Women
Family: People and stages of life · 81 entries
Entries on this theme
Person
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.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.Sumayya bint Khayyat
c. 560 CEAn elderly woman of the first converts, tortured in Mecca for her faith; the tradition counts her the first martyr of Islam, mother of the Companion Ammar ibn Yasir.Umm Ayman (Baraka bint Tha'laba)
c. 560 (approx.) CEAn Abyssinian freedwoman of the Prophet's family who cared for him as a child and again after his mother's death, and is counted among the Companions.Umm Jamil
c. 565 CEWife of Abu Lahab and sister of Abu Sufyan; remembered in the sources for harassing the Prophet — the 'carrier of wood' of Qur'an 111 in the commentators' reading.Hind bint Utba
c. 575 CEDaughter of the Meccan elder Utba ibn Rabi'a and wife of Abu Sufyan: the sira's most vivid figure of Meccan defiance at Uhud, who converted with the conquest of Mecca; mother of the caliph Mu'awiya.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.Nusayba bint Ka'b (Umm Umara)
c. 590 CEAn Ansari woman of Medina who pledged at Aqaba and fought at Uhud shielding the Prophet with sword and shield — the tradition's most famous woman warrior of the first generation.Sajah bint al-Harith
c. 590 CEA woman of Tamim by her father and Taghib by her mother who claimed prophecy in rhymed speech, marched an army toward Medina, then turned to Yamama and joined Musaylima — before returning to Islam and living into the caliphate.Umm Salama (Hind bint Abi Umayya)
c. 590 (approx.) CEA wife of the Prophet remembered for her counsel at Hudaybiyya and for the hundreds of hadith transmitted on her authority in Sunni tradition.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.Hafsa bint Umar
c. 605 CEA wife of the Prophet and daughter of Umar ibn al-Khattab, remembered in Sunni tradition as the keeper of the collected Qur'anic codex.Safiyya bint Huyayy
c. 610 CEA woman of the Jewish tribe Banu Nadir who was taken captive at Khaybar, then freed and married to the Prophet, becoming one of the Mothers of the Believers.Aisha bint Abi Bakr
c. 613 CEA wife of the Prophet and daughter of Abu Bakr; one of the most prolific transmitters of hadith in Sunni tradition, whose role is viewed differently across the traditions.Ruqayya bint Muhammad
A daughter of the Prophet and wife of Uthman ibn Affan; she emigrated with him to Abyssinia and then to Medina, fell ill as the Prophet set out for Badr, and died the day Zayd ibn Haritha arrived with the news of the victory.Zaynab bint Ali
c. 626 CE · c. 5 AH†Granddaughter of the Prophet through Fatima and Ali; a survivor of Karbala whose accounts and defiance made her a central voice of her family in tradition.Zaynab bint Muhammad
The Prophet's eldest daughter, married to Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi; she gave him protection in Medina, the Prophet returned her to him after he embraced Islam, and she died at the start of 8 AH.Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad
A daughter of the Prophet, married to Uthman ibn Affan after her sister Ruqayya's death in Rabi' al-Awwal 3 AH; she died in his house in Sha'ban 9 AH without bearing him children.Sara, mawla of Banu Abd al-Muttalib
A freedwoman attached to a family of Banu Abd al-Muttalib. In this edition she is named both as one of two possible carriers of Hatib's letter, and as a woman who had harmed the Prophet in Mecca — ordered killed at the conquest, then amnestied; years later a horse trampled her at al-Abtah in Umar's caliphate.Maria al-Qibtiyya
A woman sent to the Prophet in 7 AH by al-Muqawqis, the ruler of Alexandria, together with her sister Sirin; she embraced Islam, bore him Ibrahim, and died in Muharram 16 AH in Umar's caliphate.Umm Haram bint Milhan
Maternal aunt of Anas ibn Malik, whom the Prophet used to visit at Quba; in her hadith he saw people of his community sailing the sea. She married Ubada ibn al-Samit and died on the Cyprus expedition when she fell from her mount.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.The Ghamidi woman
A woman of the Ghamid tribe who came to the Prophet in 9 AH and confessed to fornication; he turned her away repeatedly, deferred the penalty until she bore and weaned her child, and she was stoned — he said of her repentance that, apportioned, it would suffice seventy people of Medina.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-Khansa' bint Khidham
