MUS LIMS: THE COMMUNITYWe were owned slaves. Some of us performed duties and some
of us had responsibilities to carry out, and some of us served their
households. We used to recite the entire Qur'an once each night,
but that was a hardship for us so we completed it once every two
nights, but that was a hardship for us so we completed it once every
three nights, but that was a hardship for us so we complained to
each other. So we met with the Companions [a$hab] of the messenger
of God and they instructed us to complete the recitation every Friday
(or every seven nights). So we prayed and slept and it was not a
hardship for US.^64Likewise, Abli Raja' al-'Utaridi (d. bet. 717 and 720), who was imam
at his tribal masjid in Basra for forty years, completed the recitation
of the Qur'an once every ten nights during Rama4an.^65 Pious exercises
were also associated with worship at dawn. After 'Abd ar-Ra~man
ibn Abl Layla (d. 701) worshiped at dawn, he would open his mU$~af
and recite until sunrise.^66 When Rabi'a, the eighth century woman
mystic at Basra, was a slave, she would stand all night in worship and
only allowed herself a light sleep between dawn and sunrise.^67 The
objective .of this kind of liturgical worship was to lead one to nearness
to God and came to Muslims from Christian sources along with the
exercises themselves. The attitude that one proceeded from one state
of prayer to another in an increasing concentration on God and that
one remained in that state even after ceasing to worship already ap-
peared in early Islamic piety.68
The state of solitude sought by Christian monks during devotions
was also favored by pious Muslims. The Qur'anic sanction of privacy
at the time of individual worship reinforced the adoption of this local
usage in Iraq. At Kufa, Shuray~ would worship at home with his door
locked for about half a day after public worship; and at Basra, 'Ab-
dullah ibn 'Awn ibn Artaban maintained a place in his home for
household worship. Because of 'Abdullah's ancestry and because he
reportedly never entered the public bath and perfumed himself ac-
cording to sunna, it is natural to suspect a Magian origin for household
64 Ibid., VI, 81.
65 Ibid., VII(l), 101.
66 Ibid., VI, 75.
67 M. Smith, Riibra the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam (Cambridge, 1928),
pp. 7, 28.
68 M. Smith, Studies in Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East (London, 1931),
p.163.