al-Shifa' bint Abdullah

Al-Shifa' bint Abdullah ibn Abd Shams al-Qurashiyya al-Adawiyya — or her name was Layla, per Ahmad ibn Salih al-Misri; she is the mother of Sulayman ibn Abi Hathma ¹. Her lineage is disputed in her grandfather's name: Khallaf or Khalid, and Shaddad or Sadad or Dirar ¹.

Abu Umar said, from Ibn Sa'd: her mother was Fatima bint Wahb al-Makhzumiyya. Al-Shifa' became Muslim before the hijra, among the first emigrant women, and pledged to the Prophet; she was of women's wise and excellent ¹.

The Messenger of God would visit her and take his midday rest in her house; she had made him a bed and a wrap he slept in, which stayed with her son until Marwan ibn al-Hakam took it from him ¹. The Messenger of God granted her her house by the Hakakayn in Medina, and she dwelt in it with her son Sulayman ¹.

The Prophet told her: "teach Hafsa the incantation for ant-bites as you taught her writing" ¹. The sources relate that al-Shifa' practised incantation in the Jahiliyya; after her hijra she offered her incantation to the Prophet, who said: "use it and teach it to Hafsa" ¹. Ibn Hajar notes disagreement on whether this hadith is connected or mursal from al-Thawri ¹.

Umar preferred her in opinion, tended and favoured her, and would sometimes put her in charge of a matter of the market, as Abu Umar mentions ¹.

From her relate her two grandsons Abu Bakr and Uthman, sons of Sulayman ibn Abi Hathma, her son Sulayman, Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman, Hafsa mother of the believers, and her client Abu Ishaq ¹. In the Musnad, the Messenger of God was asked about the best deeds and said: "faith in God, jihad in His path, and an accepted hajj" ¹.