Names like Khadijah, Aisha, Aminah, Fatimah and Umm Jamil are practically
known to every Muslim. The first two were
the Prophet’s wives, the third was his mother, the fourth was his daughter, and
the last one was his fierce enemy.
Other names like Fatimah bint Amr, Fatimah bint Asad and Barakah are
less well known, except to the students of Seerah, although these three were
very closely related to the Prophet. The
last two, in fact, had played great roles in the life and mission of the
Prophet. Of these three, the first was
his grandmother, the second was his auntie (the wife of Abu Talib) who was his
guardian after the death of his mother, and the last one was his father’s
bondmaid whom the Prophet considered as “my mother after my mother.”
In this series, we shall try to highlight some of the women around the
Prophet.
Women around the Prophet may be divided into four categories.
First are his guardians: his grandmother (Fatimah Amr), his mother
(Aminah Wahab), his suckling mother (Halimah al Saadiyah), his auntie who
raised him after the death of his mother (Fatimah Asad), and his father’s freed
bondmaid who took care of him when he was young and remained close to him for
the rest of his life (Barakah or popularly known as Umm Ayman).
Second are his wives, of whom he had twelve: 1. Khadijah bint Khuwaylid;
2. Sawda bint Zam'a; 3. A'isha Siddiqa bint Abu Bakr; 4. Hafsah bint Umar; 5.
Zaynab bint Khuzayma; 6. Umm Salamah Hind bint Abi Umayya; 7. Zaynab bint Jahsh;
8. Juwayriya bint al-Harith; 9. Umm Habibah bint Abi Sufyan; 10. Safiyya bint
Huyayy; 11. Maymuna bint al-Harith; and 12. Maria al-Qibtiyya. Or thirteen if we count Rayhanah bint Zayd as
well, whose status is disputed, as we have seen in Prophet Muhammad Is Not an Israelite.
Third are his daughters, of whom he had four: Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm
Kulthoom and Fatimah.
And finally his supporters, who are either his close relatives, such as
his auntie Safiyya (the sister of his uncle Hamzah), his cousin Umm Hani (the
sister of his cousin Ali), or distant relatives such as Fatimah al Khattab (the
sister of Umar al Khattab), or those who are not related at all, such as Umm Sulaym
(the mother of his boy-servant in Madinah, Anas bin Malik).
This classification is neither neat nor clear cut. For instance, all of them are essentially his
supporters as well, with the exception of his grandmother and his mother who had
died when he was still a boy (his mother died when he was about six years old,
and his grandmother a year or two later), and his suckling mother who had “disappeared”
from his life after he was four years old, only to “reenter” again after the
Battle of Hunayn. His suckling mother
was said to embrace Islam after that battle, but “disappeared” again from his
life, living with her Bedouin tribe.
Not included in the above categories, but whose names are well known, were
his female enemies. Foremost among these
were his auntie, Umm Jamil, the wife of his notorious uncle, Abu Lahab; Hind,
the wife of Abu Sufyan bin Harb; Khunass bint Malik, the mother of Mus’ab bin
Umayr; and Umm Anmaar, the mistress or slave owner of Khabbab bin al Aratt.
Since this series is about the female companions of the Prophet, or his
guardians, let’s conclude this introductory remark by briefly highlighting the
Prophet’s well known female enemies.
The first one was Umm Jamil. Her real name was Arwaa’ bint Harb. “Umm”
means mother in Arabic. Thus, her name
denotes that she was the mother of “Jamil,” as Barakah, the guardian of the
Prophet, was called Umm Ayman because she had a son called Ayman. Arwaa’ bint Harb, however, did not have a son
called “Jamil.” She was called Umm Jamil
because she was said to be very beautiful, for Jamil means beautiful. Thus her name signifies that she is the “mother
of beauty.”
Her beauty, however, did not go beyond her looks. She had a sharp tongue and a terrible
behavior. Unlike other female enemies of the Prophet, whose enmity tend to be mostly
verbal, Umm Jamil got physical with the Prophet. Aside from verbal abuse, she would throw dirt,
animal hides, and thorns to the Prophet.
Other than Umm Jamil, no other woman was brave enough to cause physical and
verbal abuse to the Prophet.
Her “gallantry” was probably due to the fact that the Prophet was her
nephew by marriage, since she was the wife of Abu Lahab, the Prophet’s notorious
uncle. Her “standing” was further amplified
by the fact that she was the sister of Abu Sufyan bin Harb, a well-known enemy
of the Prophet. As if that is not
enough, she was also the sister in law of Hind bint Utbah, another notorious female
enemy of the Prophet, whose father, Utbah bin Rabi’ah, was also a well-known
enemy of the Prophet.
