Amra, wife of Habib al-Ajami

عمرة امرأة حبيب العجمي

Basra

A devout woman of Basra, wife of the ascetic Habib Abu Muhammad al-Ajami; Ibn al-Jawzi's Sifat al-Safwa relates that she woke her husband before dawn, and that when her eye was ailing she said, 'The pain of my heart is worse than the pain of my eye.'

Depth

At a glance

Roles
mystic
Era
The Umayyad Period
Region
Levant & Iraq

In space

Basra

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

WomenSpirituality and Sufism

Place in the story

    Sunni (transmitted)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Summary

    Amra was the wife of the Basran ascetic Habib Abu Muhammad al-Ajami; Ibn al-Jawzi gives her entry among the women ascetics of Basra in Sifat al-Safwa (no. 595). 1

    Before dawn

    From al-Husayn ibn Abd al-Rahman, from one of his companions: one night she woke while her husband slept, and roused him before dawn, saying: "Get up, man — the night has gone and the day has come; before you is a long road and little provision, the caravans of the righteous have set out ahead of us, and we have stayed behind." 1

    The pain of the heart

    From Muslim ibn Ibrahim, from Suhayl the brother of Hazm: when her eye was ailing she was asked how she felt, and said, "The pain of my heart is worse than the pain of my eye." 1

    For young visitors

    Amra woke her husband before dawn to pray, telling him that the road to the next life is long and that good people had already gone ahead.

    Connections

    Explore the connections

    Lived in
    Basra

    People and things also explored

    Ufayra the Devout· Ajrada al-Ammiyya· Amat al-Jalil bint Amr al-Adawiyya· Bahriyya al-Abida· Burda al-Sarimiyya· Habiba al-Adawiyya· Hafsa bint Sirin· Kurdawiyya bint Amr al-Basriyya

    Sources

    1. Sifat al-Safwa — Ibn al-Jawzi (ed. Khalid Mustafa Tartusi, Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, Beirut 1433/2012) , p.712
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Amra, wife of Habib al-Ajami”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/amra-wife-of-habib-al-ajami/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-04.

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    Wing

    People

    Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
    Related

    Ufayra the Devout

    A devout woman of Basra recorded by Ibn al-Jawzi in Sifat al-Safwa, who wept until she went blind; to someone who pitied her blindness she said that the heart's blindness to God is worse than the eye's blindness to the world. She did not sleep at night, and said that she had disobeyed God with every limb and, if He helped her, would obey Him with every limb she had disobeyed Him with.