Fatimah bint Muhammad

Fatimah bint Muhammad (d. 11 AH / 632 CE) was the youngest daughter of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, and the only one of his children to outlive him. She married his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib and was the mother of Hasan, Husayn, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum. The Prophet's surviving line of descent runs through her alone, and it is from her sons that the sayyid and sharif families across the Muslim world trace their descent.

Her standing rests on a small number of reports of exceptional weight rather than on a large body of material. Sahih al-Bukhari preserves the Prophet's statement that she is a part of him and that whoever angers her angers him, and its chapter on her merits records his statement that she is the chief of the women in Paradise. Sahih Muslim preserves the report identifying her, with her husband and her two sons, as the people of the Prophet's house. Those texts are the foundation of the honour in which she is held in both the Sunni and the Shia traditions.

She is also, on the evidence of the sources, the member of the household who most resembled her father. Aisha's testimony, preserved in Great Women of Islam, is that the resemblance extended past her features to her manner of speaking, sitting, standing and walking.

Her sisters were Zaynab, Ruqayyah and Umm Kulthum, and the family as a whole — including her brothers al-Qasim, Abdullah and Ibrahim, who all died in childhood — is treated in the article on the children of Prophet Muhammad.

Birth and the Question of Her Dates

Great Women of Islam places her birth at Mecca a few years before her father was given prophethood, and describes her as the youngest of the four daughters. It records that although Khadijah already had three daughters, both parents were markedly pleased at her birth, and that Khadijah did not follow the accepted custom of sending an infant out to a wet-nurse in the surrounding villages but nursed Fatimah herself.

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah is more precise, and it is more precise in two directions at once. It gives her birth as one or two years before the Prophet was appointed as Messenger, and then records that some historians and biographers have instead placed it in the year the Kaaba was rebuilt, five years before his appointment, when he was thirty-five. The approved sources therefore do not agree among themselves within the Sunni reckoning, and the range they give is about four years wide.

Great Women of Islam places her at about ten years of age during the boycott at Shi'b Abi Talib and at eighteen at her marriage after the Battle of Badr, figures consistent with the earlier of those two datings. Golden Stories states that she was no more than five when her father received revelation for the first time, which is consistent with the later.

A wider divergence should also be noted. Sunni sources commonly place her birth before the beginning of the revelation, as both sources used here do; a body of Shia scholarship places it some years after. This article reports what its approved sources state, records that they differ among themselves, notes that the alternative dating exists, and does not adjudicate between bodies of literature only one of which it has examined. The point is taken up again in the Historiographical Note.

What is not in dispute is that she was the youngest of the four daughters and the only one of the Prophet's seven children to outlive him.

Her name and titles

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah, citing al-Salihi's Subul al-Huda wa al-Rashad, records that she closely resembled her father in appearance and that it was he who named her Fatimah.

The same source sets out the titles by which she is known in the tradition, with their senses: sayyidat nisa al-alamin, the foremost among the women of all times and places; karimat al-tarafayn, noble on both sides; umm al-Hasanayn, the mother of Hasan and Husayn; sayyidat nisa ahl al-jannah, the foremost among the women who shall enter Paradise; al-batul; al-radiyah, content with God's will; al-mardiyah, pleasing to God; al-maymunah, the blessed; and al-zakiyah, the unblemished. The most widely used of all, al-Zahra, is discussed below.

It records that Khadijah raised her, and that what she instilled in her was courage, uprightness and consciousness of God — and that Fatimah accepted her father's mission on the same day as her mother and her sisters.

Childhood at Mecca

Her childhood coincided with the years of opposition to her father at Mecca, and Great Women of Islam records several episodes in which she appears. The register of that book is devotional and its language about the Prophet's opponents is severe; what follows takes the events it records and leaves its characterisations aside.

The boycott at Shi'b Abi Talib

She was about ten when the clan of Banu Hashim and those who supported them were placed under a general boycott and withdrew to the ravine known as Shi'b Abi Talib. The boycott was social and economic: trade, dealings and intermarriage were cut off, and supplies were prevented from reaching them. It lasted three years.

Great Women of Islam is explicit about the consequence for her, and it is the single most important fact about her physical life: the privation of those years marked her health permanently. Ordinary domestic work — grinding wheat for bread, drawing water, cooking — left her exhausted for the rest of her life. Much of what the sources record of her adult circumstances follows from this.

