Hazrat Fatima al-Zahra: A Life

Stage 2/8 · Mecca and the Hijra· Chapters 1 to 4

Chapter 1: Names, titles and lineage

Her name was Hazrat Fatima bint Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ﷺ‎ (فاطمة بنت محمد بن عبد الله), of the clan of Hashim (هاشم) in the tribe of Quraysh (قريش). Her mother was Hazrat Khadija bint Khuwaylid (خديجة بنت خويلد), the Prophet's ﷺ first wife and the first person to accept his message (Wikipedia, citing Campo).

Lineage. On her father's side she descends from Hazrat Abd al-Muttalib (عبد المطلب) and Hashim, the leading house of Quraysh. On her mother's side she belongs to the clan of Asad ibn Abd al-Uzza (أسد بن عبد العزى), through Khuwaylid (خويلد). Her husband Hazrat Ali (علي) was the son of Hazrat Abu Talib (أبو طالب), her father's uncle, so she married within the house of Hashim.

The name "Fatima". Linguistically it comes from the Arabic root f-t-m (ف ط م), "to wean". Shia tradition reads this as a sign that she, her descendants and her followers are "weaned" from hellfire. Another Shia reading links it to al-Fatir (الفاطر), "the Creator", one of God's names (Ayoub, cited in Wikipedia).

Her kunya. Her best-known kunya (كنية) is Umm Abiha (أم أبيها), "the mother of her father". It is usually read as describing how she cared for the Prophet ﷺ after Hazrat Khadija's death. Twelver sources also call her Umm al-A'imma (أم الأئمة), "mother of the Imams", since eleven of the Twelve Imams descend from her.

Principal titles

The title al-Zahra' is her most common epithet. Shia authors explain it by her creation from light; Ibn Babawayh (ابن بابويه) (رحمه الله) (d. 991) wrote that when she prayed her light shone for the heavens as starlight shines for the earth (Soufi, cited in Wikipedia). The twelfth-century scholar Ibn Shahrashub (ابن شهرآشوب) (رحمه الله) listed more than seventy honorific names for her (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

al-Batul literally means "the one set apart". Shia tradition explains it with a report from the Prophet ﷺ that she was free of menstruation, a sign of her purity. Sunni usage more often reads it as her devotion to God and detachment from the world.

Further material on her names

The nine names. Ibn Babawayh (al-Saduq, d. 991) preserves a report from Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق) that Hazrat Fatima has nine names with God: Fatima, al-Siddiqa, al-Mubaraka, al-Tahira, al-Zakiyya, al-Radiya, al-Mardiyya, al-Muhadditha and al-Zahra'. These nine form the core of the longer lists compiled later by Ibn Shahrashub and al-Majlisi (المجلسي) (رحمه الله).

Why "Fatima"? Explanations built on the root f-t-m, "to wean, to cut off", take several forms:

• Shia reports say she was named so because she and those who love her are cut off from the Fire. A report in the Tafsir (التفسير) of Furat al-Kufi (فرات الكوفي) (رحمه الله) gives another reason: people are "cut off" from knowing her true worth.
• Sunni works such as Tarikh Baghdad (تاريخ بغداد) by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (الخطيب البغدادي) (رحمه الله) carry a similar saying of the Prophet ﷺ, that God weaned her and those who love her from the Fire. Hadith critics grade that chain weak.

al-Zahra', "the radiant". Beyond the general link with light (Chapter 17), a report in Ibn Babawayh's 'Ilal al-shara'i' (علل الشرائع) says her light shone for Hazrat Ali three times a day as she stood in prayer. It appeared white at dawn, yellow at midday and red at sunset.

al-Batul. The classical lexicographers define batul as a woman who cuts herself off from worldly attachment for God, and the word is also an epithet of Mary. The dictionary of hadith vocabulary by Ibn al-Athir (ابن الأثير) (رحمه الله), al-Nihaya (النهاية), explains that Hazrat Fatima was called al-Batul because she stood apart from the women of her time in virtue, religion and lineage.

Kunyas. Besides Umm Abiha and Umm al-A'imma she is called Umm al-Hasan (أم الحسن), Umm al-Husayn (أم الحسين) and Umm al-Muhsin (أم المحسن), after her sons.

Honorifics in use today. Arabic speakers most often say al-Sayyida Fatima (السيدة فاطمة) or Fatima al-Zahra'. In Persian and Turkish usage she is Hazrat-e Fatemeh (حضرت فاطمه) or Hazret-i Fatma; hazrat (حضرة) is an honorific meaning "presence". Persian speakers also call her Bibi (بی‌بی), "Lady". In Shia usage her name is usually followed by salam Allah 'alayha (سلام الله عليها), "God's peace be upon her", and in Sunni usage by radiya Allahu 'anha (رضي الله عنها), "God be pleased with her".

Chapter 2: Birth and childhood in Mecca

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) was born in Mecca to Muhammad ﷺ‎ (محمد) and Hazrat Khadija (خديجة), probably the youngest of their daughters. The year is disputed: sources place it anywhere from five years before to two years after the start of her father's mission (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Lammens).

The two birth dates

The choice has consequences. A birth in 605 means she married at about eighteen or older, which Veccia Vaglieri and Buehler note would have been unusual in Arabia at the time. A birth in 612–615 puts her marriage in her early or mid-teens (Wikipedia, citing Buehler and Veccia Vaglieri).

Her siblings

The Sunni view is that Hazrat Khadija bore the Prophet ﷺ four daughters, Hazrat Zaynab (زينب), Hazrat Ruqayya (رقية), Hazrat Umm Kulthum (أم كلثوم) and Hazrat Fatima, and two or three sons who died in infancy, among them Hazrat Qasim (القاسم) and Hazrat Abd Allah (عبد الله). Hazrat Fatima was the only daughter to outlive her father.

A number of Twelver sources hold that Hazrat Zaynab, Hazrat Ruqayya and Hazrat Umm Kulthum were daughters of Hala (هالة), Hazrat Khadija's sister, raised in the Prophet's ﷺ house after their mother died. On this view Hazrat Fatima was the Prophet's ﷺ only biological daughter. Fedele limits this belief to the Twelver Shia; it is not held by all Shia (Wikipedia, citing Fedele).

The birth in Shia hagiography

Shia devotional literature surrounds her conception and birth with wonders. It says her origin lay in a fruit of Paradise the Prophet ﷺ ate during his heavenly ascent, and that she spoke to Hazrat Khadija from the womb. It also says the great women of earlier faiths attended the birth: Sarah, Asiya (آسية), Moses's wife Safura (صفورا), and Mary the mother of Jesus. The world was said to be bathed in light (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Ibn Babawayh, Furat and Ibn Shahrashub).

The same literature records that the women of Quraysh (قريش) refused to attend Hazrat Khadija in labour, because she had married Muhammad ﷺ and supported his mission. Sunni sources do not preserve these miraculous details; they record her birth plainly.

Growing up in the house of revelation

She spent her childhood in her parents' house in Mecca, the house where revelation first came to her father. It was a household of prayer and, soon, of danger. Her earliest memories would have included the first converts, and then the boycott and persecution described in the next chapter.

Further material on her birth and early years

The house. Hazrat Fatima grew up in Hazrat Khadija's house in Mecca, near the Mas'a (المسعى), the course between al-Safa (الصفا) and al-Marwa (المروة). The Prophet ﷺ lived there for more than twenty years, and it was there he returned trembling after the first revelation. Later generations visited the site as her birthplace, and it has since been absorbed into the expansions of the Sacred Mosque.

Her sisters' marriages, in the Sunni account. By the time Hazrat Fatima was a child her elder sisters were married or promised:

On this account Hazrat Fatima was the only daughter left unmarried in Mecca, and the only one who shared her parents' house through all the years of persecution. On the Twelver account (Chapter 2), the three elder girls were Hazrat Khadija's nieces raised in the household.

Her brothers. Hazrat Khadija's sons, Hazrat Qasim and Hazrat Abd Allah (also called al-Tayyib (الطيب) and al-Tahir (الطاهر)), died in infancy. The Prophet's ﷺ kunya (كنية), Abu al-Qasim (أبو القاسم), comes from the first. A half-brother, Hazrat Ibrahim (إبراهيم), was born in Medina to Hazrat Mariya (مارية) the Copt in 8 AH and died in 10 AH. The Prophet's ﷺ enemies mocked him as abtar (أبتر), "cut off", because he had no surviving sons. Exegetes connect Sura 108, al-Kawthar (الكوثر), with that taunt (Chapter 9).

Chapter 3: The years of persecution and the loss of Hazrat Khadija

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) grew up while her father and his few followers were harassed by the pagan leaders of Quraysh (قريش). Two episodes stand out: her defence of her father at the Ka'ba (الكعبة), and the death of her mother.

Defending her father at the Ka'ba

Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) preserves a report from Hazrat Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud (عبد الله بن مسعود). While the Prophet ﷺ prostrated in prayer near the Ka'ba, a group of Quraysh, urged on by Abu Jahl (أبو جهل), had the entrails of a slaughtered camel thrown onto his back. He stayed in prostration, unable to rise, while they laughed.

Hazrat Fatima, still a girl, was told and ran to him. She pulled the filth off his back and turned on the men who had done it, rebuking them to their faces (Sahih al-Bukhari 240, Book of Ablution; see also Wikipedia, citing Buehler). It is the earliest scene in which the sources show her acting, and it anticipates the courage she would show at the end of her life.

The boycott of Banu Hashim

Around 616–619 CE, Quraysh imposed a boycott on the clans of Hashim (هاشم) and al-Muttalib (المطلب), refusing to trade or marry with them until they gave up the Prophet ﷺ. The clan withdrew to the valley known as the Shi'b (الشعب) of Hazrat Abu Talib (أبو طالب), where they suffered hunger for about three years. Hazrat Fatima, as a member of the household, shared those years; the boycott ended shortly before the deaths of Hazrat Khadija (خديجة) and Hazrat Abu Talib.

The Year of Sorrow

Hazrat Khadija died around 619 CE, some three years before the Hijra (الهجرة), and Hazrat Abu Talib died in the same year. Muslim tradition calls it the "Year of Sorrow". Hazrat Fatima lost her mother while still a child (Wikipedia, citing Bodley and Buehler).

A tradition relates that when Hazrat Khadija died, the young Hazrat Fatima clung to her father and asked where her mother was. Gabriel then came down with a message of consolation, telling the Prophet ﷺ to assure her that God had prepared for Hazrat Khadija a house in Paradise (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri and Buehler). The "house of hollowed pearl" for Hazrat Khadija is also recorded in al-Bukhari and Muslim, though there addressed to the Prophet ﷺ himself.

"Mother of her father"

After Hazrat Khadija's death the household was reduced to the Prophet ﷺ and his daughters. Hazrat Fatima took on much of her mother's care for him. Her kunya (كنية), Umm Abiha (أم أبيها), "the mother of her father", is traditionally explained by this tenderness toward him in his years of loss (Wikipedia, citing Ruffle and Nashat).

Further material on the Meccan years

"Save yourself, Fatima." When Qur'an 26:214 was revealed, "Warn your nearest kinsmen" (وَأَنذِرْ عَشِيرَتَكَ الْأَقْرَبِينَ), the Prophet ﷺ called on the clans of Quraysh one by one. The report of Hazrat Abu Hurayra (أبو هريرة) in al-Bukhari ends with his aunt Hazrat Safiyya (صفية) and his daughter: "O Fatima bint Muhammad ﷺ, ask me for anything of my wealth, but I cannot avail you anything against God" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2753). Both traditions read it as a lesson that kinship brings no exemption from accountability, even for the Prophet's ﷺ own child.

The Ka'ba incident, continued. In the fuller versions of Hazrat Ibn Mas'ud's report, after Hazrat Fatima cleared the filth from her father's back, the Prophet ﷺ named the men responsible and called on God against them. Hazrat Ibn Mas'ud swore he later saw every one of them lying dead in the well at Badr (بدر) (Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Ablution and Book of Prayer).

Dust on his head. Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله) relates that after Hazrat Abu Talib's death, one of the fools of Quraysh threw dust on the Prophet's ﷺ head in the street. He went home with the dust still on him, and one of his daughters washed it off, weeping. He told her not to cry, for God would protect her father. Ibn Ishaq does not name the daughter, but later writers often identify her as Hazrat Fatima.

The boycott years. During the boycott in the valley of Hazrat Abu Talib, Hazrat Khadija's fortune was spent keeping the clan alive. The sira (السيرة) adds that the boycott ended when the document hung in the Ka'ba was found eaten by termites except for the words "In Your name, O God". Hazrat Fatima spent part of her childhood in hunger, and the family never regained its old wealth.

The night of the Hijra. When the Prophet ﷺ left Mecca secretly in 622, Hazrat Ali (علي) slept in his bed to deceive the men sent to kill him. Hazrat Fatima stayed behind in Mecca with the rest of the household until she could be brought to Medina (Chapter 4).

Chapter 4: Emigration to Medina

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) followed her father to Medina shortly after his own emigration in 622 CE (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). The two traditions remember her journey differently.

The Sunni account

Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله) and other Sunni biographers report that once the Prophet ﷺ had settled in Medina, he sent his freedman Hazrat Zayd ibn Haritha (زيد بن حارثة) and Hazrat Abu Rafi' (أبو رافع) back to Mecca. They brought out his household: his daughters Hazrat Fatima and Hazrat Umm Kulthum (أم كلثوم), his wife Hazrat Sawda (سودة), and Hazrat Umm Ayman (أم أيمن) with her son Hazrat Usama (أسامة). Hazrat Ruqayya (رقية) had already emigrated with her husband Hazrat Uthman (عثمان), and Hazrat Zaynab (زينب) remained in Mecca with her husband Hazrat Abu al-As (أبو العاص).

The sira (السيرة) tradition of Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله) also names a Meccan, al-Huwayrith ibn Nuqaydh (الحويرث بن نقيذ), who harassed the Prophet's ﷺ daughters as they left, goading their camel so that it threw them. He was one of the few men later excluded from the amnesty at the conquest of Mecca.

The Shia account

Shia sources give the lead role to Hazrat Ali (علي). After spending the night of the Hijra (الهجرة) in the Prophet's ﷺ bed to deceive the assassins, he stayed in Mecca for about three days, returned goods held in trust, and then set out openly. He escorted a small party of women known as al-Fawatim (الفواطم), "the Fatimas": Hazrat Fatima bint Muhammad ﷺ, Hazrat Ali's mother Hazrat Fatima bint Asad (فاطمة بنت أسد), and Hazrat Fatima bint al-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Muttalib (فاطمة بنت الزبير بن عبد المطلب), with Hazrat Umm Ayman among others.

