lays Margaret Smith bare as an Orientalism and western feminist. She’s misquoting and misrepresenting hadith, ascribing absolute perversions to the character of the best of mankind; the only one that Allah would grant intercession for mankind. What great folly, Margaret. What great folly.

Finished part two, was significantly better than part one though some descriptions of Rabia’s pursuits (unverifiable due to her being more legendary and her biographers being 4 centuries afterward), are a little confusing and I wonder more and more whether that which is attributed to her is more like Chinese whispers. Some descriptions seem like she seeks to be like the angels rather than human. Some confusions.

Okay now we’re talking. Part two is finally traversing through Rabia (and other Sufi) attributes. We’re swimming through tawba, sabr, shukr. My favourite trifecta. Lapping this up now.

Finished part one on her life. It’s heavy on her preference for solitude and reliance on Allah but it describes her to such a degree was her reliance on Allah that she rejected the offers of assistance from fellow mankind. If you’re a Muslim reading this, you know that the prophetic example is to be a valuable part of the society in which you live. I feel like this cannot be an accurate account of Rabia.

60 pages in and I confess that there is something a little caricature like about this work. I detect sincerity in Margaret Smith as a writer who seems to have done a great deal of research into source texts. Her credibility from a source point of view comes across very genuine. However, taking her credibility and intentions out of it and looking at the work alone it feels pointless comparative to reading Quran.