The incident at the sanctuary

The best-attested episode of her Meccan years concerns an act of protection. A report preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari, transmitted from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, records that while the Prophet was prostrating in prayer near the Kaaba, the entrails of a slaughtered camel were placed on his back.

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah fills in the circumstances. The sanctuary would have been busy, so the act was done in front of a crowd. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, who transmits the report, was himself present, as were other Muslims of no standing or protection, and they could not intervene. The Prophet did not attempt to shake the burden off but remained in prostration. Fatimah, a young girl at the time, learned of it, came to the sanctuary, pushed the filth from her father's back with her own hands, and rebuked those responsible.

Both sources record that when the Prophet had finished praying he made supplication against named men of Quraysh. Golden Stories lists seven: Amr ibn Hisham, known as Abu Jahl; Utba ibn Rabi'a; Shayba ibn Rabi'a; al-Walid ibn Utba; Umayya ibn Khalaf; Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt; and Umara ibn al-Walid. It records that those named were killed at Badr, citing al-Bukhari's collection. Great Women of Islam adds that the man who had placed the entrails on the Prophet's back was taken prisoner rather than killed in the fighting and was afterwards put to death, and that in stating the reasons the Prophet recounted this act and Fatimah's cleaning of his back and his clothes.

The episode is the earliest recorded instance of what the sources present as characteristic of her: she is the member of the household who intervenes.

A plot overheard

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah, citing Ibn Hanbal's Musnad, records a report going back to Fatimah herself. A group of Meccans laid a plan to set upon the Prophet and kill him. Fatimah, still a child, overheard it and brought it to her father. He told her not to be anxious and that the men would not succeed. He then went to the Kaaba, where the group was sitting, threw a handful of sand towards them and made supplication against them. The report adds that all of them were killed at Badr.

Great Women of Islam gives a closely similar account, in which she came to him weeping and told him that they had sworn by their idols to attack him as soon as he stepped out of his house, and that he answered that Allah was her father's protector, then performed his ablution and went out.

The blow from Abu Jahl, and Abu Sufyan's answer

Great Women of Islam records that Abu Jahl once struck Fatimah across the face in the street without cause. She went to Abu Sufyan, then a leader of Quraysh and not a Muslim, and complained. Abu Sufyan took her to where Abu Jahl was still sitting and told her to strike him in exactly the same way.

When she told her father, he was pleased at Abu Sufyan's sense of justice and prayed that his heart be opened and that he accept Islam — a prayer the source records as answered in time.

The episode is worth keeping for a reason beyond the incident. It shows the Prophet responding to fairness shown by an opponent with a prayer for his good rather than with satisfaction at a score settled, and it records a girl of the persecuted household obtaining redress by appealing to the sense of justice of the very tribe persecuting her.

The Year of Sorrow, and Ta'if

Shortly after the boycott was lifted, Khadijah died, having fallen ill during it; the Prophet's uncle Abu Talib died in the same period. Great Women of Islam records that Fatimah and her sisters went through the loss of their mother, and that the deaths emboldened the opposition.

It was in this period that the Prophet went to Ta'if with his message and was driven out injured. Great Women of Islam records that Umm Kulthum and Fatimah wept when they saw his condition, that he wiped away their tears and consoled them, and that he told them the religion would prevail and that easier times would follow.

Migration to Medina

The Prophet left Mecca for Medina in the company of Abu Bakr, leaving two of his daughters behind, and sent for them afterwards. Great Women of Islam records that they travelled with Sawda bint Zam'a, whom he had married after Khadijah's death, and that the three women thereby also had the standing of migrants. It notes that Sawda was a mature woman, and Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah records that this was among the reasons for the marriage — so that Umm Kulthum and Fatimah, still young, should have an older woman's support — and that Sawda was affectionate towards the two girls.

Golden Stories gives the composition of the party: Fatimah left Mecca a few days after her father, with her sister Umm Kulthum and her stepmother Sawda, and the family of Abu Bakr travelled with them, together with Umm Ayman and Usama ibn Zayd. It records that the Prophet arranged accommodation for his family before they arrived.

Great Women of Islam records an incident on the way. On the outskirts of Mecca the party was intercepted, and a man named Huwayrith ibn Nuqayd jabbed at the camel carrying the Prophet's daughters until it reared and the two women fell. He then left, and the party continued. The Prophet received them at Medina.

Golden Stories adds that she was at Medina when Badr was fought in 2 AH, and that she lost her sister Ruqayyah at about the same time — so that the victory and a death in the family fell together.

