The Disease of Seeking Divine Favor

Rabia revolutionized Islamic spirituality by teaching that all souls have equal access to divine love and grace. She identified a profound confusion at the heart of favoritism: the belief that some are chosen, blessed, or inherently superior in God's eyes. This disease of seeking divine favor—of wanting to be special to God—is the spiritual root of all human favoritism. When we imagine ourselves or our loved ones as specially favored by existence itself, we justify treating others as less worthy. Rabia taught pure devotion untethered from this hunger for distinction. She showed that the cost of favoritism is precisely this: we trade the peace of belonging equally to all for the anxiety of constantly proving our special worth. By recognizing this spiritual disease in ourselves, we can begin to heal the favoritism that flows from it.