wtfwjd.6.rabbia

Sarah and Celeste discuss their plans to change the focus of their podcast to explore the human relationship to faith and the divine. They discuss the historical context of different regions, including England, North America, Mesoamerica, South America, Africa, China, Australia, and Iraq. They mention the development of different cultures, religions, and trade networks in each region. They highlight the golden age of the Tang Dynasty in China and the thriving arts and scholarship in Baghdad, Iraq. Hi, Sarah. Hi, Celeste. How are you? I'm okay. I'm deliriously tired, but otherwise great. Seriously, we're going to start a club for that, for the deliriously tired folks. There should be a home for deliriously tired folks. Oh my goodness. It feels like it's been a decade since the last time we recorded. Yes. A lot has changed in the world, and we're changing things up a little bit. We are. We're going to maybe keep it lighter? Let's hope. Okay. I think that we have probably led people to believe that this is a politics podcast, which I'm not angry about, but I think it's time to get back to a little bit more of the intention we started with. Yes, the human relationship to faith, to the divine. Yes. We are who we are, so politics will bleed in, but I feel like we said some things we needed to say. We talked about some things we felt were very urgent, and now we're ready to delve into some different things, go a different direction. Yes, and I think the two are not mutually exclusive. I really do believe that the personal is political, and so any personal relationship is political, and the political is personal. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it makes sense to me. We're doing something a little bit different this week. I gave you a prompt. Yes, you gave me a clue as to where in the world we're going to be for this episode. Yes. You told me that I could research the time between 717 and 801 CE, and you said that we're going to be in modern-day Iraq. This is so great. It's kind of like where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. Oh, my goodness. I want to do an overview of where our world was, what the human experience was around the world at that time. I'm going to be skimming, basically, bullet-pointing. I know I'm going to be leaving a lot out. If I had my way, I'd have a 14-part series just on each one of these sections. Famously, we are not a historical podcast. No, just like we're not a politics podcast. Exactly. We're going to get a little history for context, and then you're going to zoom in on an individual. Yes. Okay, an individual that had a relationship with the divine. Yes. I'm excited to learn about this. It's going to be really interesting. I'm excited, too. Well, I love the history. I don't know if you're excited about this part. I am. Maybe not as nerded out as you are, but I am excited about it. All right, so I thought we would start. This is before proper castles are being built in England. Okay. This is even before it's England. It's just a few Anglo-Saxon kings fighting for dominance. Okay. They have hill forts, which are basically a small town of smaller thatched roof buildings on top of flattened hill or mound. The town itself is fortified, but just with walls and towers made out of logs and trenches around the base of the hill to make it harder. You're going to have to climb up and down these trenches to get up the hill. You're going to be tired out by the time you get up there. It's basic. Rudimentary, I was going to say. Yes. Okay. There would be a little chapel in this little hill fort, and they would be practicing Catholicism with a light pagan flavor. Okay. Because it is the 700s, and the Christian church is definitely present, but there are still a lot of older ideas present in that area as well. Okay. They're building monasteries. They're building cathedrals. These places are even becoming pilgrimage attractions, and then much of Europe is in a similar condition. Larger consolidated workforces areas would have larger buildings, that kind of thing. Okay. The Latin church is definitely dominant. It is mingling a little bit with the pagan traditions here and there, but the popes in Rome are definitely in control and having major influence on the formation of nations. Let's hop the pond over to North America. It's the early, early Middle Ages over in Europe. In North America, on this beautiful continent, there are hundreds of established cultural groups, each with their own territories, languages, and trade routes. This is before certain diseases are introduced to this continent. Some areas are starting to become more urban. Okay. There's massive amounts of people. Along the Mississippi, there are linked settlements trading as far north as Canada and as far south as the Gulf in Florida. They did this all without being colonized? It was massive. There were cities. These cities had structures with roadways and plazas and courtyards and market sections. There's a major town, a city known as Cahokia. It had a population in the thousands, thousands and thousands of people. They would have been people from different lineages, but cultures in common. Got it. Okay. Let's see. Different groups have different faith traditions and rituals all over the continent, but the commonality is nature and the incorporation of natural elements. Where we live now, specifically, in the