Marriage to Ali ibn Abi Talib

The proposals

Both sources place the marriage after the Battle of Badr, and Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah supplies what came before it, drawing on Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat and al-Salihi.

Abu Bakr and Umar each proposed for Fatimah, separately. The Prophet declined both, saying that he was waiting for God's decree in her case. The two men then urged Ali to propose. Ali doubted that his own proposal could succeed where theirs had not, but they pressed him. When he did put it, the report has it that the Prophet did not answer for some time.

A second line of report has the Ansar rather than Abu Bakr and Umar encouraging Ali. On that account he approached the Prophet, who welcomed the idea without clearly expressing approval; the Ansar, who had waited outside, asked Ali afterwards what had been said, and congratulated him, taking the absence of refusal for consent.

Golden Stories records that Fatimah was consulted, and that while the matter was under consideration the Prophet was given God's approval of it; that he then had Anas summon Abu Bakr, Umar, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and other Companions, and told them that Jibril had conveyed that approval.

Great Women of Islam gives the domestic side of the same sequence: that Ali came and was too diffident to state his business until the Prophet asked him directly whether he had come to ask for Fatimah; that the Prophet then put the proposal to her and she wept silently; and that he told her Ali was learned, kind-hearted and brave, upon which she accepted.

The dower

The dower is unusually well documented and the figures do not agree.

Golden Stories, citing Ibn Hajar's al-Isaba and the Sunan of Abu Dawud, records that when Ali was asked what he could offer he answered that he had nothing; that the Prophet asked about a piece of armour he had given him earlier; that Ali still had it; and that the Prophet proposed the armour as the dower. The armour is reported to have sold for either four hundred or four hundred and eighty dirhams. Great Women of Islam gives four hundred, and adds that when Ali brought the money the Prophet told him to keep it and buy household necessities and perfume — a detail Golden Stories also records, citing Ibn Sa'd.

A third figure appears in the same passage: that the Prophet asked Ali whether he agreed to marry Fatimah for four hundred mithqal of silver, worth about two hundred and eighty dirhams at the time. And Golden Stories notes, citing al-Halabi's Insan al-Uyun, that some biographers record that Uthman bought the armour from Ali and afterwards returned it to him as a gift.

The variance is reported here rather than resolved. What all the accounts agree on is the substance: the dower was raised by selling a piece of the bridegroom's military equipment, because he had nothing else.

The ceremony

Great Women of Islam records that Anas ibn Malik was sent to bring the Companions — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Talha, al-Zubayr and others of the Muhajirun and the Ansar — and that the Prophet asked Ali to deliver his own marriage address. It preserves its substance: praise of Allah and thanks for His blessings, the testimony of faith, the statement that the Prophet had given him his daughter Fatimah in marriage with the dower fixed at four hundred dirhams, and a request that those present listen to what the Prophet would say and bear witness. The Prophet then praised Allah, asked Fatimah's consent, announced the dower and prayed for the couple.

Dates were handed round; Golden Stories records that the guests were served a honey drink as well as dates. The following day Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib, Ali's uncle, slaughtered a camel for the wedding meal.

Golden Stories notes that historians have differed over when the marriage took place, that most place it after Badr, and that the marriage was consummated some four to six months later. It was Ali's first marriage, and Fatimah's only one.

What she took with her

The trousseau is listed in the sources, and the list is short. Golden Stories, citing Ibn Sa'd together with Ibn Majah and Ibn Hanbal, gives: a mattress of Egyptian cloth stuffed with wool, a simple bed, a leather pillow filled with the bark of date palms, one or two earthenware pots, a water bag, a bowl, a hand-mill, a prayer mat, two sheets, and two silver armlets. Great Women of Islam gives a shorter list to the same effect — a bed, a pillow stuffed with dried date-palm leaves, a plate, a drinking vessel, a leather water bag and a hand-mill.

The same passage records Asma bint Umays as saying that they could find nothing to send with Fatimah beyond a floor mat, a pillow and a water bottle. And it preserves Ali's own statement of their circumstances, on Ibn Sa'd's authority: that when he married Fatimah they had no bedding but the skin of a ram, which they slept on at night and used by day to carry animal feed, and that they had no servant.

This is worth pausing on. The marriage took place in the aftermath of Badr, when the community's position had improved markedly and the Arab tribes were beginning to reckon with it. The austerity was therefore chosen rather than forced.