For her role in opposing her nephew and the mission he brought, Umm
Jamil earned the epithet of the “wicked carrier of firewood.” This epithet, given by Allah Himself, is preserved
for eternity in the Surah al Masad. As
her husband was rich, she did not have to carry firewood to earn her
living. The epithet is a satire from
Allah, signifying that her work would serve as fire to burn her in Hell.
When she came to know about the epithet, Umm Jamil was overcome with
rage. She took a stone and went looking
for his nephew. The Prophet was with his
bosom friend, Abu Bakar, at that time.
She saw Abu Bakar, but somehow her nephew was “hidden” from her sight.
“Where is your companion Abu Bakar?”
She asked.
“Why?” Abu Bakar replied with a
question.
“I want to smash his mouth with this stone for lampooning me!” She said. Abu Bakar did not respond, and she left
shortly thereafter, oblivious to the fact that her nephew, Muhammad the
Prophet, was in front of her all the while.
This story is well known.
The second well known female enemy of the Prophet is Hind bint
Utbah. She was the wife of Abu Sufyan,
the Makkan supreme leader after the Battle of Badar. Abu Sufyan was among the arch enemies of the Prophet,
but unlike Abu Jahal, Abu Sufyan did not belong to the hardliners. This is
probably due to his close friendship with Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, the Prophet’s
uncle.
Hind was also the daughter of Utbah bin Rabi’ah, another well-known
enemy of the Prophet. She was related to
Umm Jamil in many ways, for Umm Jamil was her cousin as well as her sister in
law.
Hind opposed Islam and the Prophet from the beginning, following the
footsteps of her father and her husband.
But unlike her sister in law, Umm Jamil, her opposition was not
physical. She also took the backseat behind
Umm Jamil while the latter was alive.
The situation, however, changed after the Battle of Badar. In that war, her father, Utbah bin Rabi’ah,
her uncle, Shaybah bin Rabi’ah and her brother, Walid bin Utbah, were killed in
the duel.
Crying out for vengeance, she mourned the death of her father, uncle and
brother, putting dust on her head outside of her house, where she stayed and moaned
for hours daily. Her husband Abu Sufyan
pleaded her to stop mourning and putting dust on her head, but she refused,
until Abu Sufyan gave her the promise that the vengeance would be waged the
next year. It was to be the Battle of
Uhud.
Hind’s enmity with the Prophet also turned personal after the Battle of
Badar. She wanted three men dead: the
Prophet, Ali and Hamzah. As for the
Prophet, that was because he was the leader.
As for Ali, it was he who killed her brother, Walid. As for Hamzah, it was he who killed her uncle,
Shaybah. And both Ali and Hamzah also finished
off his father, Utbah, during the duel before the actual battle started.
For that purpose, she hired an Ethiopian slave, Wahsy, promising him
freedom and material reward. Wahsy was
to kill the three, or at least one of them.
He managed only to give martyrdom to Hamzah, for he could never come
close to the Prophet during the battle, and Ali was too vigilant when
fighting. When Hamzah fell, Wahsy slit
opened his belly and took out the liver for Hind to chew. Hind did chew the liver, but spit it out,
unable to swallow it. This story is well
known.
Unlike Umm Jamil, however, Hind died as a good Muslim woman. She embraced Islam after the conquest of
Makkah.
The other two fierce enemies of the Prophet were Khunaas bint Malik and
Umm Anmaar. Khunaas was a close friend
of Hind, a woman of high standing. She
was present with Hind during the Battle of Uhud. But her story is known only because she was
the mother of Mus’ab bin Umayr. While
she opposed Islam in general and Muhammad in particular, unlike Umm Jamil, she
did not confront the Prophet physically.
Her opposition was mostly verbal, but she is quite known because she had
chained her son Mus’ab and locked him in the room when she found out that her
son had become a Muslim. Like Umm Jamil but
unlike Hind, she died a disbeliever.
Umm Anmaar is a more obscure figure compared to the first three. She did not even belong to the tribe of
Quraysh, but of Khuzaa, the Quraysh ally in Makkah. But she is known because of her method of
torturing her slave, Khabbab al Aratt.
Now, Khabbab was an ironsmith.
When Umm Ammar knew that Khabbab had become Muslim, she tortured him by
putting the burning charcoal on the ground and roasted him as if he was some
kind of roasted lamb. Khabbab survived
the ordeal, for the purpose of the torture was not to kill him, but to inflict
severe pain, and Allah still wanted him to live by then.
But Umm Anmaar got her “equitable reward” while still living. Towards the end of her life, she was
inflicted with excruciating headache the like of which had not been seen by the
Makkans. No treatment could relieve her
pain, which would never go away. Somebody
suggested that the only way to cure her illness is by cauterizing her. The burning iron ore was then placed on her
neck, and she died after that.
These four, undoubtedly, were not the only female enemies of the
Prophet. But they were the most famous
ones. As our purpose is to highlight the
female companions of the Prophet, beginning with his guardians, we shall end
this introductory remark at this point.
Stay tuned.
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