Ramla bint Abi Sufyan ibn Harb (; ), commonly known by her Umm Habiba (), was a wife of Muhammad.

Early life

She was born in circa 589 or 594. She was the daughter of

Abu Sufyan ibn Harb Sakhr ibn Harb ibn Umayya (; ), commonly known by his ' Abu Sufiyan (), was a prominent opponent-turned companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the father of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I () and namesake of the S ...

and

Safiyyah bint Abi al-'As Ṣafiyyah bint Abī al-ʿĀṣ () was the daughter of Abu al-As ibn Umayya. She was a wife of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb (her cousin). She had at least two daughters with him: Ramlah ibn Abu Sufyan, Ramlah, who would later adopt Islam and marry Muhamm ...

.الشبكة الإسلامية - (9) أم حبيبة رملة بنت أبي سفيان رضي الله عنها
/ref> Abu Sufyan was the chief of the Umayya clan, and she was the daughter of the leader of the whole

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 ...

tribe and the most powerful opponent of Muhammad in the period 624–630. However, he later accepted Islam and became a Muslim warrior. The first

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

Muawiyah I Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashid ...

, was Ramla's half-brother, and

Uthman ibn Affan Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until Assassination of Uthman, his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable Companions of the Prophet, companion of ...

was her maternal first cousin and paternal second cousin.

Marriage to Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh

Her first husband was Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh,Islam online
/ref> a brother of Zaynab bint Jahsh, whom Muhammad also married. Ubayd-Allah and Ramla were among the first people to accept Islam. In 616, in order to avoid hostilities from Quraish, they both emigrated to Abyssinia (

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

), where she gave birth to Habibah bint Ubayd-Allah. In Abyssinia, Ubayd-Allah converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

. He tried to persuade Ramla to do the same, but she held on to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

. His conversion led to their separation (Ibn Hajar, Al-Isabah, vol. 4, p. 305).

Marriage to Muhammad

Muhammad sent Ramla a proposal of marriage, which arrived on the day she completed her ''Iddah'' (widow's waiting period). The marriage ceremony took place in Abyssinia even though Muhammad was not present. Ramla chose Khalid ibn Said as her legal guardian. The ''Negus'' (King) of Abyssinia gave Khalid a dower of 400 ''dinars'' and hosted a huge wedding feast after the ceremony. Muhammad did not give a dower larger than this to any of his other wives. The Negus then arranged to send all thirty of the remaining immigrant Muslims back to Arabia. They travelled to

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

in two boats. Shurahbil ibn Hasana accompanied Ramla on this journey. According to some sources, she married Muhammad one year after the Hijra, though she did not live with him until six years later, when Muhammad was sixty years old and she was thirty-five. Tabari writes that her marriage took place in 7 A.H. (628) when "she was thirty-odd years old."Tirmadhi 2226, Musnad Ahmed 12039

Life in Medina

On one occasion, Abu Sufyan visited his daughter Ramla in her house in Medina. "As he went to sit on the apostle’s carpet she folded it up so that he could not sit on it. 'My dear daughter,' he said, 'I hardly know if you think that the carpet is too good for me or that I am too good for the carpet!' She replied: 'It is the apostle’s carpet and you are an unclean polytheist. I do not want you to sit on the apostle’s carpet.' 'By God,' he said, 'since you left me you have gone to the bad.'"Guillaume/Ishaq, p. 543.John Glubb, The Life and Times of Muhammad, Lanham 1998, p. 304-310. Ramla died in the year 45 A.H. (664 or 665 C.E.) during the rule of her half-brother, Muawiyah I. She was buried in the Jannat al-Baqi cemetery next to other wives of Muhammad.

Legacy

The

Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

literature includes about sixty-five hadiths narrated by Ramla.

Muhammad al-Bukhari Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī (; 21 July 810 – 1 September 870) was a 9th-century Persian Muslim '' muhaddith'' who is widely regarded as the most important ''hadith'' scholar in the histor ...

and

Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj Abū al-Ḥusayn Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn Muslim ibn Ward al-Qushayrī an-Naysābūrī (; after 815 – May 875 CE / 206 – 261 AH), commonly known as Imam Muslim, was an Islamic scholar from the city of Nishapur, particularly known as a ' ...

agreed on two of them, and Muslim took two of them alone.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sufyan, Ramla bint Abi 594 births 665 deaths Muslim female saints Wives of Muhammad Banu Umayya 6th-century Arab people 7th-century Arab people Burials at Jannat al-Baqī