The wedding visit

Golden Stories, citing al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Kabir, preserves an account of the Prophet's visit to the couple's house.

He had sent word to Fatimah to wait for him before beginning her new life. When he came he asked whether his brother was at home. Umm Ayman — the mother of Usama ibn Zayd — asked how Ali could be both his brother and his son-in-law; the Prophet had declared Ali his brother at the pairing of the Muhajirun and the Ansar after the migration, and he answered that such a thing could happen.

He then asked for a bowl of water and invoked blessings on Fatimah and on the household. He called her, and she came with difficulty, the report suggesting out of shyness. He sprinkled the water on her and said: "My daughter, I have married you to the best man in my family."

Noticing someone behind a curtain he asked who it was. Asma bint Umays answered. He asked whether she had come to Fatimah for his sake; she said that it is fitting for a newly married girl to have a familiar woman with her who can help as needed, and he wished her God's blessings.

The house

Golden Stories gives the fullest account of how they came to live near the mosque, and it is a story about someone else's generosity.

Ali had lived in the Prophet's household before his marriage and now needed a separate residence, and the house he found was a long way from his father-in-law. Fatimah wanted to be near enough to visit her father often. Haritha ibn Nu'man of the Ansar owned several houses in Medina, some near the mosque, and had already made a number of them available for public use at the Prophet's request. Fatimah suggested that her father ask Haritha to vacate one of them; the Prophet was reluctant to ask more of a man who had already given so much, and seeing his hesitation Fatimah did not press it.

Haritha learned of the matter himself. He came to the Prophet and said that some of his houses stood nearer to his than any others of the Banu al-Najjar, that he and all his wealth were for God and His Messenger, and that what the Prophet took of his property would be dearer to him than what he left. The Prophet was pleased, prayed for him, and accepted.

Her daily round is recorded plainly: she ground the wheat, drew water from the well, and cooked. Given what the boycott had done to her strength, this work exhausted her.

The request for a servant

After a campaign in which captives and property had come to the Muslims, Ali suggested that she ask her father for a servant to help her. Great Women of Islam records that she went to him, found him out, and left a message with Aisha; and that he came to her at night, before she slept, and told her he would give her something better than a servant. He then taught her a form of remembrance to say: thirty-three times Subhan Allah, thirty-three times al-hamdu lillah, and thirty-three times Allahu akbar.

The practice is known in the tradition as the tasbih of Fatimah, and the report of it appears in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. It is cited in the literature both on domestic labour and on the substitution of devotion for material relief, and it is among the most widely practised of the transmitted forms of remembrance.

Her Children

Great Women of Islam gives the sequence and the dates.

Hasan was born in Ramadan of the third year after the Hijra, about a year after the marriage. The Prophet came at once on hearing of it, named him, and recited the call to prayer in his ear; Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah adds that he took the child in his arms and gave him his first feed, and cites al-Tirmidhi's collection for the practice on the seventh day, when the child's head was shaved and silver equal in weight to the hair was given away. Husayn was born in Sha'ban of the fourth year, and the Prophet named him and recited the call to prayer in his ear likewise. Great Women of Islam records that a third son, Muhsin, is said to have been born and to have died in infancy.

Zaynab was born in the fifth year and Umm Kulthum in the seventh, and the Prophet named both.

Of the marriages of her daughters, the same source records that Zaynab bint Ali married Abdullah ibn Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, and that Umm Kulthum married Umar ibn al-Khattab, by whom she had two children, Zayd and Ruqayya. It preserves a detail about the second of these: after the wedding Umar asked the Muhajirun and the Ansar to congratulate him, and when they asked why, he said that by marrying the daughter of Ali he had established a connection with the family of the Prophet, and that he counted it a great honour.

Of the Prophet's regard for his two grandsons, the source records that he called them the leaders of the youth of Paradise, and preserves a report from Usama ibn Zayd who saw him carrying something wrapped in a cloth and asked what it was; the Prophet opened it to show the two boys, and said that they were his daughter's sons and that he would love whoever loved them.

Her Standing in the Prophet's Regard

"Fatimah is a part of me"

Sahih al-Bukhari preserves in hadith 3714, transmitted from al-Miswar ibn Makhrama, the Prophet's statement: "Fatima is a part of me, and he who makes her angry makes me angry."

The report is brief and its consequences are large. It is cited in the legal literature on the standing of the Prophet's family, and it is the text most often invoked for the proposition that an injury to her is an injury to him.

