ʿĀʾishah bint Yūsuf al-Bāʿūniyyah (Arabic: عائشة بنت يوسف الباعونية, died the sixteenth day of Dhū al-Qa‘dah, 922/1517) was a Sufi master and poet.
[1] She is one of few medieval female Islamic mystics to have recorded their own views in writing,[2] and she "probably composed more works in Arabic than any other woman prior to the twentieth century.
Her grandfather, Ahmad ibn Nasir, was a prominent preacher and Shafi’i judge in both Damascus and Jerusalem, known as the “Shaykh ash-Shuyukh” (Master of Scholars).
‘Ā’ishah left Cairo in 922/1516, with her son and Ibn Ajā, and alongside al-Badr al-Suyūfī (c. 850–925/1446–1519), al-Shams al-Safīrī (877–956/1472–1549), and several other noted scholars, was granted an audience with Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri in Aleppo shortly before his defeat at the Battle of Marj Dabiq: 'an extraordinary event befitting her exceptional life'.
Thus she was a close friend of Abu 'l-Thanā' Maḥmūd b. Ajā, who was the final ṣāḥib dawāwīn al-inshāʼ of the Mamluk era, and corresponded, in verse, with the Egyptian scholar ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-‘Abbāsī (b.
[4] 'It is quite apparent from biographies of ‘Ā’ishah and from her own comments in her writings that she was highly regarded as a pious woman and Sufi master.
Homerin has also published some of the only translations of ʿĀ’ishah's work into English: ʿĀ’ishah's best-known work is her Clear Inspiration, on Praise of the Trusted One (al-Fatḥ al-mubīn fī madḥ al-amīn), a 130-verse Badī‘iyya (a form designed to illustrate the badī or rhetorical devices in the poetic repertoire, with each verse illustrating a particular device) in praise of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
[16] This text 'no doubt' inspired ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī's Nasamāt al-Azhār; both writers accompanied their respective badī‘iyyas with a commentary.
[4] The Emanation of Grace and the Gathering of the Union (Fayḍ al-faḍl wa-jam‘al-shali) is a collection of over 300 long poems in which ʿĀ’ishah 'described mystical states and praised Muhammad, the founder of her order variously Abdul Qadir Gilani, and her own Sufi shaykhs.
[1] They seem to date from throughout ʿĀ’ishah's life up to her move to Cairo and show her command of almost all Arabic poetic forms of the time.
[16] In this work, called in Arabic Al-Muntakhab fi Usul al-Rutab, she attempted to articulate and clarify some of her mystical beliefs and practices in a separate Sufi compendium.
Still, all of them are based on four fundamental principles of the path towards God: repentance, sincerity (ikhlas)), dhikr (recollection), and love (muhabba).
Principle 1: Tawbah (Repentance) (1) remorse for past misdeeds, (2) desisting immediately from current offenses, and (3) never returning to sin.
The repentance of the elect goes further by opposing the lust of concupiscence (nafs) and by averting the gaze of the heart away from pleasure and prosperity while abstaining from all transient things.
Sincerity, she says, is like water helping the tiny seeds of good works to grow, while hypocrisy is a cyclone that will sweep away the fields of one's labor.
For the common believer, the seeds of love are planted by reading the Quran and following the custom of the Prophet and then nourished by complying with divine law.
Celebrations in the Arab world included conferences, articles, poetry recitations, and tributes, such as naming a street in Damascus and several schools after her.