Valley of the Sun, is inhabited by the Hohokam at this time. Okay. They are building the famous canals. They're farming cotton, beans, squash, and trading all throughout the southwest. In Mesoamerica, the Mayans are the powerhouse. Okay. They have around 15 million people living in an area about half the size of modern-day Germany. At this time, there were actually only about 2 million people in actual Germany. It was a really high concentration of cities and a network of roads and pathways. They were building huge monumental architecture. One of the step pyramids is even larger than the pyramids at Khufu. Very stratified. Slaves and peasants at the bottom. Rulers at the top are considered god-kings. Okay. These god-kings protect the people by placating the gods through rituals. Okay. They keep the gods fed. There's also art and writing. The Mayans are one of four cultures to have developed their own writing system, their own script. They actually have fonts and books. This is like a sprawling metropolis, illiterate, at least on some class level. Yes. A group of people are literate. They've got books that, unfortunately, we only have three or four Mayan books because when you're committing genocide, you wipe out the culture as well as the people. All right. In South America, it's much like North America, our southern neighbor is home to millions of people, hundreds of different distinct groups. There are cities, religious pilgrimage sites, trade networks, different religions, languages. In the 700s in South America, a device called the khipu was developed. It's a tool for keeping state records, kind of like an abacus. Okay. It's a counting tool. It's a thick cord with thinner ropes hanging off. The ropes might be different colors for different categories. Then they have different types and sizes of knots to record different things. Wow. Yes. It's super complicated and would be passed down inside of a family. Okay. That knowledge was pretty freaking cool. In Africa, there are millions of people, thousands of tribes. In Southern Africa, there are all kinds of groups. Some hunter-gatherers, some farmers, some peaceful, some warlike, some nomadic, some sedentary, and possibly even some seafaring. Okay. Yes. It's pretty cool. Then in Northern Africa at this time, the 700s, you're seeing a similar but more influence from Europe and the Middle East. You're starting to see Arabic groups actually enslaving and selling sub-Saharan groups. The slaves go to Europe and Asia. Muslims are starting trade relationships with, like as far as the East African coast. Asia. The great power in Asia is China. This period is the Tang Dynasty. It's known as a golden age in China. Okay. 717 is a little after China had its one and only female emperor, Wu Zetian. Society is based on Confucianism. The Tang rulers are building out from that by opening schools and creating a national political bureaucracy based on merit, not birthright. This is the 8th century. Okay. Except for the role of emperor. That is hereditary. That's lockdown. Yeah. There are also massive architectural projects happening here. The cities are growing. This time is known for poetry and tea. The rulers are supporting arts and learning. Then Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are all thriving with temples and monasteries being built. That dynasty lasted until 960. Australia. I thought maybe let's check out what's going on in Australia. Nothing is happening in Australia. Nothing is happening. According to the National Museum of Australia, their timeline jumps from dingoes arriving 5,000 years ago to the Dutch arriving in the 1600s. They were probably just trying to survive Australia. It was rough. Yeah. There's not much to do except for dodge. The bush. There's the bush. Antarctica. Also nothing. Oh. All right. This brings us to clue number two that we're looking at modern day Iraq. Iraq is part of the larger Muslim world. This is the Middle East. This is the Fertile Crescent. Humans have been here for thousands upon thousands of years. There are Arab Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Everybody's fighting for dominance. Sometimes they're getting along. Sometimes they're really, really not. Okay. Basic. Muhammad had died in 632 CE. After his death, there's a schism. Who is going to lead the Islamic world? In 762, it's relatively peaceful. Baghdad is built and becomes the capital of the ruling Islamic Caliphate. It's gorgeous. It's a huge, modern, circular city nestled between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It's also where major trade routes are intersecting. Baghdad is right at the crossroads of wealth and cultural exchange. It's not just the goods that are being traded. It's also the ideas. The rulers at this time, they're supporting arts and scholarship. It's another golden age. It's a golden age for Iraq. There's a huge library-like repository. It's called the House of Wisdom. It has books from India and Greece and all around. Chinese had introduced paper to Muslims, which is way better to write on than clay tablets or papyrus. We get a literary revolution going on right now. This is when we get 1001 Arabian Nights worldwide. We've got mosque schools, observatories being built, astronomy and math. It's super hot. This is when we get Algebra. Interestingly, to me, at this time, we have our first and only female ruler in the Muslim