The story says Hazrat Ali walked much of the way, and faced down a group of pursuers from Quraysh (قريش) who tried to turn the party back. They joined the Prophet ﷺ at Quba (قباء), outside Medina, where he had waited for them. Shia commentators often connect Qur'an 3:195, on those "who emigrated and were driven out of their homes" (فَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا وَأُخْرِجُوا مِن دِيَارِهِمْ), with this journey.

Settling in Medina

In Medina the Prophet ﷺ built his mosque with rooms for his household beside it. Hazrat Fatima lived in her father's house until her marriage, after which she and Hazrat Ali moved into a house next to the Prophet's ﷺ quarters (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri and Buehler). The door of that house, which opened onto the mosque, became a focus of later tradition.

Further material on the Hijra and the first Medinan years

Hazrat Ali at Quba. Even the Sunni sira of Ibn Ishaq records that Hazrat Ali stayed in Mecca for three days after the Prophet ﷺ left, returning the goods people had deposited with him. He then followed and reached the Prophet ﷺ at Quba, lodging with him there. Later historians add that he travelled on foot, hiding by day and walking by night, and arrived with his feet swollen. Shia accounts place Hazrat Fatima in that party; Sunni accounts bring her later with Hazrat Zayd ibn Haritha.

The Prophet's ﷺ household in Medina. On arrival the Prophet ﷺ stayed about seven months in the house of Hazrat Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (أبو أيوب الأنصاري) while his mosque and the rooms beside it were built. Hazrat Fatima joined him there, along with her sister Hazrat Umm Kulthum and his wife Hazrat Sawda. Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) joined the household soon after, so Hazrat Fatima's last years before marriage were spent in the same small complex of rooms as her father's wives.

The brotherhood pact. Soon after the Hijra the Prophet ﷺ paired each emigrant with a Medinan "brother". Several reports say he kept Hazrat Ali for himself, telling him "You are my brother in this world and the next" (al-Tirmidhi; the chain is debated). Shia writers see this as part of the background to Hazrat Ali's marriage to Hazrat Fatima.

A house near her father. Ibn Sa'd relates that after her marriage Hazrat Fatima lived at first some distance from the Prophet ﷺ, and wished to be closer. He hesitated to ask the Ansari (أنصاري) Hazrat Haritha ibn al-Nu'man (حارثة بن النعمان), who had already given him several houses. Hazrat Haritha heard of it and gave them his house next to the Prophet's ﷺ.

The door onto the mosque. Reports differ on which doors were allowed to stay open onto the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque. A tradition in the Musnad (المسند) of Ahmad (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله) and in al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) says the Prophet ﷺ ordered every door closed except Hazrat Ali's, so the house of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima opened directly into the mosque. Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) records an order to close all openings except that of Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر). Sunni scholars such as Ibn Hajar (ابن حجر) (رحمه الله) tried to reconcile the two; Shia writers treat the first as a distinction of Hazrat Fatima's household.

Stage 3/8 · The Medinan years· Chapters 5 to 10

Chapter 5: Marriage to Hazrat Ali

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) married Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib (علي بن أبي طالب) in Medina in 1 or 2 AH (623–624 CE), probably after the Battle of Badr (بدر). The marriage lasted about ten years, until her death, and Hazrat Ali took no other wife while she lived (Wikipedia, citing Buehler and Thurlkill).

The earlier suitors

Both Sunni and Shia sources report that others had asked for her hand first. Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله) names Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) and Hazrat Umar (عمر), and probably the wealthy Hazrat Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf (عبد الرحمن بن عوف). The Prophet ﷺ declined them, saying he was waiting for God's decree (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Rustam).

Hazrat Ali's proposal

Hazrat Ali hesitated to ask because he was poor. Encouraged by others, he went to the Prophet ﷺ and sat in silence until the Prophet ﷺ asked what he wanted. When the Prophet ﷺ put the proposal to Hazrat Fatima, she stayed silent, which was taken as consent. Thurlkill notes that this report became a basis for the rule in Islamic law that a woman's consent is required for her marriage (Wikipedia, citing Klemm, Buehler and Thurlkill).

The Sunni al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) ascribes to the Prophet ﷺ the words that God had ordered him to marry Hazrat Fatima to Hazrat Ali. Veccia Vaglieri and Klemm cite a report that he told her he had married her to the best of his family. A version in the Musnad (المسند) of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله) praises Hazrat Ali as the first to accept Islam, the most learned and the most forbearing of the community (Wikipedia, citing Soufi).

The bridal gift (mahr)

Asked what he could give, Hazrat Ali said he had only his horse, his sword and his armour. The Prophet ﷺ told him to keep the horse and sword, which a fighter needs, and to give the armour. Sunan Abi Dawud (سنن أبي داود) and al-Nasa'i (النسائي) (رحمه الله) record the Prophet ﷺ asking Hazrat Ali, "Where is your Hutami armour?" Hazrat Ali sold it, by most reports to Hazrat Uthman ibn Affan (عثمان بن عفان), for between 400 and 500 dirhams; 480 is the figure most often cited. This modest sum became the model known as mahr al-sunna (مهر السنة).

The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have spent part of the money on perfume and the rest on simple household goods. Al-Nasa'i records that he furnished Hazrat Fatima with a velvet cloth, a waterskin and a leather pillow stuffed with idhkhir (إذخر) grass. Later sources lengthen the list with a hand-mill, a jug, a clay pot and a bed of palm fibre.

The wedding

The Prophet ﷺ performed the marriage himself, and a plain wedding meal was prepared with gifts from other Muslims (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri and Ruffle). Hazrat Fatima was escorted to Hazrat Ali's house by Hazrat Umm Ayman (أم أيمن); Shia sources also name Hazrat Umm Salama (أم سلمة). The Prophet ﷺ then came, called for water, sprinkled it on both of them and prayed for them and their descendants.

Shia sources add that Hazrat Fatima gave her new wedding dress to a poor woman who came to the door that night, keeping her old one. They also date the contract and the wedding separately, with about ten months between them; the wedding is usually placed on 1 Dhu al-Hijja (ذو الحجة) 2 AH.

Her age at marriage

Her age is uncertain and reported anywhere from nine to twenty-one; Hazrat Ali was about twenty-two (Wikipedia, citing Thurlkill, Veccia Vaglieri and Bodley). The range follows directly from the two birth dates in Chapter 2.

The meaning of the marriage

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (سيد حسين نصر) writes that Muslims see this union as the marriage of the two greatest saintly figures around the Prophet ﷺ. For the Shia it joined prophecy and imamate: every Imam after Hazrat Ali descends from this couple. Shia hagiography raises the betrothal itself to a cosmic event, celebrated in heaven before it took place on earth (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

Further material on the marriage

Hazrat Hamza and the wedding camels. Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) preserves Hazrat Ali's own memory of preparing the wedding feast. He had two old she-camels, one from his share of the Badr booty and one from the Prophet's ﷺ fifth, and planned to load them with idhkhir grass to sell to the goldsmiths and pay for the feast. While he was away, his uncle Hazrat Hamza (حمزة), drinking in a nearby house before wine was forbidden, was urged on by a singing-girl and slaughtered both animals. Hazrat Ali complained to the Prophet ﷺ, who went to reproach Hazrat Hamza (Sahih al-Bukhari 2375). The story shows how poor the couple were: the feast depended on two camels.

The wedding feast. A wedding must have a feast (walima (وليمة)), the Prophet ﷺ said. Reports in Ahmad's Musnad add that Hazrat Sa'd (سعد) gave a ram and that men of the Ansar (الأنصار) brought measures of grain.

Preparing the house. A report in Ibn Majah (ابن ماجه) (رحمه الله) has Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) describe how she and Hazrat Umm Salama prepared the couple's house. They plastered it with soft earth from the valley of al-Batha' (البطحاء), stuffed two pillows with palm fibre, and set up a wooden peg to hang clothes and a waterskin. They served dates, raisins and water, and Hazrat Aisha said she had never seen a better wedding. Hadith critics grade this report weak, but it is widely repeated.

The wedding night. Ibn Sa'd and al-Nasa'i report that the Prophet ﷺ came to the house after the night prayer. He called for water, recited over it, and sprinkled it on Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima, praying: "O God, bless them, bless their union, and bless their offspring." Some versions add that he sought God's protection for her and her descendants from Satan, in the words Mary's mother used in Qur'an 3:36 (وَإِنِّي أُعِيذُهَا بِكَ وَذُرِّيَّتَهَا مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ).

"Get up, Abu Turab." Hazrat Sahl ibn Sa'd (سهل بن سعد) told how Hazrat Ali earned his favourite nickname. After a quarrel with Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Ali went out and slept by a wall in the mosque. The Prophet ﷺ found him with his back covered in dust, brushed it off, and said, "Get up, O Abu Turab" ("father of dust"). Hazrat Sahl said no name pleased Hazrat Ali more, because the Prophet ﷺ had given it (Sahih al-Bukhari 6204).

When the contract was made. Ibn Sa'd and others date the marriage contract to a few months after the Hijra (الهجرة) and the move to Hazrat Ali's house to after Badr, in 2 AH. Shia sources give the date of the wedding as 1 Dhu al-Hijja 2 AH, about ten months after the contract.

Chapter 6: Household, poverty and the Tasbih of Hazrat Fatima

Like most early Muslims in Medina, Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) and Hazrat Ali (علي) lived in hard poverty for their first years together. Both did heavy physical work, and their circumstances eased only after the conquest of Khaybar (خيبر) in 7 AH (Wikipedia, citing Buehler, Campo and Klemm).

Dividing the work

Hazrat Ali worked as a labourer, drawing and carrying water for hire among other jobs. Hazrat Fatima ran the house: grinding grain on a hand-mill, baking, fetching water and raising the children. Shia sources relate that the Prophet ﷺ himself divided the work, assigning the tasks inside the home to Hazrat Fatima and those outside it to Hazrat Ali, and that she was glad of the arrangement (Wikipedia, citing Ruffle).

The request for a servant, and the Tasbih

Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) records this in Hazrat Ali's own words. Hazrat Fatima's hands were worn by the hand-mill, and when she heard that captives had been brought to the Prophet ﷺ, she went to ask him for a servant. She did not find him and told Hazrat Aisha (عائشة), who passed on the request (Sahih al-Bukhari 3113).

The Prophet ﷺ came to their house that night after they had gone to bed. He told them to stay where they were and sat between them; Hazrat Ali recalled feeling the coolness of his feet against his chest. Instead of a servant he gave them a formula to recite at bedtime, which he said was better than what they had asked for.

This is the Tasbih (التسبيح) of Hazrat Fatima:

• Allahu akbar (الله أكبر) (God is greatest), 34 times
• al-hamdu lillah (الحمد لله) (praise be to God), 33 times
• subhan Allah (سبحان الله) (glory be to God), 33 times

In Shia practice the order is usually the same, and the Tasbih is recited after every obligatory prayer; it is often counted on prayer beads, sometimes made of clay from the grave of Hazrat Husayn (الحسين). Sunni Muslims recite it at bedtime and, in a closely related form, after prayers.

Hazrat Fidda

Hazrat Fatima was at some point given a maidservant named Hazrat Fidda (فضة) (Wikipedia, citing Buehler). Shia tradition says Hazrat Fatima divided the work with her, taking alternate days, rather than leaving the labour to her. Hazrat Fidda appears again in the story behind Surat al-Insan (سورة الإنسان) (Chapter 9).

The marriage in the sources

The portraits of the marriage differ. Some Sunni reports describe quarrels in which the Prophet ﷺ came to reconcile the couple. The Iranica article suggests these arose mostly from Hazrat Ali's attempts to take a second wife (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Ahmad, al-Bukhari and al-Tirmidhi).

The best-known such report concerns a proposed marriage between Hazrat Ali and a daughter of Abu Jahl (أبو جهل). The Prophet ﷺ is said to have forbidden it from the pulpit, declaring that the daughter of God's messenger and the daughter of God's enemy could not be joined, and that Hazrat Fatima was a part of him. Soufi notes that the report goes back to a single narrator, Hazrat Miswar ibn Makhrama (المسور بن مخرمة), who was only about nine when the Prophet ﷺ died. Buehler advises treating traditions that place Hazrat Ali in a poor light with caution, since they mirror the politics of later times (Wikipedia, citing Soufi and Buehler).

Shia sources describe a happy marriage to the end. They report Hazrat Ali's saying that whenever he looked at her, his worries and sorrows left him. Popular devotion, as Calmard notes, has erased every trace of quarrel from her image (Calmard, Iranica).

Worship

Shia sources, notably Ibn Babawayh (ابن بابويه) (رحمه الله), preserve the memory of her son Hazrat Hasan (الحسن), who watched her pray through a Thursday night. She prayed for the believers by name, men and women, but not for herself. When he asked why, she answered with a phrase that became proverbial: "First the neighbour, then the house."

Further material on daily life

"Won't you pray?" Hazrat Ali recalled that one night the Prophet ﷺ came to him and Hazrat Fatima and asked whether they would not rise for the night prayer. Hazrat Ali answered that their souls were in God's hands, and if He wished them to rise He would wake them. The Prophet ﷺ left without a word, and Hazrat Ali heard him striking his thigh and reciting, "But man is the most argumentative of things" (وَكَانَ الْإِنسَانُ أَكْثَرَ شَيْءٍ جَدَلًا) (Qur'an 18:54; Sahih al-Bukhari 1127). It is a rare, candid glimpse of the young family's home.

The gold chain. Al-Nasa'i (النسائي) (رحمه الله) records, from the Prophet's ﷺ freedman Hazrat Thawban (ثوبان), that the Prophet ﷺ once found Hazrat Fatima wearing a gold chain Hazrat Ali had given her. He asked whether she would like people to say that the daughter of Muhammad ﷺ‎ (محمد) wore a chain of fire. She sold the chain, bought a slave with the price and set him free. When the Prophet ﷺ heard, he praised God for saving Hazrat Fatima from the Fire (Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book of Adornment).

The curtain and the bracelets. Abu Dawud (أبو داود) (رحمه الله) preserves another report from Hazrat Thawban. Whenever the Prophet ﷺ travelled, Hazrat Fatima was the last person he said goodbye to, and on his return she was the first he visited. Once he came back to find a decorated curtain on her door and silver bracelets on her sons, and turned away without entering. She took them down and sent them to him to give away. He said that these were his family, and he did not want them to have their good things in the life of this world (Sunan Abi Dawud 4213).

Hunger. Several reports describe how thin the household's resources were before Khaybar. In one, Hazrat Ali drew water for a man of Medina at the rate of one date per bucket and brought the dates home to share with the Prophet ﷺ. Hazrat Ali later said that on their wedding night their only bedding was a sheepskin on which they slept by night and fed the camel by day.

