Maymuna bint al-Harith: The Last Wife of the Prophet

Maymuna bint al-Harith al-Hilaliyya was the last woman Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) married, and one of the Mothers of the Believers (Ummahat al-Mu'minin), the designation the Qur'an gives the Prophet's wives (Qur'an 33:6). The marriage took place in 7 AH (629 CE) during the compensatory lesser pilgrimage (Umrah al-Qada), which the Muslims performed a year after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah had barred them from Mecca. After Maymuna the Prophet married no one else.

Her significance in the Islamic sources runs along two lines. She stood at the centre of a dense set of family connections: her sister Lubaba bint al-Harith, known as Umm al-Fadl, was married to al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's paternal uncle, which made Maymuna the maternal aunt of Abdullah ibn Abbas. And she was a transmitter of hadith on ritual purification, her reports reaching the canonical collections largely through Ibn Abbas and through her nephew Yazid ibn al-Asamm.

Lineage and Family

Maymuna belonged to the Banu Hilal ibn Amir ibn Sa'sa'a, a division of the Amir confederation of central Arabia, outside the Quraysh. Her father was al-Harith ibn Hazn, and her mother was Hind bint Awf. Her year of birth is not recorded.

The classical biographical works give Hind bint Awf several daughters who married into prominent households of the Hijaz. Among them was Umm al-Fadl, the wife of al-Abbas and mother of Abdullah ibn Abbas, who became one of the principal scholars of the following generation. Zaynab bint Khuzayma, who had been briefly married to the Prophet and died during his lifetime, is also given as a daughter of Hind bint Awf, which makes her and Maymuna sisters through their mother. The sources differ on whether the two shared a father as well, and that question is left open here.

Maymuna had been married before. The biographical literature names two earlier husbands, Mas'ud ibn Amr and Abu Ruhm ibn Abd al-Uzza, and reports that she was a widow at the time of her marriage to the Prophet. Whether the first marriage ended in death or divorce is reported differently, and no version is asserted here. Her age at any point in her life is not established.

The Marriage During the Umrah al-Qada

Under the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, concluded in 6 AH, the Muslims were permitted to enter Mecca the following year for the lesser pilgrimage and to remain three days. The Umrah al-Qada of 7 AH was the first return to Mecca for the Prophet and the Meccan emigrants since the Hijra. The Quraysh withdrew to the surrounding heights while the Muslims performed the rites at the Kaaba.

The marriage to Maymuna was arranged during this visit, and the biographical sources report that al-Abbas acted as intermediary — a natural role, since his wife was Maymuna's sister. Al-Abbas had remained in Mecca through the years of conflict and did not declare his Islam publicly until the conquest of Mecca.

The three-day limit expired before the marriage was consummated, and the Muslims were required to leave. The consummation took place at Sarif, a halt on the road out of Mecca. Sarif is the place where, decades later, Maymuna died.

The amount of the dowry is given differently in the sources, and no figure is asserted here.

Whether the Prophet Was in Ihram

Whether the marriage was contracted while the Prophet was in the consecrated state of pilgrimage (ihram) is the subject of two reports that both stand in the sound collections and that disagree. Ibn Abbas reported that the Prophet married Maymuna while he was in ihram, a report carried in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Against this, Yazid ibn al-Asamm reported that Maymuna herself told him the Prophet married her when he was not in ihram (Sahih Muslim 1411); Yazid notes in the same report that Maymuna was the sister of his own mother and of the mother of Ibn Abbas.

The divergence matters because it bears on whether a marriage contract may be concluded during ihram. The majority of jurists held that it may not, and gave precedence to the report transmitted from Maymuna directly, on the reasoning that she was the party to the marriage and best placed to know. Al-Zuhri is recorded as having received Yazid ibn al-Asamm's report in response to Ibn Abbas's.

Both reports are authentic, so the disagreement is stated here rather than resolved by selecting one version.

Her Name

The biographical literature reports that she was called Barra before her marriage and that the Prophet gave her the name Maymuna. The same change of name from Barra is reported for Juwayriyya bint al-Harith, who is a different person of a different tribe.

