Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib

Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib, aunt of the Prophet, mother of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam one of the Ten, and full sister of Hamza ¹.

Her mother is Hala bint Wahb, the Prophet's maternal aunt. First al-Harith ibn Harb ibn Umayya married her and died; then al-Awwam ibn Khuwaylid married her and she bore him al-Zubayr and al-Sa'ib ¹. She became Muslim, narrated, and lived into Umar's caliphate per Abu Umar; she emigrated with her son al-Zubayr ¹.

Umm Urwa bint Ja'far ibn al-Zubayr relates from her grandmother Safiyya that when the Prophet went out to the Trench he placed his women in a fort called Fari' with Hassan ibn Thabit among them. A Jew came and climbed the fort until he overlooked them; Safiyya asked Hassan to kill him and he said he was not capable of it — so she went down to him, struck him with a tent-pole until she killed him, and threw his head down on the Jews at the fort's foot. They said: "we knew this one would not leave his own people's quarters unguarded" — and they scattered ¹. Ibn Hajar notes that Ibn Ishaq related it from Yahya ibn Abbad from his father, and that she was "the first woman to kill a man of the polytheists" in Yunus's account from Hisham from Urwa ¹.

Hisham relates from his father that Safiyya came on the day of Uhud when the people had fled, spear in hand, striking at their faces — and the Prophet said to al-Zubayr: "the woman" ¹.

Al-Tabarani relates that when the Prophet passed away she went out trailing her wrap, reciting a verse in grief; Ibn Hajar mentions that Ibn Ishaq cited verses of hers mourning the Prophet ¹. Ibn Sa'd said she died in Umar's caliphate ¹.