An Ansari woman of Banu Amr ibn Awf whose hadith is established in the Muwatta': her father married her off against her wishes, she went to the Prophet and he annulled the marriage; she later married Abu Lubaba ibn Abd al-Mundhir and bore him al-Sa'ib.al-Rubayyi' bint Mu'awwidh
A Companion of Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar; she gave the pledge under the tree, narrated that women campaigned with the Prophet giving water, serving and tending the wounded, described his ablution, and told of her wedding day when girls played the tambourine.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.al-Shifa' bint Abdullah
One of the first emigrants, she embraced Islam before the Hijra and gave her pledge; counted among the wise and virtuous of women, the Prophet visited her and took his midday rest at her house, she taught Hafsa to write, and Umar valued her opinion and at times put her in charge of something in the market.Arwa bint Abd al-Muttalib
An aunt of the Prophet; she was married to Umayr ibn Wahb and bore Tulayb, then to Kalda ibn Abd Manaf and bore Arwa; Ibn Ishaq says none of the Prophet's aunts embraced Islam except Safiyya, and Ibn Hajar answers with Arwa's story, her embracing Islam after her son Tulayb did.Asma' bint Marthad
An Ansari woman of Banu Haritha; Abu Umar mentions her and says her hadith is not sound because Haram ibn Uthman, who is weak in everyone's view, is alone in narrating it; Ibn Sa'd says she embraced Islam and pledged and that her husband was al-Dahhak ibn Khalifa.Asma' bint Yazid ibn al-Sakan
A Companion of Banu Abd al-Ashhal, cousin of Mu'adh ibn Jabal, known by the kunya Umm Salama and called 'the orator of the women'; she gave her pledge to the Prophet among a group of women, was at al-Yarmuk, and killed nine Byzantines with a tent pole there and lived on for a long time.Atika bint Abd al-Muttalib
An aunt of the Prophet and wife of Abu Umayya ibn al-Mughira, the father of Umm Salama, to whom she bore Abdullah and Quraiba; known for the dream she had three nights before Badr. Whether she embraced Islam is disputed.Busra bint Safwan
A Qurashi woman of Banu Asad, niece of Waraqa ibn Nawfal; al-Shafi'i said she had an early precedence and an emigration; she narrated from the Prophet and Marwan ibn al-Hakam, Urwa and Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib narrated from her; among her hadith is the one on ablution after touching the private part.Durra bint Abi Lahab
A cousin of the Prophet who embraced Islam and emigrated; reports with weak chains say women of Banu Zurayq taunted her over her father and the Prophet, angered, said that his intercession reaches his kin.Fartana
One of the two singing slave-girls of Abdullah ibn Khatal in Mecca who performed lampoons against the Prophet; proscribed on the day of the Conquest, one was killed while the other fled, sought protection, and embraced Islam.Fatima bint al-Khattab
Umar ibn al-Khattab's sister and Sa'id ibn Zayd's wife; among the earliest Muslims of the secret call, which the book counts among the first women to believe.Fāṭima bint ʿAmr al-Makhzūmiyya
The Prophet’s paternal grandmother, of Banū Makhzūm — mother of ʿAbdullāh.Fatima bint Asad
Mother of Ali ibn Abi Talib and his brothers; in the sounder report she emigrated and died in Medina, and the Prophet shrouded her in his shirt.Fatima bint Qays al-Fihriyya
A sister of al-Dahhak ibn Qays and one of the first emigrants, known for beauty and intelligence; divorced by Abu Bakr ibn Hafs al-Makhzumi, she married Usama ibn Zayd on the Prophet's advice, narrated the story of the Jassasa, and the council of the Shura met in her house after Umar's killing.Hamna bint Jahsh
Sister of Zaynab bint Jahsh, wife of Mus'ab ibn Umayr, who was killed at Uhud, and then of Talha ibn Ubaydullah; she was at Uhud giving water to the thirsty and tending the wounded, and she narrated the hadith on abnormal bleeding.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.Khuwayla bint Hakim al-Sulamiyya
An early Muslim woman from Banu Sulaym, wife of Uthman ibn Maz'un; she accompanied the Muslim camp during the siege of Ta'if and requested the jewellery of the women of Thaqif upon the fortress's anticipated fall.Layla bint al-Khatim
From Banu Zafar of the Aws, added by Abu Ali al-Jayyani as a supplement to al-Isti'ab; reports say she offered herself to the Prophet who accepted and then she asked to be released and he released her; Ibn Sa'd counts her among the first women of the Ansar to pledge to the Prophet, and she was called 'the lion's meal'.Maymuna bint al-Harith