Worship. The Basran ascetic al-Hasan al-Basri (الحسن البصري) (رحمه الله) is quoted, in Shia and Sufi collections, as saying that no one in the community was more devoted in worship than Hazrat Fatima, who stood in prayer until her feet swelled. The Tasbih her father taught her (Chapter 6) is recited by Sunni Muslims after prayers as well as at bedtime; Sahih Muslim (صحيح مسلم) records the same formula of 33, 33 and 34 after each prayer.

Among the Prophet's ﷺ wives. Sahih Muslim preserves a scene in which the Prophet's ﷺ wives, feeling he favoured Hazrat Aisha, sent Hazrat Fatima to ask him to treat them equally. He asked her, "Do you not love whom I love?" When she said yes, he said, "Then love this one." Hazrat Fatima returned and told the wives, and when they asked her to go again, she refused ever to raise the matter with him again (Sahih Muslim 2442).

Chapter 7: Her children

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) bore Hazrat Ali (علي) five children: Hazrat Hasan (الحسن), Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), Hazrat Zaynab (زينب), Hazrat Umm Kulthum (أم كلثوم) and Hazrat Muhsin (محسن) (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). The Prophet's ﷺ other children either died young or left no lasting line, so his descendants to this day trace their descent through her (Britannica).

Four children survived her. Hazrat Muhsin's fate is one of the sharpest points of disagreement between Sunni and Shia sources (see Chapter 12).

The children one by one

Naming and first rites

The Prophet ﷺ named Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn himself. A report in the Musnad (المسند) of Ahmad (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله) says Hazrat Ali had first chosen the name Harb (حرب) ("war") for each, and the Prophet ﷺ replaced it. Al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) records that for Hazrat Hasan's aqiqa (عقيقة) the Prophet ﷺ sacrificed a sheep and told Hazrat Fatima to shave the baby's head and give its weight in silver as charity; the hair weighed about a dirham.

The grandchildren in the Prophet's ﷺ life

The hadith collections are full of the Prophet's ﷺ affection for Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn. They climbed on his back while he prostrated, he carried them on his shoulders, and he called them the two chiefs of the youth of Paradise. He included both boys, with their parents, in the Mubahala (المباهلة) and under the cloak (Chapter 9).

Her descendants

Through Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn, the Prophet's ﷺ line spread across the Muslim world. Their descendants carry the honorifics sayyid (سيد) or sharif (شريف) and are widely respected (Wikipedia, citing Shah-Kazemi and Morimoto). Eleven of the Twelve Imams descend from Hazrat Fatima, and the Fatimid (فاطمي) dynasty of North Africa and Egypt (909–1171) took its name from her, claiming descent through the Isma'ili (إسماعيلي) imam Muhammad ibn Isma'il (محمد بن إسماعيل) (Wikipedia, citing Canard).

Hazrat Fatima's name, and her daughters' names, were later given to Hazrat Husayn's daughters and to countless Muslim girls. Among Shia women she is invoked especially during childbirth (Calmard, Iranica).

Further material on the children

Hazrat Hasan. Hazrat Abu Rafi' (أبو رافع) reported that he saw the Prophet ﷺ recite the call to prayer into the newborn Hazrat Hasan's ear (Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, graded good). As caliph after Hazrat Ali's death, Hazrat Hasan made peace with Hazrat Mu'awiya in 661, fulfilling, in Sunni reading, the Prophet's ﷺ words from the pulpit: "This son of mine is a sayyid, and perhaps through him God will reconcile two great parties of Muslims" (Sahih al-Bukhari 2704). He died in Medina about 670; many reports say he was poisoned. His wish to be buried near his grandfather was refused, and he was laid in al-Baqi'.

Hazrat Husayn. Al-Tirmidhi records the Prophet's ﷺ saying, "Husayn is from me and I am from Husayn". Reports in Ahmad's Musnad have the Prophet ﷺ give Hazrat Umm Salama (أم سلمة) a handful of red earth brought by Gabriel from the place where Hazrat Husayn would be killed; she kept it in a bottle. Hazrat Husayn was killed at Karbala on 10 Muharram 61 AH (10 October 680).

The grandsons with the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ called Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn "my two sweet basils of this world" (al-Bukhari) and "the chiefs of the youth of Paradise" (al-Tirmidhi). He lengthened a prostration because one of them had climbed on his back, and once came down from the pulpit mid-sermon to pick them up when they came stumbling in red shirts (al-Nasa'i; al-Tirmidhi).

Their inheritance. Al-Mufid's Kitab al-Irshad (كتاب الإرشاد) records, from a granddaughter of Hazrat Abu Rafi', that in the Prophet's ﷺ last illness Hazrat Fatima brought her sons to him and asked him to leave them something. He gave Hazrat Hasan his dignity and authority, and Hazrat Husayn his generosity and courage (al-Islam.org, quoting al-Mufid).

Hazrat Zaynab. She was probably born in 5 or 6 AH and named by the Prophet ﷺ. Hazrat Ibn Abbas (ابن عباس) is said to have called her 'Aqilat Bani Hashim (عقيلة بني هاشم), "the wise woman of the Hashimites". She married her cousin Hazrat Abd Allah ibn Ja'far; two of their sons, Awn (عون) and Muhammad, were killed at Karbala. Her speeches in the market of Kufa and before Yazid in Damascus are preserved in Balaghat al-nisa' (بلاغات النساء) by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (ابن أبي طاهر طيفور) (رحمه الله), the same anthology that holds her mother's sermon. She died about 682, and both Damascus and Cairo have shrines in her name (Wikipedia).

Hazrat Umm Kulthum. She was still a small child when her mother died. Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله) and other Sunni historians record her marriage to Hazrat Umar ibn al-Khattab, who sought it to form a tie of kinship with the Prophet ﷺ, and a son, Zayd. Early Shia scholars such as al-Tusi (الطوسي) (رحمه الله) accepted the marriage. From al-Mufid (المفيد) (رحمه الله) onward, many Shia theologians argued that it was concluded under duress, or denied it altogether (Wikipedia). She was taken captive after Karbala, and a speech in Kufa is attributed to her.

Hazrat Muhsin in the Sunni sources. A report in Ahmad's Musnad has Hazrat Ali say that he named each of his first three sons Harb, "war", and each time the Prophet ﷺ renamed them: Hazrat Hasan, Hazrat Husayn and Hazrat Muhsin. The Prophet ﷺ explained that he had named them after the sons of Aaron, Shabbar (شبر), Shubayr (شبير) and Mushabbir (مشبر) (Musnad Ahmad 769). Sunni scholars cite this as evidence that Hazrat Muhsin was born in the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime and died young. The chain is graded weak, however, and the Shia account of a miscarriage in 11 AH is set out in Chapter 12.

Chapter 8: Public moments beside her father

The sources show Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) at several turning points of the Medinan decade: tending her father's wounds after Uhud (أحد), refusing Abu Sufyan (أبو سفيان), and travelling with the Prophet ﷺ to the conquest of Mecca and the Farewell Pilgrimage (Wikipedia, citing Klemm and Veccia Vaglieri).

After the Battle of Uhud (3 AH / 625)

At Uhud the Prophet ﷺ was struck in the face, a tooth was broken and his helmet was driven into his cheek. Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) preserves what Hazrat Sahl ibn Sa'd (سهل بن سعد) remembered of what followed. Hazrat Ali (علي) brought water in his shield while Hazrat Fatima washed the wound; when the bleeding would not stop, she burned a piece of palm-leaf matting and pressed the ash into it until the blood stopped.

Hazrat Fatima afterwards visited the graves of the fallen at Uhud to pray for them, among them the Prophet's ﷺ uncle Hazrat Hamza (حمزة) (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri). Shia tradition says she kept up these visits for the rest of her life, especially in her last months.

The Battle of the Trench (5 AH / 627)

Later reports describe her bringing a piece of bread to her father while the Muslims were digging the trench around Medina. He is said to have told her it was the first food he had eaten in three days. The report shows the hunger of that siege, which the family shared.

Refusing Abu Sufyan (8 AH / 630)

When Quraysh (قريش) broke the truce of Hudaybiyya (الحديبية), their leader Abu Sufyan came to Medina to repair it. Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله) relates that, turned away by others, he went to Hazrat Fatima and asked her to let her small son Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) declare him under protection. She refused, saying a child could not grant protection and that no one could grant it against the Messenger of God ﷺ (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). The Iranica article counts this as one of only three politically significant acts recorded of her in almost all sources.

The conquest of Mecca (8 AH / 630)

Hazrat Fatima accompanied her father on the march to Mecca (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri). Hazrat Umm Hani (أم هانئ), Hazrat Ali's sister, recalled in a report in al-Bukhari finding the Prophet ﷺ bathing on the day of the conquest while Hazrat Fatima held up a cloth to screen him. Hazrat Fatima thus returned, as a grown woman and mother, to the city where she had cleared filth from her father's back as a child.

The Farewell Pilgrimage (10 AH / 632)

Hazrat Fatima made the Farewell Pilgrimage with her father. The long account of Hazrat Jabir ibn Abd Allah (جابر بن عبد الله) in Sahih Muslim (صحيح مسلم) says Hazrat Ali, arriving from Yemen, found she had left the state of ihram (إحرام), dressed in dyed clothes and used kohl. He objected, but she said her father had instructed her; the Prophet ﷺ confirmed that she had spoken the truth. The report was later used in law as evidence for the tamattu' (تمتع) form of pilgrimage.

Shia sources add that she was among the pilgrims at Ghadir Khumm (غدير خم) on the way home, when the Prophet ﷺ declared of Hazrat Ali, "Whoever I am master of, Ali is his master." Shia accounts later have her invoking that day in the dispute over succession (Chapter 14).

Further material on the campaigns

"Wash the blood from this." Ibn Ishaq relates that when the Prophet ﷺ came home from Uhud, he handed his sword to Hazrat Fatima and asked her to wash the blood from it, "for by God it served me well today". Hazrat Ali then gave her his own sword with the same words.

At Hazrat Hamza's grave. Hazrat Hamza was killed and mutilated at Uhud. Reports in al-Hakim (الحاكم) (رحمه الله) and al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله) say Hazrat Fatima used to visit his grave every Friday to pray and weep there. Sunni jurists later cited this in debates over whether women may visit graves.

The Mosque of Hazrat Fatima. Among the small mosques at the site of the Trench, known as the Seven Mosques, one is named after Hazrat Fatima. The present building, only about 4 by 3 metres, dates from the Ottoman era under Sultan Abdulmejid I (السلطان عبد المجيد الأول) (Madain Project).

Tabuk. When the Prophet ﷺ marched to Tabuk in 9 AH he left Hazrat Ali behind to look after his family in Medina. Hazrat Ali was hurt by the talk that he had been left with the women and children. The Prophet ﷺ answered him: "Are you not pleased to be to me as Aaron was to Moses, except that there is no prophet after me?" (al-Bukhari and Muslim). Hazrat Fatima was among those in Hazrat Ali's charge.

Chapter 9: Hazrat Fatima and the Qur'an

The Qur'an never names Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة), but classical exegetes, Sunni and Shia, connect several verses with her (Wikipedia, citing McAuliffe). The table gives the main ones; the sections below explain each.

The Mubahala (3:61)

In 10 AH (631–632) a Christian delegation from Najran (نجران) debated the nature of Jesus with the Prophet ﷺ without agreement. Verse 3:61 then instructed him to invite them to a mutual invocation of God's curse on whichever side was lying, bringing "our sons and your sons, our women and your women, ourselves and yourselves" (أَبْنَاءَنَا وَأَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَنِسَاءَنَا وَنِسَاءَكُمْ وَأَنفُسَنَا وَأَنفُسَكُمْ) (Wikipedia, citing Madelung and Momen).

Sahih Muslim records, from Hazrat Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (سعد بن أبي وقاص), that when the verse came down the Prophet ﷺ called Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) and said, "O God, these are my family." Shia tradition is unanimous that "our women" meant Hazrat Fatima and "ourselves" meant Hazrat Ali. Madelung argues that "our sons" must mean the grandsons, so their parents were naturally included, and that the ritual raised the religious rank of the Prophet's ﷺ family. Most accounts in al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله) do not name the participants, while other Sunni historians agree with the Shia reading (Wikipedia, citing Madelung and Momen). The Christians declined the ordeal and agreed to terms.

The verse of Purification (33:33)

The verse's last sentence says God wishes to remove all impurity from the Ahl al-Bayt, "the people of the house", and purify them completely (إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيُذْهِبَ عَنكُمُ الرِّجْسَ أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ تَطْهِيرًا).

The hadith of the Cloak (kisa' (الكساء)) ties it to Hazrat Fatima's family. In the version of the Prophet's ﷺ wife Hazrat Umm Salama (أم سلمة), perhaps the earliest, he gathered Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn under his cloak and prayed that God remove impurity from them. When Hazrat Umm Salama asked to join, he told her she was on a good path but kept her outside. Sahih Muslim has a similar report from Hazrat Aisha (عائشة), and al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) records that he limited the Ahl al-Bayt to these four when the verse was revealed (Wikipedia, citing Sharon, Soufi and Momen).

Most of the traditions al-Tabari quotes in his commentary identify the Ahl al-Bayt with these five, as do reports cited by Ahmad ibn Hanbal (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله), al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) and Ibn Kathir (ابن كثير) (رحمه الله). Because the verses before it address the Prophet's ﷺ wives, Ibn Kathir and other Sunnis include the wives as well; the Shia restrict the term to the five and treat the verse as proof of their infallibility. Veccia Vaglieri notes a report that the Prophet ﷺ recited this verse at Hazrat Fatima's door each morning as he passed to call the household to the dawn prayer (Wikipedia, citing Howard, Madelung and Veccia Vaglieri).

The verse of Affection (42:23)

The verse tells the Prophet ﷺ to ask no reward of the people except love for "the near of kin" (al-qurba, إِلَّا الْمَوَدَّةَ فِي الْقُرْبَىٰ). Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله) reports the Prophet ﷺ identifying them as Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Ali and their two sons. Madelung records that Hazrat Hasan cited this verse in his first sermon as caliph. Al-Tabari preferred another reading, that Quraysh (قريش) should love the Prophet ﷺ because of their kinship with him, while al-Razi and al-Baydawi among Sunnis accept the Shia reading (Wikipedia, citing Ibn Ishaq, Madelung and Momen).

Surat al-Insan (76:5–22)

When Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn fell ill, Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima vowed to fast three days if they recovered. On each evening of the fast a beggar came to the door, then an orphan, then a captive, and each time the family, with their maid Hazrat Fidda (فضة), gave away their only food and broke the fast with water. The verses praising those who feed "the needy, the orphan and the captive" (مِسْكِينًا وَيَتِيمًا وَأَسِيرًا) for the sake of God alone are said to have come down in their honour. This account appears in the Shia al-Tabarsi (الطبرسي) (رحمه الله) and the Sunni al-Qurtubi and al-Alusi (Wikipedia, citing Nasr et al.).