world. Wow. Yeah. Al-Qajar. She's awesome and definitely worth a Google search, as well as Lusaytown. Both of these women have incredible stories. Their story is just really interesting, and I would encourage anybody to look into them. She was kind of at the beginning and middle of the golden age after she passed a little bit of a civil war. By very early in the 1800s, we're at war again in the area. Okay. Yeah, it's hot for a lot of reasons. I think it's interesting. This will make more sense when I introduce our surprise guest. I think it's interesting that so much of this warring is in the name of religion. Yes, and the three religions there, they're all called the Abrahamic? Yes, they're all Abrahamic. Okay, so they're all kind of building off the same foundation. Absolutely. They're all, I don't know, children of the same? Cut from the same cloth? Yeah. Children of the same corn? Yes, exactly. From my own spiritual path and trying to find women specifically that set kind of a precedent in seeking the divine because they're hard to find in any of the Abrahamic religions. Of course. It's hard enough to find women in history at all. Right. Surprise guest is Rabia al-Atawiyah. She's often simply known as Rabia. Okay, so we can call her Rabia? We can call her Rabia. Very nice name. She was an influential Sufi mystic and poet who lived during the 8th century in Basra, which is in present-day Iraq. Okay, Sufism. Sufism is Islamic mysticism. Sufism is a way of practicing Islam. I think that as the centuries have gone on, it has been separated a little bit more by the status quo. Okay. It emerged in the early centuries of Islam. So she was one of the first mystics. Yeah, was she born in 717? Somewhere around then. Okay, like when Haman was only dead a couple decades. Like 70, 80 years? Yeah. I'm counting, right? Wait. He died in the 630s? 630s, yeah. Okay. So back then, there was not as much distinction made between men and women in Islam. It still was a patriarchal religion. There is a belief that the men are closer to God. Okay. And that women are property and the property of the man. She was orphaned as a young girl. As the story goes, her enslaver saw her praying overnight one night and released her. Okay, that's a beautiful story. It's a beautiful story. The enslaver was moved by her piety. Yes, exactly. And decided she needed to fly and be free. And we know that she must have been orphaned because if she had been part of a family structure, she would have been forced to marry. I see. Okay, the elders would have been like, hey, it's your turn. Get on it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because it wouldn't have been an option. Yeah, so she didn't have a mommy or daddy or an auntie who were like, I found you a man. Yeah. Okay. Right. So I'm going to focus on the idea of God's love being the central force in one's spiritual life. There's a ton of poetry. It's all been passed down by oral tradition. I don't think that I could overstate the importance of her role in Sufism during that time. Okay. Yeah. So she was renowned in her time? In her time. Oh, cool. Yeah. And the man that typically would have sought guidance from other Muslim men would go to her because she was... They respected her. She had Paul. Recognized as one of the most devout, somebody who had one of the most intimate relationships with the divine. Interesting. Is that just because she knew the books back and forth? No, it was more about the time that she... So Sufism, most people think of the whirling dervishes and things like that. Yeah. The whole gist is that your whole life is devoted to an intimate relationship with the divine. And so there is asceticism. There's a lot of fasting and prayer and things like that. Okay. Okay. So she would have... This was her job. This was her job. Her job was... Okay. Being Sufi, being mystical. So all of it's passed down through oral tradition. People still know about it now. She's lauded as just one of the most influential early Sufists. She really made a mark. Yeah. That's really cool. She challenges our conception in a patriarchal framework of conventional gender roles. Absolutely. People would travel far and wide... To come see her. To come see her. The vast majority of women during her time period, and in some areas still, were somebody's wife and mother. And didn't leave the home, didn't go to the mosque, things like that. Okay, so where did she live? In Iraq. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I mean, did she have her own house? She had her own little... She lived in her own little house. Okay. Yeah. I mean, she was super... Would people come meet her right there? Oh, yeah. Was she on a mountaintop somewhere, or just on the side of the city? Side of the city. Sorry, that was probably a dog saying hello. Okay. Yeah, she was in the city, but on the outskirts. Okay. And people would bring her bread and water and things like that to... Sustain her. Sustain her. Yeah. Get a moment of her time. Yes. Well, what would she do when they came to visit her? Was it just kind of... Would people bring her a question, or would they just bring their life problems, or just stop to say hi and get a little bit of her mystical presence on them? They might. It seems to me that mostly they just wanted to be in her presence and pray with her. And she was practicing mysticism within the larger construct of Islam. Okay. And in