The chief of the women in Paradise

Sahih al-Bukhari, in its chapter on her merits, records the Prophet's statement that Fatimah is the chief of the women in Paradise. Great Women of Islam preserves the same in the form of a question put to her — whether she would wish to be the foremost of the women of Paradise — and records a report that an angel brought the Prophet this news concerning her.

Her resemblance to her father

Aisha's testimony, preserved in Great Women of Islam, is that Fatimah bore a remarkable resemblance to the Prophet, and that this extended beyond her features to her way of speaking, of sitting, of standing and of walking. The same source records that Aisha said she never saw anyone more devoted to the truth than Fatimah.

It also records the manner between father and daughter: that she would receive him and kiss his forehead, that he would rise to receive her when she came, that he was grieved when he found her troubled and pleased when he found her content, and that on returning from a journey or a campaign he would pray two units in the mosque, then visit Fatimah, and then go to his wives.

One episode of ordinary family life is recorded. Hearing that there was a disagreement between Ali and Fatimah, the Prophet went to their house; Companions noticed that he went looking troubled and returned at ease, and when asked he said that he had settled a difference between two people dear to him.

Sahih Muslim preserves what appears to be another such occasion, and it produced a name that stuck. After an argument Ali left the house and lay down in the courtyard of the mosque. The Prophet, learning of it, went first to his daughter and then to the mosque. Sand had stuck to Ali's bare back where he had been lying; the Prophet brushed it off and addressed him as Abu Turab, father of dust. Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah, which cites the report, records that Ali was pleased, that the quarrel was forgotten, and that the name became one of his best known.

The report is worth including because of what it shows about the household: the disagreements of the Prophet's daughter and son-in-law were ordinary enough to be recorded in a canonical collection, and the resolution took the form of an affectionate nickname rather than a judgement.

The proposal to marry the daughter of Abu Jahl

Sahih al-Bukhari preserves an episode in which Ali contemplated a second marriage, to a daughter of Abu Jahl. Fatimah learned of it and told her father. He addressed the people, and the collection records his words: that Fatimah is a part of him, that he hated to see her troubled, and that the daughter of the Messenger of Allah and the daughter of the enemy of Allah could not be the wives of one man. Great Women of Islam records that Ali did not proceed and apologised to Fatimah.

The episode is preserved in the collections not as gossip but because it bears on questions of law and of the standing of the Prophet's household, and it is generally treated in that light.

There is also a report, given in Great Women of Islam, that Ali asked the Prophet which of the two of them was dearer to him, and that the Prophet answered that he loved Fatimah more but that Ali was dearer to him.

The People of the House

Surah al-Ahzab 33:33 addresses the people of the Prophet's house and speaks of God's will to purify them.

Sahih Muslim preserves a report that the Prophet gathered Ali, Fatimah, Hasan and Husayn under a cloak and identified them as the people of his house. The report is graded sahih, and it is the basis of the designation Ahl al-Bayt as applied to this group. It is among the most frequently cited hadith in both the Sunni and the Shia traditions. The two differ in the wider conclusions drawn from it, and this article does not enter that discussion.

At Uhud

Uhud was fought soon after her marriage, and her presence there is attested in Sahih al-Bukhari rather than only in the biographical literature.

Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah cites two reports from the collection. In the first, Anas describes the women who came out to the field: their garments tucked up and their ankles showing, carrying water bags on their backs and giving water to the wounded. He names Aisha and Umm Sulaym, his own mother, and records that Fatimah was among them. Golden Stories notes the circumstances — that word had reached Medina late in the day that the Prophet had been killed, and that the women who went out arrived after the fighting was over.

The second report is Sahl ibn Sa'd's, and it is more specific. He said that he knew who had cleaned the Prophet's wound, who had poured the water, and what had been used to treat it: Fatimah washed the wound while Ali poured water from a shield, and when she saw that the bleeding did not stop she heated a piece of matting and applied it, which checked the flow.

Great Women of Islam records the same treatment, describing her as burning part of a straw mat and using it on the wound. That two independent Companions are named as witnesses, and that the detail of the improvised cautery appears in both sources, makes this among the best-attested acts of her life.

The Prophet's Final Illness

A report transmitted from Aisha and preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim records that during his final illness the Prophet called Fatimah and spoke to her privately, and that she wept; that he spoke to her again and she laughed; and that when asked afterwards she explained that he had first told her he would not recover, at which she wept, and had then told her that she would be the first of his family to follow him, at which she laughed. The report is graded sahih.