Mary and Hazrat Fatima (3:42)

The angels tell Mary that God has chosen her, purified her and preferred her over the women of the worlds (وَاصْطَفَاكِ عَلَىٰ نِسَاءِ الْعَالَمِينَ). A hadith names four women as the best of all time: Mary, Asiya (آسية) the wife of Pharaoh, Hazrat Khadija (خديجة) and Hazrat Fatima. Shia exegetes, and some Sunnis, read "the women of the worlds" in 3:42 as the women of Mary's own age, leaving Hazrat Fatima supreme in hers and beyond. Shia writers call her Maryam al-Kubra (مريم الكبرى), "the greater Mary" (Wikipedia, citing McAuliffe, Thurlkill and Pierce). McAuliffe's study "Chosen of All Women" (1981) is the classic comparison.

The verse of Light (24:35) and al-Kawthar (108)

The Shia al-Kulayni interprets the verse of Light (آية النور) so that Hazrat Fatima is the niche that holds the lamp (كَمِشْكَاةٍ فِيهَا مِصْبَاحٌ ۖ الْمِصْبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍ), which is the Imams, and the shining glass of the divine light (Wikipedia, citing Thurlkill). Sura 108 was revealed, by the usual account, when an enemy mocked the Prophet ﷺ as abtar (الْأَبْتَرُ), "cut off", after his sons died. Shia exegetes, and some Sunni commentators as one opinion, see the "abundance" (kawthar, إِنَّا أَعْطَيْنَاكَ الْكَوْثَرَ) promised to him in his descendants through Hazrat Fatima.

Further material on the Qur'an

The Mubahala in detail. The Najran delegation was led by the chief called al-Aqib (العاقب) (Abd al-Masih (عبد المسيح)), the administrator called al-Sayyid, and the bishop Abu Haritha ibn Alqama (أبو حارثة بن علقمة). They debated Jesus's nature with the Prophet ﷺ, who recited 3:59, "The likeness of Jesus with God is as the likeness of Adam; He created him from dust" (إِنَّ مَثَلَ عِيسَىٰ عِندَ اللَّهِ كَمَثَلِ آدَمَ ۖ خَلَقَهُ مِن تُرَابٍ) (Wikipedia).

The commentaries of al-Zamakhshari (الزمخشري) (رحمه الله) and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi describe how the Prophet ﷺ came out on the appointed morning. He carried Hazrat Husayn and led Hazrat Hasan by the hand, with Hazrat Fatima walking behind him and Hazrat Ali behind her, and told them to say "Amen" when he prayed. On seeing them, the bishop is said to have told his people that these were faces for whose sake God would move a mountain if they asked, and that his people should not enter the ordeal. The Christians made terms instead: an annual tribute, recorded in the Sunan (السنن) of Abu Dawud (أبو داود) (رحمه الله) as two thousand garments a year. Shia commemorate the day on 24 Dhu al-Hijja (ذو الحجة); the year is given as 9 or 10 AH.

The long Hadith of the Cloak. Alongside the short versions in Muslim and al-Tirmidhi (Chapter 9), Shia devotion knows a long version narrated by Hazrat Jabir ibn Abd Allah (جابر بن عبد الله) from Hazrat Fatima herself. The Prophet ﷺ comes to her house tired and asks for a Yemeni cloak. Hazrat Hasan, then Hazrat Husayn, then Hazrat Ali, then Hazrat Fatima come in one by one, each recognising his fragrance and asking to join him beneath it. God then declares to the angels that He created the heavens and the earth only out of love for these five. Gabriel asks to become the sixth and recites the verse of Purification (آية التطهير) to them.

The text is found in 'Awalim al-'ulum (عوالم العلوم) by Abd Allah al-Bahrani (عبد الله البحراني) (رحمه الله) (12th century AH), and its chain is debated even among Shia scholars. It is recited at countless Shia gatherings, with the closing promise that its recital brings mercy and relief (al-Islam.org, al-Qazwini).

The dispute over Surat al-Insan. Al-Zamakhshari and al-Tha'labi (الثعلبي) (رحمه الله) report the story of the three-day fast. Ibn Taymiyya (ابن تيمية) (رحمه الله) and other Sunni critics reject it, arguing that the sura was revealed in Mecca, before Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn were born. Shia scholars answer that the relevant verses are Medinan, and point to Sunni commentators who accept the story.

Ikrima and the verse of Purification. Ibn Kathir records that Ikrima (عكرمة) (رحمه الله), the client of Hazrat Ibn Abbas (ابن عباس), used to call out in the market that the verse of Purification was revealed about the Prophet's ﷺ wives alone. Ibn Kathir's own view was that it covers both the wives and the family of the cloak.

"The near of kin" in Ahmad. Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Fada'il al-sahaba (فضائل الصحابة) reports that when verse 42:23 was revealed, companions asked who "the near of kin" were. The Prophet ﷺ answered: Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Fatima and their two sons. Ibn Kathir questioned the chain; Shia authors cite it widely.

Chapter 10: Hazrat Fatima in the hadith: her virtues and rank

Both Sunni and Shia hadith collections record the Prophet's ﷺ exceptional love for Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) and give her the highest rank among women. Many of the key reports sit in the canonical Sunni collections themselves (Wikipedia, citing Buehler and Soufi).

Core reports

How he received her

Hazrat Aisha described how, when Hazrat Fatima came in, the Prophet ﷺ would rise to meet her, take her hand, kiss her and seat her in his own place; she did the same when he visited her (Abu Dawud; al-Tirmidhi). Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) also notes that her walk was exactly like her father's.

When he left Medina on a journey, she was the last person he said goodbye to, and on his return she was the first he visited (Wikipedia, citing Buehler). Abu Dawud (أبو داود) (رحمه الله) preserves a small scene from one such return. He found a decorated curtain on her door and silver bracelets on her sons, and turned away. She took them down and sent them to him to be given away, and he said of the family that he did not want them to have their share of good things in this world.

"Part of me"

The saying "Fatima is a part (bad'a) of me" is recorded in al-Bukhari and Muslim in several wordings: whoever angers her angers him, and whatever hurts her hurts him. In one context it closes the report about Hazrat Ali's proposed second marriage (Chapter 6). In others it stands alone. Later, both traditions cited it in the dispute over Fadak (فدك) and her death (Chapters 13 and 15).

Competing traditions

Alongside the reports naming Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima as the Prophet's ﷺ dearest, other traditions name Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) and Hazrat Aisha. Denise Spellberg argues the latter were circulated later for political reasons (Wikipedia, citing Spellberg). Hazrat Aisha herself, in a report in al-Hakim, is quoted as saying she never saw anyone more truthful than Hazrat Fatima, except her father.

Hazrat Fatima as a narrator

Hazrat Fatima transmitted a small number of hadith, gathered in later collections as a short Musnad Fatima (مسند فاطمة). In Shia tradition her knowledge is far larger. She is said to have kept the Mushaf Fatima (مصحف فاطمة), a book dictated to her by an angel after her father's death to console her, which Shia sources stress is not a Qur'an. She is also linked to the "Tablet" (lawh (اللوح)) that names the Twelve Imams (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Kohlberg).

Further material: more hadith on her virtues

Two readings of "except Mary". The version that excepts Mary has become a point of difference. Many Sunni scholars read it as ranking Mary first and Hazrat Fatima second among the women of Paradise. Shia scholars, and Sunnis such as al-Subki (السبكي) (رحمه الله), read the exception as limited to Mary's own age (Chapter 9).

The references for "lower your gaze". The survey by al-Qazwini (القزويني) (رحمه الله) collects the Sunni sources: al-Mustadrak by al-Hakim, Usd al-ghaba (أسد الغابة) by Ibn al-Athir, Kifayat al-talib (كفاية الطالب) by al-Kanji, and al-Khasa'is al-kubra (الخصائص الكبرى) by al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله). The last adds that she will enter the gathering riding the Prophet's ﷺ camel, escorted by seventy thousand angels (al-Islam.org, al-Qazwini).

Stage 4/8 · Loss, dispute and death· Chapters 11 to 16

Chapter 11: The Prophet's ﷺ final illness and death

The Prophet ﷺ died in Medina in Rabi' al-Awwal (ربيع الأول) 11 AH (June 632). Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) was with him in his last days, and the most intimate scene of their relationship, preserved in al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) and Muslim, comes from this illness.

The two secrets

Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) narrates that Hazrat Fatima came in, walking exactly as her father walked, and he welcomed her and seated her beside him. He whispered something to her and she wept; he whispered again and she laughed. Hazrat Aisha remarked that she had never seen joy so close to grief. Hazrat Fatima refused to reveal what he had said while he lived (Sahih al-Bukhari 3623–3624).

After his death Hazrat Aisha pressed her again, and Hazrat Fatima explained. First he told her that Gabriel, who reviewed the Qur'an with him once a year, had done so twice that year, and that he took this to mean his death was near; so she wept. Then he told her she would be the first of his family to follow him, and asked whether she would not be pleased to be mistress of the women of Paradise, or of the believers; so she laughed (Sahih al-Bukhari 3623; see also Sahih al-Bukhari 4433).

The prophecy was fulfilled: she was indeed the first of his household to die after him, within six months.

"No more distress after today"

Hazrat Anas ibn Malik (أنس بن مالك) reports that as the Prophet's ﷺ pain grew and he lost consciousness, Hazrat Fatima cried out at her father's distress. He answered that her father would have no more distress after that day (Sahih al-Bukhari 4462).

When he died she lamented him in rhymed lines: he had answered the Lord who called him; his home was the Garden of Firdaws (الفردوس); to Gabriel they announced his death. After the burial she turned to Hazrat Anas and asked how they could have brought themselves to pour earth over the Messenger of God ﷺ (Sahih al-Bukhari 4462).

Where and when he died

Sunni sources place his death on Monday, 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, in Hazrat Aisha's room, with his head on her chest. Twelver Shia sources commonly place it on 28 Safar (صفر) and say his head rested on Hazrat Ali (علي). Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Abbas (العباس) and a few others of the family washed and buried him, while the leading companions were at the Saqifa (السقيفة) (Chapter 12).

The house of sorrows

Hazrat Fatima's grief was deep and public (Wikipedia, citing Buehler). Sunni and Shia literature attributes to her several elegies for her father, collected later in a small diwan (ديوان). One famous couplet says that whoever has smelled the soil of Ahmad's ﷺ grave will never need other perfume.

Shia tradition counts her among the five great weepers of history, with Adam, Jacob, Joseph and Ali ibn al-Husayn (علي بن الحسين). It relates that some people of Medina complained of her weeping, and Hazrat Ali built her a shelter near al-Baqi' (البقيع), where she went with her sons to mourn. It became known as Bayt al-Ahzan (بيت الأحزان), "the House of Sorrows", and in popular devotion she is its mistress (Calmard, Iranica). Pilgrims visited the site until the structures of al-Baqi' were demolished (Chapter 16).

She also went, by both traditions, to the martyrs' graves at Uhud (أحد) and to her father's grave, and wept there. Some Shia reports say she was never seen smiling again after his death.

Further material on the Prophet's ﷺ last days

The kiss. The version of the two secrets in al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) adds a detail missing from al-Bukhari's. Hazrat Fatima bent over her father and kissed him, then raised her head weeping; she bent again and raised her head laughing (Jami' al-Tirmidhi 3872).

A secret kept. When Hazrat Aisha first asked what he had told her, Hazrat Fatima refused: "I would not disclose the secret of the Messenger of God ﷺ." She revealed it only after his death (Sahih al-Bukhari 3623–3624). Both traditions cite this as an example of her discretion.

Bringing the grandsons. In the account of al-Mufid (المفيد) (رحمه الله) (Chapter 7), during this same illness she brought Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) to receive their "inheritance" of his qualities.

The washing and burial. According to Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله), the Prophet's ﷺ body was washed by Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Abbas and his sons Hazrat Fadl (الفضل) and Hazrat Qutham (قثم), with Hazrat Usama ibn Zayd (أسامة بن زيد) and the freedman Hazrat Shuqran (شقران) pouring water. He was buried in the room where he died. Hazrat Fatima's reproach to Hazrat Anas, asking how they could bring themselves to pour earth on him, comes from the hours after the burial (Sahih al-Bukhari 4462).

Her elegies. Two lines attributed to her became the most quoted verses of mourning in Arabic:

• "Calamities have been poured on me which, if they were poured on the days, would turn them into nights." Al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) cites it in Siyar a'lam al-nubala' (سير أعلام النبلاء) (II, 134), but its attribution to her is uncertain.
• "What harm comes to one who has smelled the soil of Ahmad's ﷺ grave, that he never smell costly perfume again?" Tradition says she spoke it after taking a handful of earth from his grave and pressing it to her eyes.

After his death. Sunni and Shia reports agree that she was rarely seen in public after this except to visit the graves of her father, of Hazrat Hamza (حمزة) and of the martyrs of Uhud, and that her health declined quickly.

Chapter 12: The succession and the events at her house

In the days after the Prophet's ﷺ death, Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) defended Hazrat Ali's claim to lead the community and opposed the election of Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر). The Iranica article counts this as her second great political act, recorded in almost all Sunni and Shia sources but in very different versions (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). This is the most contested chapter of her life, so each account is given separately.

What the sources broadly agree on

• While the Prophet's ﷺ family prepared his burial, the Ansar (الأنصار) gathered at the Saqifa (السقيفة) (portico) of Banu Sa'ida (بنو ساعدة). Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar (عمر) hurried there, and after a heated session Hazrat Abu Bakr was acclaimed as leader. Most of the Prophet's ﷺ clan and most Meccan emigrants were absent (Wikipedia, citing Madelung and Walker).
• Al-Baladhuri (البلاذري) (رحمه الله) reports that the Banu Hashim (بنو هاشم) and some companions, including Hazrat Abbas (العباس) and Hazrat Zubayr (الزبير), gathered at Hazrat Fatima's house in protest, holding that Hazrat Ali (علي) should lead (Wikipedia, citing Madelung).
• Hazrat Umar went to the house to obtain Hazrat Ali's pledge to Hazrat Abu Bakr.
• Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) and Muslim record that Hazrat Ali did not pledge allegiance to Hazrat Abu Bakr until after Hazrat Fatima's death, about six months later (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240–4241).

What the early histories report

Al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله) (d. 923) relates that Hazrat Umar came with armed men and threatened to set the house on fire unless those inside came out to pledge. Hazrat Zubayr came out with his sword drawn, stumbled, and was disarmed and led away (Wikipedia, citing Madelung).

