Family, marriage and kinship
Family: People and stages of life · 67 entries
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Event
The Settlement of Hajar and Ismail at Mecca
c. 2000 BCEIbrahim leaves his wife Hajar and the infant Ismail in a barren valley by the future site of the House, entrusting them to God; when the water runs out the spring of Zamzam breaks forth, and the Yemeni tribe of Jurhum settles by them with Hajar’s permission.The Recovery of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s Rights
c. 520 CENawfal’s seizure of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s offices; Quraysh declined to arbitrate, his Najjārī uncles marched in eighty riders, and Khuzāʿa entered the pact on Banū Hāshim’s side.The Prophet's marriage to Khadija
c. 595 CEThe marriage of Muhammad and Khadija bint Khuwaylid, arranged after her trade trip under his management to Syria; the book gives her dowry as twenty young camels and her age as forty, and notes she remained his only wife until she died.The Prophet's marriage to Sawda bint Zam'a
c. 619 CEThe marriage of Prophet Muhammad to Sawda bint Zam'a in Shawwal of the tenth year of prophethood, his first marriage after the death of Khadija.The marriage of Fatima and Ali
c. 624 CE · 2 AHThe Prophet's daughter Fatima married his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib in Medina, from which the Prophet's line of descendants continued.The death of Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad
c. 631 CE · 9 AHIn 9 AH Umm Kulthum, the Prophet's daughter and wife of Uthman ibn Affan, died; the Prophet grieved her deeply and told Uthman, 'Had I had a third daughter I would have given her to you in marriage' — whence Uthman was called Dhu al-Nurayn, the possessor of the two lights.The li'an between Uwaymir al-Ajlani and his wife
c. 631 CE · 9 AHAfter the return from Tabuk in 9 AH, Uwaymir al-Ajlani accused his wife before the Prophet; the Prophet administered between them the mutual oath of condemnation (li'an) prescribed in Surat al-Nur, then separated them — an early application of the li'an ruling.Death of Ibrahim
c. 27 January 632 CE · c. 28 Shawwal 10 AHIbrahim, the Prophet's son by Maria the Copt, died an infant in Medina on 28 or 29 Shawwal 10 AH (January 632 CE); the Prophet wept and said: the eye weeps and the heart grieves, and we say only what pleases our Lord.Marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh
c. Dhu al-Qa'da 5 AHThe Prophet married Zaynab bint Jahsh after Zayd ibn Haritha divorced her, in Dhu al-Qa'da 5 AH, abolishing by act the jahili adoption rule that had treated an adopted son's wife as a real son's wife; verses of sura al-Ahzab were revealed about it and the hypocrites spread propaganda around it.The Choice Offered to the Prophet's Wives
c. 9 AHWhen the Prophet's wives asked for a better standard of living amid the austerity of his household, the verse of choice was revealed (al-Ahzab 28-29): if you desire the life of this world and its adornment, come, I will provide for you and release you graciously; but if you desire Allah and His Messenger and the abode of the Hereafter, Allah has prepared a great reward for the doers of good among you. All of them chose Allah and His Messenger.
Person
Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim
c. 497 CEThe Prophet Muhammad's grandfather and guardian, a leading elder of Quraysh remembered in tradition for restoring the well of Zamzam and leading Mecca at the time of Abraha's campaign.al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf
Hāshim’s brother, heir to the siqāya and rifāda; fetched his nephew Shayba from Yathrib — the boy dubbed ‘ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’, the name that stuck.Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib
c. 535 CEAn uncle of the Prophet who raised him, led Banu Hashim, and protected him from Quraysh until his own death — while whether he himself embraced Islam is contested between the traditions.Halima al-Sa'diyya
c. 540 (approx.) CEA Bedouin woman of Banu Sa'd who nursed the infant Muhammad in the desert for several years, as was the Meccan custom, and is remembered in tradition as his foster-mother.ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib
c. 545 CEThe Prophet’s father — the ransomed ‘sacrifice’ of the lot, husband of Āmina, who died at Yathrib aged twenty-five before his son’s birth.Khadija bint Khuwaylid
c. 555 CEA wealthy Meccan merchant who was the Prophet Muhammad's first wife and, in tradition, the first person to believe in his message.Abu Lahab
c. 560 CEAn uncle of the Prophet who became one of his most vocal opponents in Mecca, alongside his wife Umm Jamil — the household singled out in Qur'an 111.al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib
c. 568 CEAn uncle of the Prophet, captured with the Meccan side at Badr and later a Muslim, whose descendants founded the Abbasid caliphate.Amina bint Wahb
The Prophet's mother, of the Zuhra clan; she took her six-year-old son to Yathrib to visit his father's grave, fell ill on the road home, and died at al-Abwa between Mecca and Medina.Zayd ibn Haritha
