The Forgetting of Kinship

Central to Rabia's mysticism was dhikr—remembrance—the practice of recalling what we've forgotten: that all beings share a common origin, that we're woven from the same divine breath. Favoritism is, at its core, a failure of remembrance. We forget our kinship with those outside our circle, treating them as strangers or threats rather than siblings. This forgetting isn't intellectual; it's spiritual and emotional. We can believe in human equality while feeling profound indifference to distant suffering. Rabia's practice was continuous remembrance: maintaining awareness of connection even across difference. She taught that spiritual work required regularly awakening to what we habitually forget. One practice: when encountering someone you naturally dislike or dismiss, deliberately recall what you share—mortality, vulnerability, the desire for dignity, love, meaning. This isn't magical thinking but a discipline that retrains perception. The cost of persistent forgetting is tragic. We become capable of extraordinary cruelty toward those we've classified as 'not like us.' We justify policies that harm masses because we've forgotten their kinship. Rabia's insistence on remembrance—on regular, deliberate recall of our common humanity—offers an antidote. Through practice, forgetting becomes harder and compassion becomes the baseline rather than the exception.