Whatever the truth of the many legends ascribed to her, there is no doubt that Rabia was a woman of powerful faith, and that her influence spread far beyond her lifetime. The Sufis remained an influential sect throughout the Middle Ages, and continue to flourish today.
From the few remaining details of her life, it appears that Rabia left Baghdad at some point and settled in Basra again. She lived there for many years, then journeyed to Jerusalem, another holy city in the Muslim world. She died and was buried there.
Joachim of Fiore
Few medieval mystics influenced modern thinking as much as Joachim of Fiore (y'wah-KEEM, FYOHR-ay; c. 1130-c. 1202), an Italian monk of the Cistercian (sis-TUR-shun) order. In 1185, he began writing a commentary on the biblical book of Revelation, which describes the end of the world. To do his writing, he had separated himself even from other monks, but he soon attracted followers, and in 1196 they were recognized as a Cistercian order known as the Florensians.
Late in life, Joachim began to believe that he had been given special insights on history, and began writing these down just before his death in 1202. Though his ideas were radical, and would lead to a number of interpretations that later troubled church leaders, they received the approval of Pope Innocent III.
Joachim's ideas were based on the Christian concept of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Later followers interpreted his view of history to suggest that there were three ages, each consisting of forty-two generations. They were living, they believed, in the Age of the Son, and in about 1260, the world would enter the Age of the Spirit, when love and freedom would reign.
No serious student of the Middle Ages would accept the idea that love and freedom became universal at any point during that era, or at any time since. However, the idea of three ages seeped into the popular consciousness, and is the source of the prevailing notion of three historical ages: ancient, medieval, and modern.
World History