Great Women of Islam gives a second occasion to the same effect, on the authority of Abdullah ibn Abbas: that when Surah al-Nasr was revealed the Prophet sent for Fatimah and told her that his time was drawing to a close, and that she wept until he told her she would be the first of his family to follow him, at which she smiled. The same source records that when his condition worsened and she could not bear to see him suffer, he told her that after that day he would suffer no more.

After the Prophet's Death

The Prophet died in Rabi al-Awwal of the eleventh year after the Hijra.

Sahih al-Bukhari records in hadith 3711, on Aisha's authority, that Fatimah sent to Abu Bakr concerning a share of what the Prophet had left, and that Abu Bakr declined on the basis of a statement he reported from the Prophet that prophets do not leave inheritance in the ordinary way, what they leave being held as charity.

This article records the report and does not adjudicate the matter or trace the later literature on it. The episode has been the subject of theological argument for many centuries. Treating that argument is outside the scope of a biographical article and would import controversy this encyclopaedia does not carry.

Great Women of Islam records, citing Ibn Athir's Usd al-Ghaba, that after her father's death Fatimah was never seen to smile, and that her grief remained visible until she died six months later.

Death and Burial

She died at Medina in 11 AH, some six months after her father, and was the first of his household to follow him, as the report of his final illness had indicated. She was in her twenties or early thirties depending on the dating adopted for her birth, and she left four young children.

Great Women of Islam records that she was washed and shrouded by Ali, by Asma bint Umays and by Salama Umm Rafi; that she was buried at night in the cemetery of al-Baqi; and that Ali, al-Abbas and al-Fadl ibn al-Abbas placed her in the grave.

The precise location of her grave is not established, and the sources differ. No identification is asserted here.

Names and Epithets

She is known in the tradition by several epithets, of which al-Zahra, the radiant, is the most widely used and is the name by which she is most often referred to in classical literature. She is also called al-Batul.

Explanations offered for these epithets, and for the meaning of the name Fatimah itself, appear in the commentary and devotional literature. Those explanations vary and are not uniformly attested, and none is asserted here as established fact.

Legacy

Descent

The Prophet left no surviving son. His line continued through Fatimah, and claims of descent from him through Hasan and Husayn have shaped the legitimacy of dynasties, the standing of scholars, and the structure of social prestige across the Muslim world for well over a millennium. The Fatimid caliphate took its name from her.

Her son Husayn was killed at Karbala in 61 AH, and the memory of that event, bound up with his descent from her, became one of the most powerful forces in Islamic religious history.

Veneration in the traditions

Fatimah holds a position of exceptional honour in both Sunni and Shia Islam, resting on the Qur'anic address to the people of the Prophet's house, the report of the cloak, and the reports of the Prophet's statements concerning her. The two traditions accord her that honour on largely the same textual basis while differing on the wider theological conclusions drawn from it. This article states the shared textual ground and does not enter the areas of divergence.

Historiographical Note

Three matters need stating so that readers are not misled.

Her dates. This article follows Great Women of Islam, which places her birth a few years before the beginning of the revelation, puts her at about ten during the boycott and eighteen at her marriage after Badr, and has her die six months after her father. A body of Shia scholarship places her birth some years after the beginning of the revelation, which would make her materially younger at every point. This article has not examined that literature and does not adjudicate between the two. Readers will find confident figures on both sides in reputable works, and the difference should be understood as one between bodies of scholarship rather than as a settled fact reported differently.

The register of the source. The chapter on Fatimah in Great Women of Islam is devotional in manner and uses severe language about the Prophet's opponents at Mecca. Its factual content has been used here and its characterisations left aside, in keeping with this encyclopaedia's standards. The same chapter also relates an account, referred to Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya, of food multiplying in her house; that belongs to the genre and is not reproduced here as history, though the report's existence in that work is a fact about the literature.

What is not established. Her childhood beyond the episodes recorded above, her instruction by her mother, and her own observations of her father are not preserved. Her temperament, her habits of worship beyond the remembrance taught to her, the circumstances of her final illness, and the scenes of her death are subjects on which the early material is silent or nearly so. A considerable body of later devotional writing in both traditions supplies all of this; that literature has its own value and its own history, but it is not evidence of the kind this encyclopaedia treats as establishing fact, and it is not carried here.

