September 06, 2026

Two Kinds Of Love

I have loved Thee with two loves, a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee. As for the love which is selfish, therein I occupy myself with Thee, to the exclusion of all others. But in the love which is worthy of Thee, Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee. Yet is there no praise to me in this or that, but the praise is to Thee in both that and this.

Rabia al-Adawiyya was born into poverty in eighth-century Basra, sold into slavery as a child, and later freed to become one of the most revered mystics in Islamic history. This saying survives through Farid al-Din Attar's biography of the early Sufi saints, written more than three centuries after her death but drawing on a long oral memory of her teaching. She lived at a time when religious devotion was often tied to fear of punishment or hope of reward, and she pushed against that transaction at every turn. Her words still cut through today because they name a habit most of us carry into our closest relationships: loving people partly for what their presence gives us back.