The al-Imama wa al-siyasa (الإمامة والسياسة), attributed to the Sunni Ibn Qutayba (ابن قتيبة) (رحمه الله), says Hazrat Fatima stood at the door and reproached them, and the men withdrew at first. The same work goes on to describe Hazrat Ali being brought out by force. The Sunni al-Jawhari (الجوهري) (رحمه الله) (d. 935), in his al-Saqifa wa Fadak (السقيفة وفدك), has Hazrat Umar and his men threaten to burn the house and then enter it despite Hazrat Fatima's pleas. Al-Baladhuri, by contrast, has Hazrat Ali pledge immediately after the threat (Wikipedia, citing Soufi).

Al-Tabari and al-Mas'udi (المسعودي) (رحمه الله) also record that Hazrat Abu Bakr on his deathbed regretted opening Hazrat Fatima's house, even though its people had closed it against him in defiance (Wikipedia, citing Soufi). Hazrat Mu'awiya (معاوية) later alluded to Hazrat Ali's forced arrest in a letter before the Battle of Siffin (صفين) (Wikipedia, citing Hazleton).

The Shia account

Shia sources hold that Hazrat Umar and his men forced the door of the house. Hazrat Fatima, standing behind it, was crushed between the door and the wall and struck. She was pregnant, and she miscarried the son the Prophet ﷺ had named Hazrat Muhsin (محسن). Her injuries, on this account, led directly to her illness and death.

The allegations appear in several Shia works: the canonical al-Kafi (الكافي) of al-Kulayni (الكليني) (رحمه الله), Kamil al-ziyarat (كامل الزيارات) of Ibn Qulawayh (ابن قولويه) (رحمه الله), Dala'il al-imama (دلائل الإمامة) attributed to Ibn Rustam al-Tabari (ابن رستم الطبري) (رحمه الله), and the early Kitab Sulaym ibn Qays (كتاب سليم بن قيس). Al-Ya'qubi (اليعقوبي) (رحمه الله) mentions the raid but not the miscarriage (Wikipedia, citing Soufi), and al-Mufid's Kitab al-Irshad (كتاب الإرشاد) is silent on violence, though al-Mufid (المفيد) (رحمه الله) reports it in other works. In Shia devotion these events stand at the head of the sufferings of the Prophet's ﷺ family, commemorated in the annual days of Fatimiyya (الفاطمية) mourning.

The Sunni account

Sunni scholarship categorically rejects the assault and the miscarriage. It holds that Hazrat Muhsin was born and died in infancy of natural causes, and that Hazrat Fatima died of grief and illness after losing her father (Wikipedia, citing Buehler and Glassé).

Sunni scholars also point to what followed. Hazrat Ali continued to advise Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar, gave them his daughter Hazrat Umm Kulthum (أم كلثوم) in marriage (to Hazrat Umar), and named sons Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman (عثمان). They argue he would not have done so had Hazrat Umar attacked his wife. They further question the chains of the reports in al-Tabari and al-Baladhuri. The Shia reply is that Hazrat Ali restrained himself for the sake of a young and threatened Islam, and many Shia scholars dispute the Hazrat Umm Kulthum marriage.

What modern historians say

• Madelung is unsure whether force was used, but notes Sunni evidence that the house was searched, and that Hazrat Ali later said he would have resisted had forty men stood with him (Wikipedia, citing Madelung).
• Veccia Vaglieri judged the Shia accusations to rest on facts, even if exaggerated (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri).
• Buehler urges caution, since accounts of violence reflect the political agendas of later times.
• Soufi notes that all but one of the traditions in al-Tabari and al-Baladhuri lack chains reaching back to the events. Soufi and Lucas both observe a Sunni tendency to soften conflicts among the companions, while such conflicts may have been heightened in Shia records (Wikipedia, citing Soufi and Lucas).
• Hazleton writes that in these months Hazrat Ali stood nearly alone, with only Hazrat Fatima and their small children beside him, echoing a statement attributed to Hazrat Ali in Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة) (Wikipedia, citing Hazleton).

Further material on the succession crisis

Who held back from the pledge. The historian al-Ya'qubi gives the fullest list of those who did not at first pledge to Hazrat Abu Bakr. Besides Hazrat Ali and the Banu Hashim, it includes Hazrat Abbas and his son Hazrat Fadl (الفضل), Hazrat Zubayr, Hazrat Khalid ibn Sa'id (خالد بن سعيد), Hazrat Miqdad (المقداد), Hazrat Salman al-Farsi (سلمان الفارسي), Hazrat Abu Dharr (أبو ذر), Hazrat Ammar ibn Yasir (عمار بن ياسر), Hazrat Bara' ibn Azib (البراء بن عازب) and Hazrat Ubayy ibn Ka'b (أبي بن كعب). Shia tradition treats this circle as the core of Hazrat Ali's early supporters, and several of them appear again at Hazrat Fatima's burial.

The accounts compared.

Sources for this table: Wikipedia, "Attack on Fatima's house", which draws on Soufi, Madelung and Ayoub (أيوب) (رحمه الله), and on the primary texts named.

When did Hazrat Ali pledge? Al-Bukhari and Muslim say Hazrat Ali pledged after Hazrat Fatima's death, about six months later. Other Sunni reports, such as one from Hazrat Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (أبو سعيد الخدري) in al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله), say he pledged on the day after the Saqifa. Ibn Kathir (ابن كثير) (رحمه الله) reconciled the two by proposing that Hazrat Ali pledged early and renewed his pledge publicly after Hazrat Fatima died. Shia historians generally hold that any pledge was given under pressure, after her death.

How each tradition remembers it. For the Shia, the events at the house are the first wrong done to the Prophet's ﷺ family after his death. They are recalled each year in the Fatimiyya mourning and in the visitation prayer that calls her "the wronged one" (al-mazluma (المظلومة)). For most Sunnis, the episode was a painful disagreement among companions who later reconciled. They consider reports of violence either unreliable or exaggerated by later partisans, and point to Hazrat Ali's later cooperation with Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar.

Chapter 13: Fadak and the inheritance dispute

After her father's death Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) claimed Fadak (فدك) and her share of his estate, and Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) refused both. This is her third politically significant act in the sources (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica), and the one best documented in the Sunni canon itself.

What Fadak was

Fadak was an agricultural village about two days' journey north of Medina. In 7 AH its Jewish inhabitants surrendered half their land to the Prophet ﷺ without fighting, which made it fay' (فيء), property belonging to him personally under Qur'an 59:6. Its revenue supported travellers in need, the poor, military expeditions and the Prophet's ﷺ family, who were barred from receiving general alms (Wikipedia, citing Sajjadi and Madelung).

First claim: a gift from her father

The Shia view is that the Prophet ﷺ gave Fadak to Hazrat Fatima during his lifetime when verse 17:26 was revealed, "give the near of kin their due" (وَآتِ ذَا الْقُرْبَىٰ حَقَّهُ), and that her agents managed it. Among Sunnis, al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) and al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) report this view, while al-Jurjani (الجرجاني) (رحمه الله) and Ibn Kathir (ابن كثير) (رحمه الله) doubt the verse was revealed in Medina (Wikipedia, citing Sajjadi).

Al-Baladhuri (البلاذري) (رحمه الله) relates that Hazrat Fatima told Hazrat Abu Bakr Fadak was her father's gift. Hazrat Ali (علي) and Hazrat Umm Ayman (أم أيمن) testified for her, and some accounts add Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn (الحسين). Hazrat Abu Bakr judged the testimony insufficient under the rule requiring two men, or a man and two women. Shia writers answer that her possession of the land put the burden of proof on the caliph, and that a woman the Qur'an calls purified would not claim what was not hers (Wikipedia, citing Sajjadi and Soufi).

The Sunni Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (سبط ابن الجوزي) (رحمه الله) and the Shia al-Tabrisi (الطبرسي) (رحمه الله) relate that Hazrat Abu Bakr at one point wrote a deed returning Fadak, but Hazrat Umar (عمر) took it and tore it up. Versions are collected by the Mu'tazilite (معتزلي) Ibn Abi'l-Hadid (ابن أبي الحديد) (رحمه الله) (Wikipedia, citing Soufi and Sajjadi).

Second claim: inheritance

Hazrat Fatima then asked for her inheritance: Fadak, the Prophet's ﷺ properties in Medina, and what remained of his fifth of Khaybar (خيبر). Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) records Hazrat Abu Bakr's answer in Hazrat Aisha's narration. He cited the Prophet's ﷺ words that the prophets leave no inheritance and what they leave is charity, from which the family may eat. He swore to administer it exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240). Another report in al-Bukhari has Hazrat Fatima and Hazrat Abbas (العباس) come together to make the claim.

The same hadith in al-Bukhari says Hazrat Fatima was angry with Hazrat Abu Bakr and did not speak to him again until she died. Later Sunni reports, from al-Sha'bi (الشعبي) (رحمه الله) in Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله) and al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله), describe Hazrat Abu Bakr visiting her in her illness and speaking to her until she was reconciled (Chapter 15).

How the two traditions weigh the hadith

• Sunni. The hadith is authentic, narrated by Hazrat Abu Bakr and confirmed by Hazrat Umar, Hazrat Aisha (عائشة), Malik ibn Aws (مالك بن أوس) and others. Hazrat Abu Bakr acted in obedience to the Prophet ﷺ, not against Hazrat Fatima, and he kept the family's allowance from the estate. Soufi notes that for Sunnis his testimony is strong enough to make an exception to the Qur'an's inheritance rules (Wikipedia, citing Soufi).
• Shia. Twelvers reject the hadith on the basis of their own traditions. They argue it contradicts verses in which prophets leave heirs: Solomon inheriting from David (27:16) and Zechariah asking for a son to inherit from him (19:6). They point out that the Prophet's ﷺ widows kept their houses, and that Hazrat Abu Bakr gave Hazrat Aisha property in al-Aliya (العالية) and Bahrain (Wikipedia, citing Madelung and Aslan).

What modern historians say

Madelung argues that Hazrat Abu Bakr's caliphate could not coexist with the family's special status. Recognising them as heirs of the Prophet's ﷺ property might imply they also inherited his authority (Wikipedia, citing Madelung). Aslan (أصلان) reads the decision as a political move to weaken the Prophet's ﷺ clan and Hazrat Ali's claim. Tayeb El-Hibri (طيب الحبري) declines to treat Fadak as a mere financial dispute, and Mahmoud Ayoub (محمود أيوب) (رحمه الله) and D.S. Margoliouth voice similar views (Wikipedia, citing Aslan, El-Hibri, Ayoub and Soufi).

Fadak after Hazrat Fatima

Fadak's later history mirrors the politics of the caliphate. Under Hazrat Umar, the Prophet's ﷺ Medina properties were handed to Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Abbas to administer, and they later quarrelled over them before him. The Umayyad (أموي) Marwan ibn al-Hakam (مروان بن الحكم) took Fadak for himself; the pious Umayyad caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (عمر بن عبد العزيز) returned it to Hazrat Fatima's descendants; and the Abbasid (عباسي) al-Ma'mun (المأمون) restored it again in 210 AH / 825–826 after it had been taken back. Veccia Vaglieri's Encyclopaedia of Islam article "Fadak" traces these changes.

Further material on Fadak

The place. Fadak was an oasis about 140 km (90 miles) north of Medina, two to three days' journey away, identified with the area of modern al-Ha'it (الحائط) in Saudi Arabia. It produced dates and cereals, and its people also made handicrafts such as blankets and palm-leaf work (Wikipedia, "Fadak").

Three possible grounds for the claim. The sources show Hazrat Fatima's claim framed in three ways, each with its own legal logic:

1. A gift (nihla (نحلة)) made in the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime, under verse 17:26. Possession by her agents would then put the burden of proof on the caliph.
2. Inheritance (mirath (ميراث)) under the Qur'an's rules, which the hadith "we prophets leave no inheritance" was cited to set aside.
3. The share of the Prophet's ﷺ kin (dhawu al-qurba (ذوو القربى)) in booty and fay' under verses 8:41 and 59:7. Madelung notes that Hazrat Abu Bakr's decision also cut off this share.

Hazrat Ali on Fadak. In a letter to his governor of Basra (البصرة), Hazrat Uthman ibn Hunayf (عثمان بن حنيف), preserved in Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة), Hazrat Ali wrote that of everything beneath the sky, his family had held Fadak, but some people coveted it and others let it go, "and the best judge is God" (Wikipedia, "Fadak"). As caliph he did not reverse the decision.

Fadak through the centuries

The land kept changing hands under later Abbasid caliphs. Its history tracked each ruler's attitude to the Prophet's ﷺ family: rulers who wanted Alid (علوي) goodwill returned it, and those who feared the Alids took it back (Wikipedia, "Fadak").

Chapter 14: The Sermon of Fadak

In protest at the loss of Fadak (فدك), Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) is said to have delivered a public speech in the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque, known as the Sermon of Fadak (al-Khutba al-Fadakiyya (الخطبة الفدكية)). Shia tradition treats it as one of the great texts of early Islam; Sunnis generally reject its attribution to her (Wikipedia, "Sermon of Fadak").

The setting

The tradition says that when Hazrat Fatima heard of Hazrat Abu Bakr's decision, she put on her outer garments and came to the mosque surrounded by women of her family, her gait like her father's. A curtain was hung between her and the men. She let out a sigh that moved the gathering to tears, waited for the weeping to settle, and began.

The sources

Soufi observes that the main difference between the versions lies in Hazrat Abu Bakr's reply (Wikipedia, citing Soufi).

The shape of the sermon

1. Praise and theology. She opens with praise of God and her father, then explains the purposes of Islam's teachings: faith purifies from idolatry, prayer from pride, alms purify the soul and increase provision, fasting strengthens sincerity, justice binds hearts, and obedience to the Prophet's ﷺ family brings order. Twelver literature quotes this part widely as religious teaching.
2. The Prophet's ﷺ mission. She reminds her hearers of their state before Islam, weak and despised, and of how her father and Hazrat Ali (علي) rescued them. She criticises them for sliding back toward pre-Islamic ways after his death.
3. The succession. She rejects the Saqifa (السقيفة). They acted, she says, out of fear of discord, and fell into discord all the same (Wikipedia, citing Soufi).
4. The inheritance. She addresses Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) directly and asks where the Book of God allows him to inherit from his father while she may not inherit from hers. She cites Solomon inheriting from David (27:16), Zechariah's prayer for an heir (19:6), the priority of blood relatives (8:75, 33:6) and the duty of bequest to kin (2:180). She closes with a Qur'anic warning that wrongdoers will learn what end awaits them (26:227).
5. The Ansar. She turns to the Medinan helpers, reminds them of their strength and past loyalty, and asks why they are silent while she is wronged. She quotes 3:144: if the Prophet ﷺ dies or is killed, will they turn on their heels? (أَفَإِن مَّاتَ أَوْ قُتِلَ انقَلَبْتُمْ عَلَىٰ أَعْقَابِكُمْ)

The reply and aftermath

In the accounts, Hazrat Abu Bakr answers with respect for her and for her father, but repeats that prophets leave no inheritance and offers to support her from his own wealth. She replies that the Prophet ﷺ never contradicted the Book of God. She then goes to her father's grave and laments that, had he witnessed these events, he would have had no words (Wikipedia, "Sermon of Fadak").