What remains is narrower than the popular account and unusually well attested: a small body of reports in the two most rigorous Sunni collections, addressing her standing, her marriage and household, her father's words to her at his death, and the line of descent that runs through her.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

The Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab 33:33 — the address to the people of the Prophet's house
The Qur'an, Surah al-Nasr — the surah on whose revelation the Prophet is reported to have told her that his time was drawing to a close
Sahih al-Bukhari — hadith 3714, from al-Miswar ibn Makhrama, that Fatimah is a part of the Prophet and that whoever angers her angers him; the chapter on her merits, recording that she is the chief of the women in Paradise; the sermon concerning the proposal to marry the daughter of Abu Jahl; hadith 3711, Aisha's report of her approach to Abu Bakr concerning the Prophet's estate; and the report from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud on the entrails placed on the Prophet's back at the Kaaba
Sahih Muslim — the report of the cloak, identifying the people of the Prophet's house; graded sahih
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim — the report of her request for a servant and the remembrance taught in its place, the tasbih of Fatimah; and the report from Aisha on the Prophet's words to her during his final illness

Classical Islamic Sources

Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra — cited in Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah for the proposals of Abu Bakr and Umar, the Prophet's instruction to spend part of the dower on furniture and perfume, the trousseau, Ali's statement about the ram's skin, and the account of Haritha ibn Nu'man; not read directly for this article
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Isaba — cited in Golden Stories for the exchange in which the armour was proposed as the dower; not read directly
Al-Salihi, Subul al-Huda wa al-Rashad — cited in Golden Stories for her resemblance to her father, her naming, and the reports surrounding the proposal; not read directly
Al-Halabi, Insan al-Uyun — cited in Golden Stories for the report that Uthman bought the armour and returned it as a gift; not read directly
Al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir — cited in Golden Stories for the account of the Prophet's visit to the couple's house; not read directly
Sunan Abi Dawud, Sunan Ibn Majah, the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal and the collection of al-Tirmidhi — cited in Golden Stories for the dower, the trousseau, the plot she overheard, and the practice on the seventh day after Hasan's birth; the translated editions of these collections are in the approved library but the specific reports were taken as Golden Stories transmits them
Ibn Athir, Usd al-Ghaba — cited in Great Women of Islam for the report that she was not seen to smile after her father's death; not read directly for this article
Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya — cited in Great Women of Islam for material on her household; not read directly, and the narrative material referred to it is discussed in the Historiographical Note rather than reproduced
Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal — his answer concerning Ali and his family, quoted in Great Women of Islam; not read directly
The commentary tradition on Surah al-Ahzab 33:33 — the basis of the designation of the people of the Prophet's house

Academic and Scholarly Sources

Great Women of Islam by Mahmood Ahmad Ghadanfar — the dedicated chapter on Fatimah bint Muhammad, and the principal source for this article: her birth and Khadijah's nursing of her, the boycott and its permanent effect on her health, the episodes of her Meccan childhood, the departure from Mecca, the proposal and the marriage including the shield sold for four hundred dirhams and the substance of Ali's marriage address, the household goods and the house obtained from Haritha ibn Nu'man, the request for a servant, the births and namings of her children and the marriages of her daughters, Aisha's testimony to her resemblance to her father, the report concerning Surah al-Nasr, and the account of her washing, shrouding and burial. The work is devotional in register and its characterisations have been left aside
Golden Stories of Sayyida Khadijah — the dedicated section on Fatimah, and the better documented of the two principal sources for this article, since it gives for each report the earlier work in which it is preserved. It is the source for the two datings of her birth, her naming and her titles, the circumstances at the sanctuary and the men named in the supplication, the plot she overheard, the composition of the migrating party, the proposals of Abu Bakr and Umar and Ali's hesitation, the armour and the variant dower figures, the trousseau, Ali's statement of their poverty, the wedding visit, the account of Haritha ibn Nu'man, the two Bukhari reports on Uhud, and the Abu Turab episode
Ali ibn Abi Talib by Ali Muhammad as-Sallabi — for material on her husband and on the household they shared, and for the reports concerning her sons
Hayatus Sahabah by Muhammad Yusuf Kandhlawi — for reports on the Prophet's household and on the manner of life of the Companions of this period
Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya — for the framework of the Meccan and Medinan periods within which her life is placed
The Sealed Nectar — for the chronology of the boycott, the migration and the campaigns of the Medinan years