A Mother of the Believers and sister of Umm al-Fadl Lubaba; she was named Barra and the Prophet called her Maymuna; he married her at the 'umrat al-qada' in 7 AH, and Ibn Sa'd says she was the last wife he took whom he consummated with; whether he was in ihram at the contract is disputed.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.Rayhana bint Zayd
A captive of Banu Qurayza or Banu al-Nadir; the reports differ on whether the Prophet freed and married her and put the veil on her or she remained in his possession; she died before the Prophet, or on his return from the Farewell Pilgrimage, and was buried at al-Baqi'.Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib
An aunt of the Prophet, mother of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and full sister of Hamza; she embraced Islam and emigrated with her son, a report tells of her killing a man who spied on the women's fort at the Trench, and she lived into Umar's caliphate.Safiyya bint Shayba
Whether she was a Companion is disputed, and the view that she never saw the Prophet is called the most remote because her hadith is established in al-Bukhari in suspended form; she narrated from Aisha, Umm Habiba, Umm Salama and Asma, and Ibn Hibban counts her among the trustworthy Successors.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.Umama bint Abi al-As
A granddaughter of the Prophet through his daughter Zaynab, whom he used to carry on his shoulder in prayer; she married Ali ibn Abi Talib after Fatima, and then al-Mughira ibn Nawfal.Umayma bint Abd al-Muttalib
An aunt of the Prophet, married before Islam to Hujayr ibn Ri'ab al-Asadi (as printed in this edition), mother of Abdullah, Ubaydullah, Abu Ahmad, Zaynab and Hamna; her Islam is disputed.Umm al-Ala' al-Ansariyya
An Ansari Companion among those who pledged; she narrated in the two collections the story of Uthman ibn Maz'un's lodging in her house when the Ansar divided the Muhajirun among them and his death there, her seeing a flowing spring for him and the Prophet's words 'That is his deed'; Ibn Hajar judges her the mother of Kharija ibn Zayd ibn Thabit.Umm al-Fadl Lubaba bint al-Harith
The wife of al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib and mother of Abdullah ibn Abbas, sister of the Mother of the Believers Maymuna; Ibn Sa'd says she was the first woman to believe after Khadija, and the Prophet said of her sisters 'The four sisters are believers'; he used to visit her and she was among the women who bore illustrious children.Umm Atiyya al-Ansariyya
An Ansari Companion named Nusayba, who joined seven campaigns with the Prophet looking after the fighters' baggage, and narrated in the two collections on washing the dead, on women going out to the Eid prayers, and on the women's pledge not to wail; she came to Basra and stayed at the palace of Banu Khalaf.Umm Habiba Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan
A daughter of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and a wife of the Prophet — one of the Mothers of the Believers. When her father came to Medina to renew the truce she folded away the Prophet's bedding rather than let him sit on it.Umm Hakim bint al-Harith
The wife of Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl; she was at Uhud as a non-Muslim, embraced Islam on the day of the conquest and obtained safety for her husband; she then married Khalid ibn Sa'id after Ikrima's martyrdom, and fought at Marj al-Saffar, killing seven Byzantines with a tent pole.Umm Hani' bint Abi Talib
A cousin of the Prophet, named Fakhita (also given as Fatima or Hind); wife of Hubayra ibn Amr al-Makhzumi, who fled to Najran on the day Mecca was taken; she narrated hadith found in the six collections.Umm Kulthum bint Ali
A daughter of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, born in the Prophet's lifetime; Ibn Hajar reports accounts of Umar ibn al-Khattab's proposal to her, her dower and her children Zayd and Ruqayya, and then her marriages after him to sons of Ja'far ibn Abi Talib.Umm Kulthum bint Uqba
An Umayyad Companion who embraced Islam early and gave her pledge; she emigrated to Medina alone during the truce of al-Hudaybiyya, and when her two brothers came to demand her the Prophet did not return her; she married in turn Zayd ibn Haritha, al-Zubayr, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and Amr ibn al-As.Umm Mubashshir bint al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur
