Fatima bint Asad ( ' 555–626 CE) was the wife of Abu Talib and the mother of their son

Ali ibn Abi Talib Ali ibn Abi Talib (; ) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from until Assassination of Ali, his assassination in 661, as well as the first imamate in Shia doctrine, Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muha ...

. Fatima bint Asad and her husband, Abu Talib, acted as the Prophet's adopted parents for fifteen years, after

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

had lost his mother when he was six (his father had died before he was born). Years later, Muhammad repaid the love he had received from Fatima bint Asad by adopting

Ali Ali ibn Abi Talib (; ) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Born to Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib an ...

, Fatima's youngest child, as his son. Giving birth to Ali is recorded as a miraculous event in the life of Fatima bint Asad by both Shias and Sunnis. According to some traditions, the Kaaba's wall split open in order for Fatima to go in the house and give birth to her son, Ali. After Muhammad's wife,

Khadija bint Khuwaylid Khadija bint Khuwaylid (November 619) was the first wife of Muhammad. Born into an aristocratic clan of the Quraysh, she was an affluent merchant in her own right and was known to have a noble personality within her tribe. In his early 20s, she e ...

, Fatima bint Asad was the second woman who entered the fold of Islam.

was given the name of Haydar, meaning lion, by his mother.

Ancestry

Fatima bint Asad was the wife of Abu Talib, who was

's uncle. She was the daughter of

Asad ibn Hashim Asad ibn Hāshim () was the son of Hashim ibn Abd Manaf and the brother of Abd al-Muttalib. He was the father of Fatimah bint Asad, Fatima bint Asad, the mother of Ali and the cousin and wife of Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib, Abu Talib. Asad was a ...

and Fatima bint Qays, hence a member of the

Hashim Hashim () is a common male Arabic given name. Notable people with the name include: *Hashim ibn Abd Manaf * Hashim Amir Ali * Hashim Shah * Hashim Amla * Hashim Thaçi * Hashim Khan * Hashim Qureshi * Mir Hashim Ali Khan *Hashim al-Atassi * Hashi ...

clan of the

Quraysh The Quraysh () are an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe who controlled Mecca before the rise of Islam. Their members were divided into ten main clans, most notably including the Banu Hashim, into which Islam's founding prophet Muhammad was born. By ...

. The maternal grandfather of Muhammad's wife

, Za'ida ibn al-Asamm ibn Rawaha, was the cousin of Fatima's mother.

Biography

Raising Muhammad

's father, Abdullah, died before he was born. Then at the age of six, he was orphaned by the death of his mother. After that, his grandfather,

Abd al-Muttalib Shayba ibn Hāshim (; ), better known as ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, () was the fourth chief of the Quraysh tribal confederation and grandfather of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Early life His father was Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf,Muhammad ibn Sa ...

, took care of Muhammad for two years before he too died when Muhammad was eight. Then in the year 578 Muhammad was adopted by Fatima bint Asad and Abu Talib as their son. It is said that Fatima loved Muhammad more than her own children. In his later years, Muhammad used to say of her that she would have let her own children go hungry rather than him. Years later, Muhammad got the opportunity to pay back the love he had received from the family, as he and his wife, Khadija, adopted

as their son to help Abu Talib get through the famine affecting

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. Moreover, it is said that Muhammad named his own daughter

Fatima Fatima bint Muhammad (; 605/15–632 CE), commonly known as Fatima al-Zahra' (), was the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his wife Khadija. Fatima's husband was Ali, the fourth of the Rashidun caliphs and the first Shia imam. ...

after Fatima bint Asad, although Khadija's mother was also called Fatima.

Giving birth to Ali

Ali was her youngest child, who was born in the year 600. Fatima bint Asad already had three sons - Talib, Aqil and Ja'far – and two daughters, Jumanah and Fakhitah (also known as Umm Hani) - prior to giving birth to

. She is estimated to be in her late thirties at the time, while Muhammad, her adopted son, was about 30. Her giving birth to

has a miraculous story. When she began experiencing labour pains, she travelled to the Kaaba, praying "Oh God, for the sake of the one who built this house, Abraham, and the child inside me, I beseech you to make this delivery easy." A wall of the Kaaba then slivered open from a corner and Fatima went inside and delivered her child in the house of God. After three days, according to both Shia and Sunni accounts, she walked out of the Kaaba, with the child in her arms. Fatima named the child, Haydar, which means ''Lion'' in Arabic. Following Abu Talib's death in 620, Fatima emigrated to Medina with Fatima bint Muhammad and her son Ali in 622.Al-Majlisi, M. B. ''Hayat al-Qulub''. Translated by Rizvi, S. H. (2010). ''Volume 2: A Detailed Biography of Prophet Muhammad (saww)''. Qum: Ansariyan Publications. Muhammad would regularly visit her home and take his afternoon rest there.

Death

Fatima bint Asad died in the year 625/626. It is told by

Anas bin Malik Anas ibn Mālik ibn Naḍr al-Khazrajī al-Anṣārī (; 612 712) was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Finding the Truth in Judging the Companions, 1. 84-5; EI2, 1. 482 A. J. Wensinck J. Robson He was nicknamed Khadim al-Nabi for ...

that when Muhammad learned that Fatima had died, he went to her house to sit beside her body and prayed her funeral prayers, then gave his shirt to be incorporated into her shroud, and personally helped inspect her grave and place her in it in the

Jannat al-Baqi ''Jannat al-Baqī'' (, "The Baqi'", ) is the oldest and first Islamic cemetery of Medina located in the Hejazi region of present-day Saudi Arabia. It is also known as ''Baqi al-Gharqad'' (, meaning "Baqiʿ of the Boxthorn"). Al-Baqi is reporte ...

cemetery in Medina.

Family

She married her paternal cousin,

Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib (; ) was the leader of Banu Hashim, a clan of the Qurayshi tribe of Mecca in the Hejazi region of the Arabian Peninsula. As he was the brother of Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, Abdullah, the father of the Islamic Proph ...

. Their marriage was notable for being the first between two members of the

Banu Hashim Banu Hashim () is an Arab clan within the Quraysh tribe to which the Islamic prophet Muhammad belonged, named after Muhammad's great-grandfather Hashim ibn Abd Manaf. Members of this clan, and especially their descendants, are also referred ...

. They had seven children: # Talib. # Fakhitah (aka "Hind" & "Umm Hani"). # Aqil. # Jumanah. # Ja'far. # Rayta (aka "Asmā'" & "Umm Ṭālib"). #

, who was the husband of

's daughter

. The orphaned

, who was Abu Talib's nephew and Fatima's cousin, came to live in their house in 579, when he was eight years old.Muhammad ibn Saad. ''Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir'' vol. 1. Translated by Haq, S. M. (1967). ''Ibn Sa'd's Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir Volume I Parts I & II''. Delhi: Kitab Bhavan.

Ancestry Chart

Notes

Footnotes

References

* Mahmood Ahmad Ghadanfar
''Great Women of Islam''.
Translated by Jamila Muhammad Qawi. Darussalam Publishers & Distributors, Riyadh. Online a
kalamullah.com
pp. 163–167. Retrieved 2013-06-22.

External links

Fatima bint Asad & Kaaba
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fatima bint Asad Women companions of the Prophet 550s births 620s deaths 6th-century Arab people 7th-century Arab people Burials at Jannat al-Baqī