c. 580 (approx.) CEA freedman of the Prophet, once adopted by him, who became one of the earliest Muslims and commanded the expedition to Mu'ta, where he was killed; the only Companion named in the Qur'an.Fatima bint Muhammad
c. 605 CEThe youngest daughter of the Prophet and Khadija and wife of Ali ibn Abi Talib; mother of Hasan and Husayn and a central figure of Ahl al-Bayt in both Sunni and Shia tradition.Ibrahim ibn Muhammad
The Prophet's son by Maria the Copt; he died an infant in Medina in Shawwal 10 AH (January 632 CE).Sawda bint Zam'a
Mother of the Believers; among the early converts who migrated to Abyssinia, and the first woman the Prophet married after the death of Khadija, in Shawwal of the tenth year of prophethood.Abd Manaf ibn Qusayy
Son of Qusayy who had already risen to leadership in his father’s lifetime; after his death his sons contested the offices with the sons of Abd al-Dar, and the siqaya and rifada fell to his line — inherited by Hashim, then al-Muttalib, then Abd al-Muttalib.Abdullah ibn Muhammad
The Prophet's son by Khadija, called al-Tayyib and al-Tahir; he died young in Mecca.Abu Ghubshan al-Khuzaʾi
The Khuzaʾi who held the guardianship of the Kaaba on behalf of Hubba bint Hulayl and sold it to Qusayy for a skin of wine — the purchase Khuzaʾa resented, sparking the war that ended their rule of Mecca.Abū Saʿd ibn ʿAdī al-Najjārī
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s maternal uncle of Banū al-Najjār; rode to Mecca with eighty men and drew his sword at the Ḥujr until Nawfal restored his nephew’s rights.Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith
The Prophet's paternal cousin and milk-brother, fostered with him in Banu Sa'd under Halima's care; he later became one of the poets of Islam after initially opposing it.Adnan
The ancestor at whom the Prophet’s lineage is said to stop: twenty-first in the chain of the prophetic genealogy in Raheeq’s reckoning, descendant of Qaydar ibn Ismail; when the Prophet reached Adnan in tracing his lineage he would stop and say the genealogists lie.al-Fadl ibn al-Abbas
Son of al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib; rode behind the Prophet from Arafat to Muzdalifa in the Farewell Pilgrimage, walked beside him in the last illness, and helped turn and wash his body before burial.al-Jawniyya
A woman of Kinda contracted to the Prophet but the marriage was not consummated; the sira literature disagrees on her name and the details, and al-Raheeq records only her well-known byname.al-Qasim ibn Muhammad
The Prophet's eldest son by Khadija, from whom his kunya Abu al-Qasim derives; he died young in Mecca.al-Shayma bint al-Harith al-Sa'diyya
A woman of Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr of Hawazin and foster-sister of the Prophet through nursing; taken among the Hunayn captives, she made herself known to him, he recognized her by a mark and honored her, spread his cloak for her to sit upon, then manumitted her and returned her to her people.Fāṭima bint ʿAmr al-Makhzūmiyya
The Prophet’s paternal grandmother, of Banū Makhzūm — mother of ʿAbdullāh.Fihr ibn Mālik (Quraysh)
The eponym ‘Quraysh’ to whom the tribe is traced, in the agreed first part of the Prophet’s genealogy.Hajar (Hagar)
Wife of Ibrahim and mother of Ismail; tradition tells she was settled by Ibrahim with her infant son in the empty valley of Mecca, where the spring of Zamzam broke forth for them, and Jurhum settled nearby with her permission.Hashim ibn Abd Manaf
Son of Abd Manaf who drew the siqaya and rifada in the division of offices and held them all his life; eponym of Banu Hashim, the house from which the Prophet came.Hind ibn Abi Hala
Khadija's son by Abu Hala and the Prophet's stepson; he transmitted the most famous description of the Prophet's bearing and assembly, preserved in the Shamail.Hulayl ibn Hubshiyya
The Khuzaʾi ruler of Mecca who gave his daughter Hubba in marriage to Qusayy ibn Kilab; on his death the contest between Quraysh and Khuzaʾa over the custody of the Kaaba began.Ibrahim (Abraham)
The patriarch of the Adnani Arabs in the sira’s telling: emigrant from Ur of the Chaldeans to Harran and then Palestine, who settled Hajar and the infant Ismail in the barren valley of Mecca, visited them on recorded journeys, submitted to the command of the sacrifice, and raised the foundations of the Kaaba with his son before calling mankind to the hajj.Ismail (Ishmael)
Son of Ibrahim and Hajar, settled as an infant with his mother at Mecca where Zamzam sprang; he married into Jurhum, fathered twelve sons whose tribes spread from Mecca, and built the Kaaba with his father; the Adnani Arabs trace their lineages to him.Juwayriya bint al-Harith
A Mother of the Believers, daughter of the chief of Banu al-Mustaliq; she fell among the captives at al-Muraysi' and arranged her own manumission, the Prophet paid it and married her, and people released the Mustaliq captives they held, so that a hundred households were freed through her.Nafisa bint Munya
Khadija's confidante to whom she disclosed her wish to marry Muhammad; Nafisa broached the matter with him, he consented, and the match proceeded through their uncles.Nawfal ibn ʿAbd Manāf