today's context, we refer to her as a mystic. Yes. Yes. She's often cited as a role model for feminist spirituality within Islam. Her emphasis on love and devotion to God rather than societal approval or material gain provides a powerful counter-narrative to patriarchal values and highlights the spiritual equality of women. Was that something that she actively preached, or was it just something that kind of because of her presence... Yes. ...it just kind of opened the door? Yeah. There was one guy, who I don't remember his name, but he went and spent a couple days with her praying, fasting, living the ascetic life. And he said, I passed many days and nights with her, and I didn't see her as a man or a woman. Okay. He didn't want to fuck her. Right. He didn't want to fuck her. He didn't want to beat her up. He didn't want to, like... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't want to see her as another human being that he was having an experience with. Yes, that was having a more intimate... Mm-hmm. ...dance with God than him. She didn't set out to be a feminist role model in Islam at all. There is not much information, like detailed information about her life as it is. Mm-hmm. And if she had set herself apart... Mm-hmm. ...in an obvious way, I don't think we'd know anything about her. Or she'd ask for anything. Right. Or if she would have proselytized, or if she would have... Yeah. Yeah. So, what is a mystical quality? What makes her mystical? It's pretty flap-happy right now. Yes. So I'm thinking mystical like unicorns. It takes the focus away from the... This is just my take on it, but it takes the focus away from the performative nature of religion... Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. ...and puts the focus on the internal relationship with the divine. I see. You go to be with her because just her nature, the nature of her relationship with the divine is at a higher vibration. Mm-hmm, yeah. Like she is her higher self. Absolutely. I don't think that she would have seen such a separation between her and the divine... Mm-hmm. ...as we might conceive now. Mm-hmm. To throw back to our very first episode, she saw the moon instead of the finger pointing to the moon. Okay. One Sufi teacher, his first name is Llewellyn, I don't remember his last name, but I remember him giving a talk and he was talking about when he is in relationship with the divine... Mm-hmm. ...that he would call Allah, he feels incredibly feminine energy... Mm-hmm. ...because he is the receiver. Interesting. Mm-hmm. He's feeling a feminine balancing force to his own masculine identity. Yes, yes. Very interesting. Mm-hmm. When this man is feeling that connection, he's feeling closer to that just oneness. He can, exactly, he can access that oneness. Mm-hmm. Feel like your mind is unfolded... Mm-hmm. ...and that your heart is completely open to the entire universe. Yeah, I have had that, I don't know, the veil... Mm-hmm. ...between myself and the divine... Mm-hmm. ...is the thinnest that it maybe ever will be. Right. I've never been more connected to myself and to something greater than when I'm listening to music, performing music, and when I'm with dogs. Aw. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it also could be phrased that I'm most authentically myself... Mm-hmm. ...most authentically my divine self, so I think Robbie's rad. I think that we need to talk about her more, if only because she kind of fucks up the patriarchal narrative... Mm-hmm. ...that only... That women only have one or two paths. One or two paths, and by nature, have less access to the divine. Mm-hmm. Right? That is definitely a problem... Yeah. ...with some religions, that women just don't have the priesthood. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she never married, never had children. No. And she lived a pretty long life. She did. And the community just took care of her. Yes. She must have been such a touchstone for so many people. Oh, yeah. I mean, you don't see a lot of oral traditions... Mm-hmm. ...becoming written traditions... Mm-hmm. ...and surviving to present day at all, much less from a woman. Right. The fact that her name made it all the way to us. Mm-hmm. She has something special. Mm-hmm. Do you think that in modern days, she would just have a diagnosis and... Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I do. All of it. Everything. Yeah. All modern expectations for her at the time. Yes. I bet her life was kind of rad. Yeah. She was into it. Yeah. She was super into it. She was 100% in. She was living her dream. Mm-hmm. And I'm so tired. It sounds so nice right now, like, if I just had a little hike and somebody brought me some bread. When people write about her, do they write about things she said? Okay. Do you want to know some? I would love to. Okay. Rabia, also, I should have mentioned this, is considered a saint... Oh. ...in Islam. All of this, so she was a poet. It was all oral. People would, like, write it down after they spent time with her. So this is what we have. I just pass it down. Yeah. Repeat it. She didn't leave any written work, so my beloved is always with me. Her beloved is God. Allah. Mm-hmm. I would not worship him unless I saw him when she was asked if she could see the one God that she's worshiping. You know of the how, but I know of the how less. No separation exists between the beloved and the lover. No