A second speech: to the women of Medina

A shorter speech, also in Balaghat al-nisa' and in Shia collections, is placed in her last illness. When the women of the Muhajirun (المهاجرون) and Ansar (الأنصار) visited to ask how she was, she answered with a bitter reproach of their menfolk for abandoning Hazrat Ali, whom she described as the ablest to lead them on a straight path. She predicted that the community would reap the consequences of its choice.

Authenticity

Shia scholars accept both speeches, citing their early attestation and their Qur'anic density. Sunni scholars generally regard them as later Shia compositions, pointing to the chains and to the style, which they see as too polished for an improvised speech. Soufi's study treats the sermon mainly as evidence of how Hazrat Fatima's image was shaped in the third and fourth Islamic centuries.

Further material from the Sermon of Fadak

What follows is a paraphrase of key passages, following the long version preserved in Balaghat al-nisa' and al-Ihtijaj. It is not a translation.

Her self-introduction. "O people, know that I am Fatima, and my father is Muhammad ﷺ." She reminds her hearers that her father came to them as a messenger from among themselves, grieved by their suffering and full of mercy toward the believers, echoing Qur'an 9:128 (عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُّمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُم بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَءُوفٌ رَّحِيمٌ).

The purposes of the law. This is the most quoted passage. God, she says, made:

• faith a purification from idolatry, and prayer a release from pride
• alms a cleansing of the soul and an increase in provision, and fasting a confirmation of sincerity
• pilgrimage a strengthening of religion, and justice a harmony of hearts
• obedience to the Prophet's ﷺ family an order for the community, and their leadership a safeguard against division
• striving in God's path an honour for Islam, and patience a help toward reward
• kindness to parents a shield against God's wrath, and keeping ties of kinship a cause of growth in number
• retaliation a preservation of life, honest weights a guard against fraud, and the ban on wine a cleansing from filth

Before and after Islam. She describes the Arabs before her father's mission as a people "on the brink of a pit of fire" (عَلَىٰ شَفَا حُفْرَةٍ مِّنَ النَّارِ) (Qur'an 3:103). They drank foul water, ate coarse food, and lived small and despised, fearing that others would snatch them away, until God rescued them through Muhammad ﷺ‎ (محمد).

To the Ansar. She addresses the Medinan helpers as "sons of Qayla", the ancestress of the Aws (الأوس) and Khazraj (الخزرج). She asks why they are silent while her inheritance is taken, though they have numbers, weapons and strength.

The closing. Of Fadak she says, in effect, "Take it, then, bridled and saddled. It will meet you on the Day of Resurrection, and God is the best of judges." She closes by invoking Qur'an 26:227: "Those who do wrong will come to know by what overturning they will be overturned" (وَسَيَعْلَمُ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا أَيَّ مُنقَلَبٍ يَنقَلِبُونَ).

Reception. The Mu'tazili (معتزلي) commentator Ibn Abi'l-Hadid (d. 1258), a Sunni by school, discussed the dispute at length in his commentary on Nahj al-balagha. He records asking one of his teachers in Baghdad whether Hazrat Fatima had been truthful in her claim. The teacher said yes; asked why Hazrat Abu Bakr had not then given her Fadak, he answered that if Hazrat Abu Bakr had given it on her word alone, she would have come the next day claiming the caliphate for her husband. In Shia seminaries today the sermon is taught as a text in its own right, with published commentaries running to several volumes. Ali Shariati (علي شريعتي) (رحمه الله) quoted it as the voice of a woman confronting injustice.

Chapter 15: Final illness, death and burial

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) died in Medina in 11 AH (632 CE), within six months of her father, as he had foretold. Hazrat Ali (علي) buried her at night, and the place of her grave was hidden (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240; Wikipedia, citing Buehler). Almost every other detail is disputed.

How long she survived him

Her age at death follows from the two birth dates in Chapter 2: about 18 by the Shia reckoning, about 27–29 by the Sunni. Shia communities mark the 75-day and 95-day dates as the two Fatimiyya (الفاطمية) seasons of mourning (Wikipedia, "Twelver Shia holy days").

The cause of death

The Sunni view is that she died of illness and of grief for her father (Wikipedia, citing Veccia Vaglieri and Fedele). The Shia view is that the injuries and miscarriage she suffered at her house (Chapter 12) caused her illness and death, which is why Shia call her death a martyrdom (shahada (شهادة)). The Isma'ili (إسماعيلي) jurist al-Qadi al-Nu'man (القاضي النعمان) (رحمه الله) reports from the fifth Imam that what the people had done to her left her bedridden and wasting away. Mahmoud Ayoub (محمود أيوب) (رحمه الله) describes her as the great symbol of quiet suffering in Islamic piety (Wikipedia, citing Ayoub).

Visitors in her illness: the two versions

The Sunni reports of reconciliation. Al-Sha'bi (الشعبي) (رحمه الله), in a report in Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat (طبقات) and al-Bayhaqi's Sunan (السنن), says Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) came when she was ill and asked to see her. Hazrat Ali asked her whether she would admit him; she asked whether Hazrat Ali wished it, and when he said yes, she allowed it. Hazrat Abu Bakr told her he had given up home, wealth and family only to seek the pleasure of God, His Messenger ﷺ and the Prophet's ﷺ household, and he spoke with her until she was content with him. Al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله) judged its chain good.

The report of her anger. Al-Bukhari's hadith, from Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) via al-Zuhri (الزهري) (رحمه الله), says she stayed away from Hazrat Abu Bakr and did not speak to him until she died (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240). Al-Imama wa al-siyasa (الإمامة والسياسة), attributed to Ibn Qutayba (ابن قتيبة) (رحمه الله), describes Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar (عمر) visiting her together. She made them confirm that they had heard the Prophet ﷺ say that whoever angered her angered him, then told them they had angered her and she would complain of them to God and His Prophet ﷺ (Wikipedia, "Al-Imama wa al-siyasa").

Madelung considers the visits themselves self-incriminating, and suggests the reconciliation reports were created to soften the implications of her anger (Wikipedia, citing Madelung). Sunni scholars answer that al-Bukhari's wording reflects al-Zuhri's summary, and that the reconciliation reports have independent chains.

The covered bier

Hazrat Asma bint Umays (أسماء بنت عميس), who had lived in Abyssinia and was then married to Hazrat Abu Bakr, nursed Hazrat Fatima. Sunni sources, among them al-Isti'ab (الاستيعاب) by Ibn Abd al-Barr (ابن عبد البر) (رحمه الله), record that Hazrat Fatima was troubled that a woman's body on an open bier showed its shape. Hazrat Asma bent green palm branches over a bier and covered them with cloth, as she had seen in Abyssinia. Hazrat Fatima was pleased, and some reports say it was the first time she smiled after her father's death.

Her last day

A report in the Musnad (المسند) of Ahmad (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله) relates that on her last day she washed herself, put on fresh clothes, lay down facing the qibla with her hand under her cheek, and said she was about to die and no one should uncover her. Shia sources tell a close parallel, adding that she asked Hazrat Asma to call her name after a while, and that Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) came home to find their mother gone.

Her will and the night burial

She asked that Hazrat Ali wash her himself, with Hazrat Asma's help, and that she be buried at night. Al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله) records that her wish was that Hazrat Abu Bakr not attend the funeral; Shia sources extend this to all who had wronged her (Wikipedia, citing al-Tabari's report and Aslan). Al-Bukhari confirms that Hazrat Ali buried her at night without informing Hazrat Abu Bakr and prayed over her himself (Sahih al-Bukhari 4240).

Other Sunni reports, in Ibn Sa'd, say Hazrat Abbas (العباس) led the prayer, or even Hazrat Abu Bakr. Al-Mufid (المفيد) (رحمه الله) names those present as Hazrat Hasan, Hazrat Husayn, Hazrat Ammar ibn Yasir (عمار بن ياسر), Hazrat Miqdad (المقداد), Hazrat Aqil (عقيل), Hazrat Zubayr (الزبير), Hazrat Abu Dharr (أبو ذر), Hazrat Salman (سلمان) and Hazrat Burayda (بريدة), with a few men of Banu Hashim (بنو هاشم) (shiastudies.com, quoting al-Mufid).

Hazrat Ali at her grave

Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة) preserves the words Hazrat Ali is said to have spoken at the grave, turning toward the Prophet's ﷺ tomb. He sends greetings from himself and from the Prophet's ﷺ daughter who has come to join him so soon, speaks of his patience worn thin, and asks the Prophet ﷺ to question her about what the community did. He says his grief will be lasting and his nights sleepless.

The next morning

In the Shia account from Ja'far al-Sadiq, preserved by al-Mufid, Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar reproached Hazrat Ali the next day for the secret burial. Hazrat Umar threatened to find and exhume her body to pray over it; Hazrat Ali warned that he would not reach her while Hazrat Ali lived and held his sword. Shia sources also say Hazrat Ali made several fresh-looking graves, seven or forty, in al-Baqi' (البقيع) to hide which was hers (Wikipedia, citing al-Mufid's report).

Further material on her last months, will and burial

The three reported dates of her death span more than three months. The Shia dates count from 28 Safar (صفر) and the Sunni date from 12 Rabi' I (ربيع الأول), so the gap between the traditions is slightly wider than the drawing shows.

Her will. Both traditions record some of her last requests to Hazrat Ali:

• Burial at night, and privately. This is in al-Bukhari; the Shia add that none who had wronged her should pray over her.
• That Hazrat Ali marry Hazrat Umama. Hazrat Umama (أمامة) was the daughter of her sister Hazrat Zaynab (زينب). Hazrat Ali did marry her after Hazrat Fatima's death; Sunni and Shia sources both record the marriage.
• A covered bier. The bier was to be covered as Hazrat Asma bint Umays had shown her, so that no one could see the shape of her body.
• Washing by Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Asma alone. Some Sunni reports have her wash herself before death and ask not to be uncovered. Later scholars noted the tension between these accounts.

Hazrat Asma's position. Hazrat Asma bint Umays, who nursed Hazrat Fatima and helped wash her, was at that time the wife of Hazrat Abu Bakr. Sunni writers often point to this as evidence that relations between the two households were not wholly broken.

Hazrat Ali's grief. Besides his words at the grave in Nahj al-balagha (Chapter 15), a couplet attributed to Hazrat Ali in his collected poetry is often quoted:

For every meeting of two friends there is a parting, and all that comes before death is little. My losing Fatima after Ahmad ﷺ is proof that no friend endures.

Grief in her household. Her sons were about seven and eight years old, and her daughters younger still. Shia accounts dwell on the children falling on their mother's body, and on the women of the Banu Hashim gathering at the house before nightfall.

Chapter 16: The grave

Hazrat Fatima's burial place in Medina is unknown, and reports about it contradict each other. Today three sites in Medina are visited as her grave (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

Why it was hidden

Both Sunni and Shia sources agree that she asked to be buried at night and that the burial was kept from Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر). Shia authors read the concealed grave as her final statement of protest: that the Prophet's ﷺ only daughter left the world displeased with the community that had failed her (Wikipedia, citing Soufi). Sunni authors more often explain it by her modesty and her wish that no man see even the outline of her body.

Al-Baqi' in later centuries

A domed shrine stood in al-Baqi' over the graves of Hazrat Hasan, Ali ibn al-Husayn (علي بن الحسين), Muhammad al-Baqir (محمد الباقر), Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق) and Hazrat Abbas (العباس), and was visited as Hazrat Fatima's resting place as well. It was demolished, with most of the cemetery's structures, by Wahhabi (وهابي) forces in 1806 and again in 1926 (Wikipedia). The destruction of 8 Shawwal (شوال) 1344 AH (21 April 1926) is commemorated by many Shia each year as Yawm al-Hadm (يوم الهدم), the Day of Demolition.

Pilgrims today pray for her at al-Baqi', at the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque near the site of her house, and in the Rawda. Because no grave can be confirmed, Shia devotional tradition often says that her hidden grave will be revealed only at the end of time.

Further material on the grave

A note on dates. The second demolition at al-Baqi' is sometimes dated 1925, but the date usually commemorated, 8 Shawwal 1344 AH, falls on 21 April 1926 (Wikipedia, "Al-Baqi Cemetery"). The historian al-Samhudi died in 911 AH, which is 1506 CE, not 1533 as is sometimes given.

Al-Baqi' before the demolitions. Al-Baqi' became Medina's cemetery soon after the Hijra (الهجرة). Hazrat Uthman ibn Maz'un (عثمان بن مظعون) was the first emigrant buried there, and the Prophet's ﷺ infant son Hazrat Ibrahim (إبراهيم) was laid beside him. Over the centuries domes rose over many graves. One large mausoleum sheltered Hazrat Abbas and the Imams Hazrat Hasan, Ali Zayn al-Abidin, Muhammad al-Baqir and Ja'far al-Sadiq, and was visited as the probable resting place of Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) as well. The structures were destroyed in 1806, rebuilt under Ottoman rule, and destroyed again in 1926, when "even the simplest gravestones" were removed (Wikipedia).

The house inside the mosque. When the Umayyad caliph al-Walid rebuilt the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque in 707–709, the rooms of the Prophet's ﷺ wives and the house of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima were taken into it. Today visitors are shown an area on the north side of the Prophet's ﷺ chamber, inside its enclosure, as the site of her house. Those who hold that she was buried at home place her grave there.

Al-Samhudi's investigation. In Wafa' al-wafa' (وفاء الوفا), his great history of Medina, al-Samhudi weighed the reports for al-Baqi', the house and the Rawda. He concluded that the grave in al-Baqi' beside Hazrat Hasan belonged to Hazrat Fatima bint Asad, Hazrat Ali's mother, rather than to Hazrat Fatima the Prophet's ﷺ daughter.

Visitation today. Shia pilgrims recite her visitation prayer at al-Baqi' (now open to visitors only at set hours), at the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque, and on 3 Jumada II (جمادى الآخرة) wherever they are. Sunni visitors greet her at al-Baqi' in the general greeting to the people of the graves. Because no one knows the spot, the Shia devotional tradition holds that her hidden grave is itself her last testimony.

Stage 5/8 · Memory and meaning· Chapters 17 to 20

Chapter 17: Hazrat Fatima in Shia theology and hagiography

In Twelver Shi'ism Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) is a figure of cosmic significance: one of the Fourteen Infallibles (al-ma'sumun (المعصومون)), with ontological, spiritual and end-time privileges of the same order as the Prophet's ﷺ and the Imams' (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). Amir-Moezzi (أمير معزي) notes that early reports about her, and sayings attributed to her, are fewer than for the other thirteen.

