Who is this Rabe’a person, anyway?

A leading scholar of Basra visited Rabe’a on her sickbed. Sitting beside her pillow, he reviled the world.

“You love the world very dearly,” Rabe’a commented. “If you did not love the world, you would not make mention of it so much. It is always the purchaser who disparages the wares. If you were done with the world, you would not mention it either for good or evil. As it is, you keep mentioning it because as the proverb says, whoever loves a thing mentions it frequently.”