In the Prophet's Household

Maymuna entered a household that by 7 AH already contained several wives of longer standing. The Prophet died in 11 AH (632 CE), so her marriage lasted between three and four years, the shortest tenure of any of his wives other than Zaynab bint Khuzayma.

The Qur'an prohibits marriage to the Prophet's wives after him (Qur'an 33:53), and Maymuna, like the others, did not remarry. She lived on in the Hijaz, and those seeking reports of the Prophet's practice came to her.

Hadith Transmission

Maymuna's narrations concern ritual purification and the conduct of worship. Sahih al-Bukhari preserves her description of how the Prophet performed the major ablution (ghusl) in its Book of Bathing, an account cited across the Sunni legal schools as a description of the practice. She also transmitted reports on the minor ablution (wudu), on prayer, and on domestic matters that only a member of the household could have observed.

Her reports reached the collections chiefly through two relatives. Abdullah ibn Abbas, her sister's son, became one of the most widely transmitted authorities of the first Islamic century, and a number of his reports on the Prophet's private practice came from her. Yazid ibn al-Asamm, also her nephew, transmitted from her directly, including the report on the ihram question above. Kurayb, the freedman of Ibn Abbas, is also named among those who narrated from her.

Counts of the number of hadith attributed to her differ between the scholarly tabulations, and no figure is given here.

Death and Burial

Maymuna died at Sarif, the place where her marriage had been consummated. The biographical literature reports that Abdullah ibn Abbas led her funeral prayer and that she was buried there.

The sources differ on the year, placing her death variously in the late 40s and the 50s AH. No figure is asserted here.

She was not the longest-lived of the Prophet's wives. That distinction is generally given to Umm Salama, who died some years after her.

What the Early Sources Do Not Establish

A number of details are not established, and are omitted here rather than presented with qualifying language. The early sources do not record her year of birth or her age at any point in her life, nor whether her first marriage ended in death or divorce. The amount of her dowry and the year of her death are likewise not fixed. Whether she proposed the marriage herself cannot be established: Qur'an 33:50 refers in general terms to a believing woman who offers herself to the Prophet, but it does not name her, and the reports connecting the verse to Maymuna specifically are not established. Her temperament and disposition, and the character of her relations with her co-wives, are matters on which the early material does not report, and it does not settle whether she travelled to Sarif knowing she was near death. The total number of hadith transmitted from her is also not established.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab (33:6) — the Prophet's wives are as mothers to the believers
• Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab (33:53) — the prohibition of marriage to the Prophet's wives after him
• Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab (33:50) — the general permission concerning a believing woman who offers herself to the Prophet, not tied to a named individual in the verse
• Sahih Muslim 1411 — Yazid ibn al-Asamm, from Maymuna: the Prophet married her when he was not in ihram. Graded sahih
• Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim — Ibn Abbas: the Prophet married Maymuna while in ihram. Graded sahih; disagrees with the preceding report
• Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Ghusl — Maymuna's description of the Prophet's major ablution

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Sa'd, Muhammad. Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. Edited by Eduard Sachau. Leiden: Brill, 1904–1940. [Compiled c. 845 CE] — the early biographical notice and the family of Hind bint Awf
• Ibn Hisham. Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah. Edited by Mustafa al-Saqqa et al. Cairo: 1936. [Based on Ibn Ishaq, 8th century CE] — the Umrah al-Qada
• Al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. Edited by M.J. de Goeje. Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901. [Completed c. 915 CE]
• Al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risalah, 1981–1988. [Compiled c. 1348 CE]
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1995. [Compiled c. 1449 CE] — notes the disagreement over the year of her death
• Al-Nawawi. Sharh Sahih Muslim. Beirut: Dar al-Ma'rifah. [Compiled 13th century CE] — the juristic discussion of the ihram reports

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. — the Hudaybiyyah settlement and the pilgrimage of 7 AH
• Nadwi, Mohammad Akram. Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007.
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition. Leiden: Brill — entries on the wives of the Prophet and on Ibn Abbas.

Further Reading

• Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1983.
• Abbott, Nabia. Aishah: The Beloved of Mohammed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942. — for the household context in Medina.
• al-Mubarakpuri, Safi-ur-Rahman. Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar). Riyadh: Darussalam, 1979.