Infallibility

Shia theology holds that Hazrat Fatima was protected from sin and error ('isma (عصمة)). The main textual grounds are the verse of Purification (آية التطهير) (33:33), read as applying to the five people of the cloak alone, and the hadith that God is angered by her anger. Her words and acts are therefore a source of religious guidance, which is why the theological opening of the Sermon of Fadak (فدك) is quoted as doctrine.

Light before creation

In Shia hagiography her luminous essence was created from the divine light thousands of years before the world, and praised God while circling the divine throne. Her name, like those of the others of the cloak, derives from a divine name, al-Fatir (الفاطر). Her light was among the lights placed in Adam's loins, which is why the angels bowed to him, and her name was among those God taught Adam (Qur'an 2:31) (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Ibn Babawayh, al-Khazzaz and Furat).

This is the root of her title al-Zahra' (الزهراء), "the radiant", and of Majma' al-Nurayn (مجمع النورين), "the meeting-place of the two lights": the outward light of prophecy and the inward light of the imamate. The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have called her a heavenly being in human form (hawra' insiyya (حوراء إنسية)) who carried the scent of Paradise.

Knowledge and hidden books

Shia sources describe her as bearer of initiatory knowledge ('ilm (علم)). She is the guardian of two secret books of the Imams, the Kitab Fatima (كتاب فاطمة) and the Mushaf Fatima, which may be one work, and of two secret tablets of white pearl and emerald (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Kohlberg). Reports from Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق) in al-Kafi (الكافي) describe the Mushaf (مصحف) as three times the length of the Qur'an but containing none of its text; they say it held knowledge of future events, dictated by an angel to console her after her father's death.

The one spoken to by angels

The title al-Muhadditha (المحدَّثة) reflects reports that angels spoke with her, as they spoke with Mary (Wikipedia, citing Aslan, Ayoub and Pierce). Shia theology distinguishes this from prophetic revelation: angels spoke to her, but she brought no new law.

Miracles

The hagiography attributes many wonders to her. Among them: the hand-mill turning by itself while she prayed or rocked her children; food sent down from heaven to her house in a time of hunger; and a cloth given to her by her father that brought blessing to what it covered (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica, citing Ibn Shahrashub, al-Bursi and al-Majlisi).

The Day of Judgment

Veccia Vaglieri gathered the eschatological themes: her glorious resurrection; her complaint to God about the wrongs done to her family and followers; and her intercession for the Shia (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica). She is said to enter the gathering on a mount of light, while a voice calls on all to lower their eyes until she has passed.

Redemptive suffering

Twelver piety holds that the pain and martyrdom borne by the Prophet's ﷺ family carry a redemptive power for those who share their grief. Hazrat Fatima is central to this: she is the first martyr of the household, and in mourning literature she is the mother who grieves for Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) at Karbala (كربلاء) (Wikipedia, citing Campo and Ayoub).

Esoteric readings and their limits

Early Imami (إمامي) exegetes found allusions to her throughout the Qur'an, sometimes boldly: some identify her with the Night of Power (laylat al-qadr (ليلة القدر)). Early Imami writings even say her name stood in the "complete" Qur'an at 20:115. Groups labelled extremist (ghulat (غلاة)) went further, identifying her with the cave of the Seven Sleepers or the rock that gave water to Moses, which Veccia Vaglieri called deviant. Amir-Moezzi warns that the line between early esoteric Imamism and "extremism" must be drawn with care (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

In Isma'ili thought

The Isma'ili (إسماعيلي) Fatimid (فاطمي) dynasty (909–1171) named itself after her. Its jurist al-Qadi al-Nu'man (القاضي النعمان) (رحمه الله) (d. 974) collected reports of her virtues, and Isma'ili cosmology gave her a place in its hierarchy of spiritual principles, while the Nusayris (النصيرية) of Syria developed their own esoteric doctrine of Hazrat Fatima, which Massignon studied (Calmard, Iranica).

Further material on Shia theology

The visitation prayer (ziyara (زيارة)). The best-known Shia prayer addressed to her opens: "O you who were tested: God who created you tested you before He created you, and found you patient in what He tested you with." It goes on to greet her by her titles, as daughter of the Messenger ﷺ, mistress of the women of the worlds and "the truthful martyr". It is found in the classical devotional manuals and in Mafatih al-jinan (مفاتيح الجنان) by Abbas Qummi (عباس القمي) (رحمه الله), and is recited especially on 3 Jumada II (جمادى الآخرة) and on Sundays (al-Islam.org, al-Qurashi). The opening word, al-mumtahana (الممتحنة) ("the one tested"), gives the prayer its common name.

The Book of Hazrat Fatima (Mushaf Fatima). Reports from Ja'far al-Sadiq, preserved in al-Kafi and in Basa'ir al-darajat (بصائر الدرجات) by al-Saffar (الصفار) (رحمه الله), describe it as follows (Wikipedia, "Book of Fatimah"):

• Origin. After the Prophet's ﷺ death Gabriel came to console her, speaking of her father's place and of what would befall her descendants, and Hazrat Ali (علي) wrote down what she heard.
• Content. It contains "no law", only knowledge of future events.
• Relation to the Qur'an. Though described as three times the length of the Qur'an, it contains "not one letter" of it. Shia scholars insist it is not a rival scripture.
• Custody. It passed down the line of the Imams and is held today, in Twelver belief, by the hidden twelfth Imam.

The Tablet (al-Lawh (اللوح)). A separate object is described in a report from Hazrat Jabir ibn Abd Allah al-Ansari (جابر بن عبد الله الأنصاري), transmitted through al-Baqir (الباقر) and al-Sadiq. On a visit to congratulate Hazrat Fatima on Hazrat Husayn's birth, Hazrat Jabir saw her holding a green tablet that named the twelve Imams, ending with the Mahdi. It is preserved in al-Kafi and in Kamal al-din (كمال الدين) by Ibn Babawayh (ابن بابويه) (رحمه الله) (Wikipedia).

The Prayer of Hazrat Fatima. Shia devotional manuals teach a two-cycle prayer in her name. The worshipper recites Sura 97 (al-Qadr (القدر)) a hundred times in the first cycle and Sura 112 (al-Ikhlas (الإخلاص)) a hundred times in the second, followed by her Tasbih (التسبيح).

Intercession. The Day of Judgment reports in Shia sources expand on the Sunni "lower your gaze" tradition (Chapter 10). A narration in 'Awalim al-'ulum (عوالم العلوم) has her arrive holding Hazrat Husayn's bloodstained shirt and plead before God. She is then granted the right to intercede for all who wept for her son and loved her descendants (al-Islam.org, al-Qazwini).

In the Fatimid state. The Isma'ili Fatimid caliphs, who named their dynasty after her, also named Cairo's great mosque al-Azhar (الأزهر) (970–972). Azhar (أزهر) is the masculine form of zahra', and the name is generally understood as a tribute to Hazrat Fatima al-Zahra' (Wikipedia, "Al-Azhar Mosque"). The Fatimid jurist al-Qadi al-Nu'man gathered reports of her virtues in his Sharh al-akhbar (شرح الأخبار).

Chapter 18: Hazrat Fatima in Sunni and Sufi thought

Sunni tradition reveres Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) deeply but differently from the Shia. Sunni authors stress her "orthodox" virtues: her rank as the Prophet's ﷺ daughter, her ascetic life and her exemplary piety, rather than cosmic or esoteric roles (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

Her place in the Sunni canon

The canonical collections place her virtues in their chapters on the merits of the companions, beside those of Hazrat Ali (علي), Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn (الحسين). Al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) and Muslim both record that she is "a part" of the Prophet ﷺ and mistress of the women of Paradise (Chapter 10). Muslim includes the hadith of the Cloak, and al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) the report that the Prophet ﷺ named Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Hasan and Hazrat Husayn as his Ahl al-Bayt (أهل البيت) (Wikipedia, citing Momen).

Every Sunni prayer also honours her implicitly. The blessing on the Prophet ﷺ recited in each prayer asks God to bless "Muhammad ﷺ and the family (al) of Muhammad ﷺ", and her descendants are central to that family.

Who is the best of women?

Sunni scholars have long debated whether Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Khadija (خديجة) or Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) ranks highest among the women of the community. Many, including Taqi al-Din al-Subki (تقي الدين السبكي) (رحمه الله) and Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (جلال الدين السيوطي) (رحمه الله), held Hazrat Fatima the best, citing the hadiths that she is part of the Prophet ﷺ and mistress of the women of Paradise. Others favoured Hazrat Khadija for her precedence in faith, or Hazrat Aisha for her learning. A common resolution is that each excels in a different respect.

Her beauty and her likeness to the Prophet ﷺ

Veccia Vaglieri drew from the silence of her sources the conclusion that Hazrat Fatima was "certainly not a beautiful woman". The Sunni al-Khwarazmi (الخوارزمي) (رحمه الله) records the opposite: a saying of the Prophet ﷺ that if beauty were a person it would be Hazrat Fatima, and more. Al-Hakim al-Nishapuri (الحاكم النيسابوري) (رحمه الله) and al-Khwarazmi liken her face to the full moon, or to the sun emerging from clouds (Wikipedia, citing Soufi and Veccia Vaglieri). All agree she resembled her father in walk, manner and speech.

Love for the Prophet's ﷺ family

The Sunni schools of law hold love for the Ahl al-Bayt as part of faith. The verses of Imam al-Shafi'i (الشافعي) (رحمه الله) are often quoted: that if love for the family of Muhammad ﷺ‎ (محمد) is what people call rafd (رفض) (Shi'ism), then let both worlds bear witness that he is guilty of it. Sunni scholars also affirm that the Prophet's ﷺ descendants through Hazrat Fatima may not receive general alms, a rule all schools still uphold (Wikipedia, citing Madelung).

In Sufism

Sufi tradition treats Hazrat Fatima as a model of renunciation (zuhd (زهد)), patience and night prayer. Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani (أبو نعيم الأصفهاني) (رحمه الله) gives her an entry in his Hilyat al-awliya' (حلية الأولياء), his great collection of the lives of saints. Most Sufi orders trace their spiritual chains through Hazrat Ali, and Sufi poets across the Arabic, Persian and Turkish traditions praise her as the mother of the Prophet's ﷺ line.

Ibn Arabi (ابن عربي) (رحمه الله), discussing the verse of Purification (آية التطهير), treats the Prophet's ﷺ family as purified by divine decree, an idea later Sufis developed into reverence for the sayyids (سادة). The modern Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr (سيد حسين نصر) describes the marriage of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima as the union of the two greatest saintly figures around the Prophet ﷺ (Wikipedia, citing Nasr).

Sunni and Shia images compared

Further material: Sunni works devoted to her and her family

A whole genre of Sunni writing celebrates the virtues of the Prophet's ﷺ kin, with Hazrat Fatima at its centre. The main works, all by Arab or Persian authors:

Most of these titles appear in the bibliography of the biography by al-Qazwini (القزويني) (رحمه الله), which draws widely on Sunni sources (al-Islam.org).

Modern Sunni biographies. In the twentieth century two Egyptian writers gave her full biographies. The essayist Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad (عباس محمود العقاد) (رحمه الله) (1889–1964) wrote Fatima al-Zahra' wa al-Fatimiyyun (فاطمة الزهراء والفاطميون), pairing her life with the dynasty named after her. The literary scholar Aisha Abd al-Rahman (عائشة عبد الرحمن) (رحمه الله), who wrote as Bint al-Shati' (1913–1998), included her in Banat al-Nabi (بنات النبي) ("The Prophet's ﷺ Daughters", 1956), a work notable for reading the sources through a woman's eyes (Wikipedia).

Ibn Taymiyya's position. The Hanbali (حنبلي) theologian Ibn Taymiyya (ابن تيمية) (رحمه الله) (d. 1328), a sharp critic of Shia doctrine, accepted the sound hadith on her merits and called her part of the Prophet ﷺ. He rejected the reports he considered fabricated, including the Surat al-Insan (سورة الإنسان) story and the allegations about her house. His writings remain a main source for the Salafi (سلفي) view of her.

Chapter 19: Devotion, folklore and legacy

Although little is known of Hazrat Fatima's life as history, her place in myth, ritual and devotion is immense across the Islamic world. In popular legend every episode unfavourable to her image has been erased, while her courage over Fadak (فدك) and the wonders of her birth, marriage and motherhood have been enlarged (Calmard, Iranica).

Days of remembrance

In Iran her birthday is Mother's Day, and banners reading Ya Fatima (يا فاطمة) hang on public and private buildings (Wikipedia, citing Buehler and DeBano). Massignon documented further local feasts, including a secondary celebration on 15 Sha'ban (شعبان) (Calmard, Iranica).

Women's rites and offerings

Much of Hazrat Fatima's cult lives among women. In Iran, women's gatherings for reciting the sufferings of the Prophet's ﷺ family often tell the story of "the wedding of Quraysh", in which Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) attends a wedding of the Meccan aristocracy and converts those present by her radiance. Offerings are made in her name: small pots of food on the last Wednesday of Safar (صفر), and samanu (سمنو), a wheat pudding said to have been her favourite dish. Shia women invoke her especially in childbirth (Calmard, Iranica).

Mistress of the House of Sorrows

In Muharram (محرم) rituals Hazrat Fatima is present as the grieving mother of Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), mistress of the House of Sorrows and of the Day of Judgment. Banners linked to her are carried in processions, and the passion plays (ta'ziya (تعزية)) include scenes of the seizure of Fadak, her death and the caliphs' apology. The 17th-century traveller Adam Olearius saw at Ardabil (أردبيل) a banner said to have been made by her daughter (Calmard, Iranica).

The Hand of Hazrat Fatima

The open-hand amulet called the "Hand of Fatima" (khamsa (خمسة)) is widespread in Sunni North Africa and the Middle East as a protection against the evil eye. Among the Shia the open hand (panja (پنجه)) more often stands for the severed hand of al-Abbas ibn Ali (العباس بن علي) at Karbala (كربلاء) (Calmard, Iranica).

Names

Hazrat Fatima remains one of the most popular names for Muslim girls. Her epithets are names in their own right: Zahra (زهراء), Tahira (طاهرة), Zakiya (زكية), Radiya (راضية), Batul (البتول). Annemarie Schimmel notes her name was often given to girls born on the night before Friday (Calmard, Iranica, citing Schimmel).

Modern symbol

In modern times Hazrat Fatima has become a symbol of the woman who stands up against injustice. The Iranian thinker Ali Shariati (علي شريعتي) (رحمه الله), in Fatima is Fatima (1970s), portrayed her as the model of a responsible, fighting woman facing her era and her society (Wikipedia, citing Nashat and Campo). Others have held her up as a model of devotion to God and family, and still others as a figure of liberation for all women.