separation. Mm-hmm. It's like you said, how she lived her life. Mm-hmm. She was inhaling. She had inspiration. Yeah. Like I said, I'm not religious. I can get down with that. Absolutely. I like it. Yeah, this one's interesting. My love for God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save him. To me, that means that it really is like any other relationship. The best thing for a servant who desires to be near his Lord is to possess nothing in this world or the next save him. This is where she and I part ways. Mm-hmm. She actually had lived experience as being a servant to people and then a servant to the divine. This caliphate, the one I was talking about, they did want to support their people and care for their people. It was a relatively peaceful time. Mm-hmm. She wasn't drowned out in the noise of war or need necessarily because there was a lot, all that trade that was going through there. It was actually kind of a wealthier area. She existed in a time and a place where she could have this life. Yes. People could take the time to go visit with her. That could be a priority. Right. She wasn't going to be stoned to death or married off or put in a mental institution. Yeah, or just, hey, crazy, get out of here. Mm-hmm. That happened to Muhammad quite a bit. Mm-hmm. When he was starting out, when he confessed to people that he had been having revelations, there were definitely people that wanted to shut him up as well as Jesus and other faith leaders throughout history when you have a new, Brigham Young. I'm sorry, I should say not Brigham Young. He was the attack dog. Yeah. Tell me about Joseph Smith. Thank you. I'm like, John Smith is not it. Yeah, Joseph Smith, they got chased out of quite a few places because when you bring new spiritual ideas to the table, people are going to think you're crazy. Who said, oh, L. Ron Hubbard? That actually reminds me of an email we got from Chelsea. Shout out to Chelsea. Hi, Chelsea. She said that, well, she said she loved the show. Isn't that nice of her? She said that she likes that we're having these conversations and she's learning things from them, which is rad. Wow. That's a high compliment. I don't know what you could be possibly learning, but take notes. She also said that she's interested in an episode about Scientology, so I definitely think we need to put a pin in that. I'm glad a listener recognized that we're an educational podcast. That's exactly what this is. I mean, I learned about this really interesting woman, and her name was Rabia. She leaned way the fuck in. So much so that people still remember her, like you pointed out, from an oral tradition. Hundreds of years of an oral tradition, people passing down things this woman said and then committing it to paper so that we can look it up on the internet. I mean, if she wrote a self-help book, it would be do your own thing. Yeah. Be yourself. She would be on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday if she had written a self-help book. One of the things I like about Rabia is that she didn't give a whiz what anybody else was doing or thinking about her. I don't think a life of asceticism... It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody, and I don't think it's required to get to that place, but I think that's a cool place to be or to strive to be. She was happy when she died. She was happy because she believed that she was going to meet her beloved. If I found myself in the 8th century Iraq, I would seek her out. I would too. I don't know that we'd be allowed to. If we could make it to her, do you think she would let us in? Yes. Yeah. Because she sounds like a very welcoming person. I'm attributing to her a grandmotherly warmth that I don't actually know she had. Well, I don't know either, but I don't think she really... She wasn't worried about gender norms. So, if somehow... We made it. We made it to her door... She'd let us in. She'd be like... Come on in, you crazy ladies. Come on in. No food for you to eat. I hope you brought something. How's your back these days? Sleeping on the ground is good? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And a stone pillow. Yeah. That definitely... When you have no possessions, you don't have a lot of distractions. Robbie is rad. Yes. And the 700s were rad. They were. I mean, for the most part. If you don't want to, send us an email at wtfwjdpod at gmail.com. Nailed it. I know. It's like fireworks are going off. You can send us a message on Instagram, on Facebook. That's it. I don't know why you would after this episode, honestly. But if you felt the need to tell somebody, hey, listen to these dopes, you can find us on Spotify, in Amazon Music, as well as dozens of other podcast networks I've never heard of. But not yet on Apple. Because believe it or not, they're gatekeeping. What? I know. We'll figure it out. We'll get there, people. We'll get there. And we'll let you know when we do, I promise. Maybe we'll be on YouTube someday. If you guys want. I mean, if you'd rather just never know really what we look like, that's okay, too. I don't know. Yeah, again, why would you want to find us? But, I mean, we are famously a fashion podcast. But I mean, fashion and trendsetting. So drop us a line. Share with your friends if you want. Let's toss the laptops off this bed and just have a nap. Okay, sounds good. We love you. We sure do. Next time. Bye-bye. Bye.