Arwā bint Ḥarb (), better known as Umme Jamīl (), was an aunt of the

Islamic prophet Prophets in Islam () are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (; sing. , ), those who transmit divine revelation, mos ...

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 ...

who is mentioned in the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

. She was Abu Lahab's wife and Abu Sufyan's sister. Arwa is usually remembered for opposing Islam and Muhammad, and also for a poem.

Family

She was the daughter of Harb ibn Umayya, a chief of

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 ...

. She was a sister of Abu Sufyan and one of the leading women 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 Destiny of Umm Jamil, the Wife of Abu Lahab
Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Kathir. ''Tafsir'' on Quran 111. She married Abū Lahab, a paternal uncle of Muhammad. They had at least six children: Utbah, Utaybah,Ibn Ishaq/Guillaume p. 170. Muattab, Durrah (Fakhita), 'Uzzā and Khālida. It is not clear whether she was also the mother of Abu Lahab's son Durrah.

Opposition to Muhammad

Quran 111

Umm Jamil supported her husband in his opposition to Muhammad’s preaching. When Muhammad promised

Paradise In religion and folklore, paradise is a place of everlasting happiness, delight, and bliss. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical, eschatological, or both, often contrasted with the miseries of human ...

to the believers, Abu Lahab blew on his hands and said, "May you perish. I can see nothing in you of the things that Muhammad says." Muhammad therefore declared a revelation from

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

about them. ''Destroyed were the hands of Abu Lahab, and he lay utterly doomed.'' ''His wealth did not avail him nor his acquisitions.'' ''Surely, He will be cast into a flaming fire'' ''Along with his wife, that carrier of slanderous tales.'' ''upon her neck shall be a rope of palm-fibre.'' The occasion for this revelation is disputed.

Ibn Sa'd Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Sa‘d ibn Manī‘ al-Baṣrī al-Hāshimī or simply Ibn Sa'd () and nicknamed ''Scribe of Waqidi'' (''Katib al-Waqidi''), was a scholar and Arabian biographer. Ibn Sa'd was born in 784/785 CE (168 AH) and di ...

and

Ibn Kathir Abu al-Fida Isma'il ibn Umar ibn Kathir al-Dimashqi (; ), known simply as Ibn Kathir, was an Arab Islamic Exegesis, exegete, historian and scholar. An expert on (Quranic exegesis), (history) and (Islamic jurisprudence), he is considered a lea ...

state that it was in 613 CE, when Muhammad summoned the Quraysh to Mount Safa for his first public warning that they must heed God's message. Abu Lahab interrupted: "May you perish! Did you assemble us for this? You should die!" and Muhammad responded with the prophecy.The Reason for the Revelation of this Surah and the Arrogance of Abu Lahab toward the Messenger
Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Kathir. ''Tafsir'' on Quran 111. Ibn Ishaq implies that it occurred in 616, when Abu Lahab left the Hashim clan and refused to protect Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq says that Umm Jamil was called "the carrier of firewood" because she carried thorns and cast them in Muhammad's way where he would be passing; however, he also states that the Quraysh did not resort to this form of harassment until after the death of Abu Talib in 620. Ibn Kathir also offers the alternative theory that "carrier of firewood" does not refer to a past event but to Umm Jamil's future destiny of willingly stoking the fires that would punish her husband in

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...

Counterblast

When Umm Jamil bint Harb heard that Muhammad had been prophesying about her and her husband, she went to the

Kaaba The Kaaba (), also spelled Kaba, Kabah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaba al-Musharrafa (), is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and Holiest sites in Islam, holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Sa ...

, where Muhammad was sitting with

Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Abi Quhafa (23 August 634), better known by his ''Kunya (Arabic), kunya'' Abu Bakr, was a senior Sahaba, companion, the closest friend, and father-in-law of Muhammad. He served as the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruli ...

, carrying a stone pestle. She did not notice Muhammad, so she asked Abu Bakr after him, "for I have been told that he is satirising me. If I had found him, I would have smashed his mouth with this stone." Then she produced a poem of her own: ''We reject the reprobate,'' ''His words we repudiate,'' ''His religion we loathe and hate.'' She departed, still not having noticed Muhammad.Ibn Ishaq/Guillaume pp. 161-162.

References

{{authority control 7th-century Arabic-language poets Banu Umayya People of the Quran 6th-century BC women Family of Muhammad