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s uncle who seized his offices after al-Muṭṭalib’s death, forced to restore them under pressure of the Najjār and the new pact.Qusayy ibn Kilab
The Qahtani-raised Qurashi who returned to Mecca, married Hulayl’s daughter Hubba, took the custody of the Kaaba from Khuzaʾa around 440 CE after the arbitration of Yaʾmar ibn Awf, gathered Quraysh into the town’s quarters, founded Dar al-Nadwa, and held the five offices: riyasa, liwa, hijaba, siqaya and rifada.Salmā bint ʿAmr
A woman of Banū ʿAdī ibn al-Najjār of Yathrib; Hāshim’s wife and ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s mother, who raised the boy at Yathrib.Thuwayba
The freedwoman of Abu Lahab who first suckled the Prophet after his mother, with the milk of her son Masruh; she had nursed Hamza before him and Abu Salama after him.Uwaymir al-Ajlani
A companion of Banu Ujlan of the Ansar who accused his wife before the Prophet after the return from Tabuk; the Prophet administered the mutual oath of condemnation (li'an) between them and separated them.Wahb ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Zuhra
Chief of Banū Zuhra by lineage and standing; father of Āmina and thus the Prophet’s maternal grandfather.Yaʾmar ibn Awf (al-Shaddakh)
The Bakr ibn Abd Manaf arbiter who judged between Qusayy and Khuzaʾa that Qusayy was worthier of the Kaaba and Mecca, laying the blood Qusayy had spilled beneath his feet, i.e. waived, while awarding blood-money for Khuzaʾa’s dead; from that ruling he was called al-Shaddakh.Zuhayr ibn Abi Umayya
A Makhzumi notable whose mother was Atika bint Abd al-Muttalib; the first among the five Meccan leaders to publicly challenge and break the boycott charter in the Haram.
Concept
Jāhilī Marriage Forms
Four pagan marriage forms — common, istibda‘ (lending a wife for a better lineage), communal paternity assignment, and wife-swapping (al-badal) — Islam abolished all but the first.Waʾd (Infant Burial)
Waʾd: burying infant girls alive out of fear of poverty or disgrace — Islam abolished it and classed it among the gravest sins.
Group
Adnan (the Arabized Arabs)
The lineage called the Arabized Arabs: tracing to Ismail ibn Ibrahim, also called Adnani; from it come Rabiʾa and Mudar, and through them Quraysh and the tribes of the Hijaz and Najd.Ahl al-Bayt
'The People of the House' — the Prophet's household: the family around whom the deepest loyalties and the deepest split in Islamic history would form.The Extinct Arabs
The first of the historians’ three divisions of the Arabs: the ancient peoples of whom little survives, such as Ad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis and the Amaliq.al-Azd
A Kahlani Qahtani tribe that migrated from Yemen under Imran ibn Amr Muzayqiya; its branches dispersed to Yathrib (the Aws and Khazraj through Thaʾlaba), Mecca (Khuzaʾa), Oman, and al-Sham (Jafna, ancestor of the Ghassanids).Banu Hamdan
The great Kahlani tribe of Yemen whose rivalry with Himyar the Abyssinians exploited for their first occupation of Yemen in 340 CE.Banu Hashim
The Prophet's own clan within Quraysh — divided over his mission yet bound to him by blood, sheltering him through the boycott whether they believed or not.Lakhm (the Manadhira)
The Kahlani tribe whose Nasr ibn Rabiʾa founded the line of al-Hira’s kings — the Manadhira — ruling as Persia’s Arab wardens from Amr ibn Adi to the last al-Mundhir in 632.Banu Shayban (of Bakr ibn Waʾil)
The Bakrite clan of Hani ibn Masʾud which defeated the Sasanian host at Dhu Qar — the first day the Arabs routed the Persians.Himyar
The most famous Qahtani stock with Kahlan; it took over the kingdom of Saba around 115 BCE, made Zafar its capital, and produced Yemen’s later kings such as Dhu Nuwas and the house of Dhu Yazan.Jurhum
A Yemeni Qahtani tribe that settled at Mecca in Ismail’s time and intermarried with him; it held authority over Mecca for nearly twenty centuries until Khuzaʾa expelled it in the mid-second century CE, whereupon it buried Zamzam and departed for Yemen.Kahlan
One of the great Qahtani stocks; its branches left Yemen around the time of the Arim flood, among them al-Azd, Lakhm, Judham, Tayy, Kinda, Hamdan, and the ancestors of the Aws, Khazraj, Khuzaʾa and the Ghassanid house of Jafna.Mothers of the Believers
The Qur'anic title of the Prophet's wives ('his wives are their mothers', al-Ahzab 6): he contracted thirteen women, consummated marriage with eleven and died leaving nine; they played a great role in transmitting his domestic life and the rulings of the sharia to the women of the umma.Qahtan (the Original Arabs)
The lineage called the Original Arabs: descendants of Yaʾrub ibn Yashjub ibn Qahtan, based in Yemen, whose best-known branches are Himyar and Kahlan.Qudaʾa
A great tribe of Himyarite affiliation (debated); it left Yemen for the Samawa steppe on Iraq’s edge, moved on to al-Sham under Ardashir’s pressure, and produced the Salihids — the Dajaʾima — Rome’s first Arab client kings.
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