An Ansari woman, daughter of al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur; Jabir ibn Abdullah narrated from her the hadith that none of the people of the tree will enter the Fire, and her words are recorded at the Prophet's last illness, where she said she blamed her son Bishr's death only on the poisoned sheep he had eaten with the Prophet.Umm Qays bint Mihsan
A sister of Ukkasha ibn Mihsan, she embraced Islam early at Mecca, gave her pledge and emigrated; she narrated hadith in the two collections, including the one about her small son who had not yet eaten food, and in one story the Prophet said 'May her life be long', after which it was said no woman was known to have lived as long as she did.Umm Ruman
The wife of Abu Bakr and mother of Abd al-Rahman and Aisha; she embraced Islam early, gave her pledge and emigrated, and died in the Prophet's lifetime, in Dhu al-Hijja 6 AH on the sounder view; the Prophet went down into her grave and asked forgiveness for her.Umm Sa'd bint Sa'd ibn al-Rabi'
Daughter of Sa'd ibn al-Rabi', who was killed at Uhud while she was in the womb; she grew up an orphan in Abu Bakr's care and married Zayd ibn Thabit, bearing him Kharija, Sa'd, Uthman, Sulayman and Umm Zayd; a report on the inheritance of an unborn child is linked to her.Umm Sharik
A Companion of Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy whose name and lineage are disputed; some reports say she embraced Islam at Mecca, called the women of Quraysh in secret and was tortured, and that she offered herself to the Prophet, who did not accept, and she never married; Ibn Hajar points out the weakness of some chains.Umm Sulaym bint Milhan
The mother of Anas, the Prophet's servant, known by her kunya with her name disputed; she embraced Islam among the earliest of the Ansar, her first husband Malik left for Syria angry and died there, Abu Talha proposed to her before he was Muslim and his Islam became her dower; she campaigned with the Prophet and carried a dagger at Hunayn.Umm Sunbula al-Aslamiyya
A Companion of Aslam about whom Aisha related that she brought the Prophet milk as a gift; Aisha remarked he had forbidden eating from bedouin, and he said 'They are not bedouin; they are the people of our desert and we are the people of their town, and when we call them they answer.'Umm Waraqa bint Abdullah
An Ansari Companion who had read the Qur'an; she asked to go out with the Prophet to Badr to nurse the sick and he told her to stay in her house since God would grant her martyrdom, so she was called 'the martyr'; he allowed her a muezzin in her house, and a male and a female slave of hers killed her and Umar had them crucified.Umm Ziyad al-Ashja'iyya
A Companion of Ashja' who went out with the Prophet on the Khaybar campaign with five other women; the Prophet asked 'With whose leave did you come out?' and they answered that they had come to treat the wounded, hand out arrows and give out barley drink, and dates were apportioned to them.Umm Zufar
A tall black woman who complained to the Prophet that she suffered seizures and her body was exposed; he gave her the choice between patience, with Paradise, and a prayer for cure, and she chose patience and asked that she not be exposed, so he prayed for that; Ibn Abbas said 'This woman is of the people of Paradise', and Ata' saw her on the steps of the Kaaba.Zaynab bint Jahsh
A Mother of the Believers, whose mother Umayma was the Prophet's aunt; she was married to Zayd ibn Haritha and then to the Prophet, and a verse in sura al-Ahzab was revealed about her; she died in 20 AH, the first of his wives to die after him.Zaynab bint Khuzayma
A Mother of the Believers called 'Umm al-Masakin' (mother of the poor) for feeding and giving to them; the Prophet married her after Hafsa, she stayed with him some months and died in his lifetime; her earlier husband is disputed: Abdullah ibn Jahsh, martyred at Uhud, or al-Tufayl and then Ubayda, sons of al-Harith.
Event
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 Incident of the Slander (Hadith al-Ifk)
c. December 627 CE · Sha'ban 6 AHOn the return from the Expedition of al-Muraysi', Aisha was accidentally left behind when searching for a lost necklace and was escorted back to Medina by Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal; Abdullah ibn Ubayy orchestrated a malicious slander campaign that troubled the community for a month until verses of Surat al-Nur established her innocence.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.
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
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