On screen

The first feature film about her, The Lady of Heaven, set during and after the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime, was produced in 2020 and premiered in the United States in December 2021 (Wikipedia). Its depiction of the early caliphs provoked protests from Sunni Muslims in Britain in 2022, and several cinemas withdrew it.

Further material on devotion

Why two Fatimiyya seasons? Shia communities observe two periods of mourning. The first falls on 13–15 Jumada I and the second on 3–5 Jumada II; some keep ten days in each instead of three. One explanation traces the two dates to a single report that she died "at eighteen years and seventy-five days". In early Arabic script, written without dots, sab'in (سبعين) (seventy) and tis'in (تسعين) (ninety) look almost identical, so the report could be read as 75 or 95 days after her father (Wikipedia, "Fatimiyya"). The observances are held in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, among Shia communities in Europe and Australia, and elsewhere.

What a Fatimiyya gathering looks like. Mourning assemblies (majalis (مجالس)) are held in mosques, husayniyyas (الحسينية) and homes. A preacher recounts her life and death, especially the events at her house and her burial, and poets recite elegies. Black banners are hung, and in some cities processions carry a symbolic coffin. The long Hadith of the Cloak and her visitation prayer are recited.

The Tasbih in practice. Shia hadith give the Tasbih (التسبيح) of Hazrat Fatima special weight. Al-Baqir (الباقر) is reported to have said that God is praised by nothing better, and al-Sadiq (الصادق) that reciting it after every prayer is worth more than a thousand voluntary prayers (Wikipedia, "Tasbih of Fatimah"). Shia tradition also says her first prayer beads were knotted thread. After the death of Hazrat Hamza (حمزة) at Uhud (أحد) she made beads from the clay of his grave, and after Karbala Shia Muslims came to use clay from Hazrat Husayn's grave.

The name in Portugal. The Portuguese town of Fátima, site of the Marian apparitions reported in 1917, carries her name. Local tradition says it recalls a Moorish princess named Fátima, captured by a Christian knight in the twelfth century, who converted and married him. The place kept her Arabic name rather than her baptismal one (Wikipedia). Massignon and others have reflected on the coincidence that Europe's most visited Marian shrine bears the name of the woman Muslims compare with Mary.

Women's Day in Iran. Since the 1980s Iran has marked her birthday, 20 Jumada II, as both Mother's Day and Women's Day, with public celebrations (mowludi (مولودی)) and gifts to mothers.

Chapter 20: Hazrat Fatima in scholarship

Western study of Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) began with a hostile portrait, swung to a mystical one, and settled in a critical middle ground. Veccia Vaglieri's article showed that the historical Hazrat Fatima lies somewhere between the two first pictures, and it remains the best synthesis (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

How the field has changed

Lammens read the sources as a debunker, discounting praise as later invention; Massignon and Corbin read them as mystics, treating Hazrat Fatima as an archetype. From the 1960s, Veccia Vaglieri and those who followed asked a different question: not only what happened, but how and why each tradition shaped her memory (Calmard, Iranica).

Today the main lines of agreement are that the sources for her life are late, sparse and partisan; that her three public acts, over Abu Sufyan (أبو سفيان), the succession and Fadak, are historically secure; and that Sunni and Shia traditions each shaped her image to answer the questions of their own communities. Disagreement remains over the events at her house and the cause of her death.

Further material: recent studies and modern biographies

Christopher Clohessy. The fullest recent study in English is Fâṭima, Daughter of Muhammad ﷺ by Christopher Paul Clohessy, a South African Catholic priest who teaches Shia studies at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome. First published in 2009 (second edition 2019, 373 pages), it follows her from relative marginality in her lifetime to her exalted place in later theology. It reads her Shia images, as virgin mother, heavenly intercessor and grieving mother of Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), alongside Catholic Marian theology (Gorgias Press).

Modern biographies in Arabic and Persian.

The direction of recent work. Western scholarship now asks less whether a report is historical and more how each community built its memory of her, and why. Soufi, Klemm, Thurlkill and Clohessy all follow this approach.

Stage 6/8 · Further studies· Chapters 21 to 25

Chapter 21: Her words

Only a small body of words is attributed to Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة), and it comes down in three streams. The Sunni hadith collections preserve reports she transmitted or took part in. Shia collections preserve sayings, prayers and speeches. Classical literary anthologies preserve her sermons and elegies. The table gathers the best known, with their sources and status. Quoted words are paraphrased unless marked.

A prayer her father taught her

Hazrat Anas ibn Malik (أنس بن مالك) reports that the Prophet ﷺ told Hazrat Fatima to say, morning and evening: "O Living, O Self-Subsisting, by Your mercy I seek help. Set right all my affairs, and do not leave me to myself for the blink of an eye." Al-Nasa'i (النسائي) (رحمه الله) records it in his book of daily devotions, and al-Hakim (الحاكم) (رحمه الله) grades it sound. It is one of the most widely recited supplications in the Muslim world, usually without knowing that it was first given to Hazrat Fatima.

Her supplications in Shia collections

Shia devotional works attribute to her a number of prayers, including a prayer for each day of the week. One asks God "for sincere speech, for fear of You in contentment and in anger, and for moderation in wealth and in poverty". Al-Majlisi (المجلسي) (رحمه الله) records it among her prayers, and al-Nasa'i records almost the same words as a prayer of the Prophet ﷺ. Overlaps like this are common, since she is presented as praying in her father's words.

The teacher of women

Shia sources describe women coming to her with religious questions. In one report a woman returned again and again with questions for her ailing mother, then apologised for the trouble. Hazrat Fatima answered that if someone were hired to carry a heavy load up a hill for a great wage, the work would not weigh on them. She said her reward for each answer was greater than that, citing her father's teaching that scholars receive robes of light on the Day of Judgment in proportion to the knowledge they spread (al-Islam.org, Ordoni).

Chapter 22: The people around her

Hazrat Fatima's life was lived among a small circle of women and men who appear again and again in the sources: at her wedding, in her household, at her deathbed and at her grave.

Hazrat Umm Ayman

Hazrat Umm Ayman was an Abyssinian freedwoman who had cared for the Prophet ﷺ since his infancy, and she was present at almost every turning point of Hazrat Fatima's life. The Prophet ﷺ promised her Paradise and married her to his adopted son Hazrat Zayd (زيد); their son Hazrat Usama later commanded the army the Prophet ﷺ prepared in his last days. Her testimony for Hazrat Fatima over Fadak is recorded by al-Baladhuri (البلاذري) (رحمه الله) and in Shia sources (Chapter 13).

Hazrat Asma bint Umays

Few women of the early community had so wide a set of ties. Hazrat Asma was the widow of Hazrat Ali's brother Hazrat Ja'far, killed at Mu'ta (مؤتة) in 8 AH. She then married Hazrat Abu Bakr, bearing him Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr (محمد بن أبي بكر), and after Hazrat Abu Bakr's death she married Hazrat Ali. She was thus the wife of the caliph whose decisions Hazrat Fatima opposed, and at the same time the woman closest to Hazrat Fatima in her dying days. Some sources also place her at Hazrat Fatima's wedding, though al-Majlisi (المجلسي) (رحمه الله) and others noted that she was then still in Abyssinia (Wikipedia).

Hazrat Fidda

Hazrat Fidda is remembered mainly in Shia tradition. She came into the household in Medina, and Hazrat Fatima divided the housework with her day by day. A well-known story in Shia collections says that for twenty years she spoke only in verses of the Qur'an. Her name appears with the family's in the exegesis of Surat al-Insan (Chapter 9).

Her mother-in-law, Hazrat Fatima bint Asad

Hazrat Fatima bint Asad, the mother of Hazrat Ali, shared Hazrat Fatima's household in Medina from the marriage in 2 AH until her own death in 4 AH. The classical sources record only a few facts about the two women together, and they differ in how firmly each is transmitted.

Who she was. She was Hazrat Fatima bint Asad ibn Hashim, the wife of Hazrat Abu Talib (أبو طالب), and so a Hashimite on both sides. Ibn Abd al-Barr (ابن عبد البر) (رحمه الله) notes that she was the first Hashimite woman to bear a Hashimite son. The Prophet ﷺ grew up in Hazrat Abu Talib's house after the death of his grandfather Hazrat Abd al-Muttalib (عبد المطلب), so she had cared for Hazrat Fatima's father as a boy before she lived with Hazrat Fatima as her daughter-in-law. Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله), the earliest of the great biographers, writes that she "accepted Islam and was a righteous woman, and the Messenger of God ﷺ used to visit her and take his midday rest in her house" (Hadith Transmitters Encyclopedia).

Emigration and death. She emigrated to Medina and died there (Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'ab (الاستيعاب); Ibn al-Athir (ابن الأثير) (رحمه الله), Usd al-ghaba (أسد الغابة)). Ibn al-Jawzi (ابن الجوزي) (رحمه الله) places her death in 4 AH (al-Muntazam, Shamela). She therefore lived to see the birth of her grandson Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) in 3 AH, and perhaps that of Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) in 4 AH.

Sharing the work of the house. The one report that shows the two women together comes from Hazrat Ali. Al-Tabarani (الطبراني) (رحمه الله) records in al-Mu'jam al-kabir (المعجم الكبير) (vol. 24, no. 873) that he said to his mother: "Spare Fatima, the daughter of the Messenger of God ﷺ, the drawing of water and going out on errands, and she will spare you the work inside: the grinding and the kneading" (al-Mu'jam al-kabir, IslamWeb). Its chain runs through Abu Mu'awiya (أبو معاوية) (رحمه الله), al-A'mash (الأعمش) (رحمه الله) and Amr ibn Murra (عمرو بن مرة) (رحمه الله) to Abu al-Bukhtari (أبو البختري) (رحمه الله), all trustworthy narrators. Yahya ibn Ma'in (يحيى بن معين) (رحمه الله), however, said that Abu al-Bukhtari heard nothing from Hazrat Ali (biography of Abu al-Bukhtari), so the chain is broken at its last link. Ibn al-Athir and Ibn al-Jawzi cite the report in their entries on her (Sifat al-safwa, Shamela). It fits what other reports say of Hazrat Fatima's own work at the hand-mill (Chapter 6).

Her burial. Several classical works say that when she died the Prophet ﷺ took off his own shirt and shrouded her in it (Ibn al-Jawzi, Sifat al-safwa (صفة الصفوة) and al-Muntazam (المنتظم); Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'ab). A fuller version adds that he lay down in her grave and called her "my mother after my mother". Al-Tabarani and Abu Nu'aym (أبو نعيم) (رحمه الله) record it through Rawh ibn Salah (روح بن صلاح) (رحمه الله), whom Ibn Hibban (ابن حبان) (رحمه الله) and al-Hakim (الحاكم) (رحمه الله) trusted but Ibn Adi (ابن عدي) (رحمه الله) and al-Daraqutni (الدارقطني) (رحمه الله) judged weak. Ibn al-Jawzi listed it in al-'Ilal al-mutanahiya (العلل المتناهية), his book of unsound reports, and al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) omitted it from his Talkhis (التلخيص) as weak (Islamink; IslamWeb). A second version from Hazrat Ibn Abbas (ابن عباس), in al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-awsat (المعجم الأوسط), contains a narrator no critic could identify. Shia collections record the same event in more detail, in al-Kafi (الكافي) by al-Kulayni (الكليني) (رحمه الله) (Kitab al-hujja (كتاب الحجة)) and al-Amali (الأمالي) by Ibn Babawayh (ابن بابويه) (رحمه الله). Her grave is in al-Baqi' (البقيع); al-Samhudi (السمهودي) (رحمه الله) held that the grave beside Hazrat Hasan there is hers (Chapter 16).

Chapter 23: Her descendants and the dynasties that claimed her line

Every living descendant of the Prophet ﷺ descends from Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة). Her two sons founded the two great branches of the family: the Hasanids (الحسنيون), through Hazrat Hasan (الحسن), and the Husaynids (الحسينيون), through Hazrat Husayn (الحسين). Between them these lines produced, or were claimed by, ruling houses from Spain and Morocco to Yemen, Iraq and Iran, and two still reign today, in Morocco and Jordan (Wikipedia, "Hasanids"; "Alids").

How descent was recorded

Descendants of Hazrat Fatima are called sayyid (سيد) ("lord") or sharif (شريف) ("noble"); in some regions sharif is used mainly for Hasanids and sayyid for Husaynids. From the Abbasid (عباسي) period, an official called the naqib al-ashraf (نقيب الأشراف), or "marshal of the nobles", kept registers of descent in each major city. He protected the family's privileges and exposed false claims. The poet al-Sharif al-Radi (الشريف الرضي) (رحمه الله), compiler of Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة), held this office in Baghdad. Genealogists produced reference works on the family, such as 'Umdat al-talib (عمدة الطالب) by Ibn 'Inaba (ابن عنبة) (رحمه الله) in the fifteenth century. The rule that the Prophet's ﷺ kin may not receive general alms still gives the status legal weight today.

The Hasanid line produced most of the ruling houses of the West and of Arabia, while the Husaynid line carried the imamate. Dashed boxes mark houses whose descent rests on their own claim.

The Hasanid line

• Idrisids (Morocco, 788–974). Idris I (إدريس الأول), a great-grandson of Hazrat Hasan, escaped the Abbasid massacre of Alids (العلويون) at Fakhkh (فخ) near Mecca in 786 and fled to the Maghreb (المغرب). He founded Morocco's first Muslim dynasty at Walili (وليلي) (Volubilis) in 788, and his son built Fez (فاس). Their descendants the Hammudids (الحموديون) briefly ruled parts of al-Andalus (الأندلس) in the eleventh century (Wikipedia).
• Zaydi imams of Yemen (c. 897–1962). Al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya (الهادي إلى الحق يحيى), grandson of the Hasanid scholar al-Qasim al-Rassi (القاسم الرسي), came to Yemen about 897. Imams of his house and related Alid clans ruled the northern highlands, on and off, for more than a thousand years until the revolution of 1962 (Wikipedia).
• Sharifs of Mecca (c. 967–1925). Hasanid sharifs, descended from Musa al-Jawn (موسى الجون), governed Mecca under successive empires. Qatada ibn Idris (قتادة بن إدريس) founded the Banu Qatada (بنو قتادة) line in 1201, which held the office until Ibn Saud (ابن سعود) took the Hijaz (الحجاز) in 1925 (Wikipedia).
• The Hashemites (Hijaz, Iraq, Jordan). Sharif Hussein ibn Ali (الشريف حسين بن علي) of the Banu Qatada led the Arab Revolt of 1916. His sons became kings: Ali (علي) of the Hijaz (1924–1925), Faisal (فيصل) of Iraq (the line ending in 1958), and Abdullah of Jordan, whose descendants reign there today (Wikipedia).
• Saadians and Alaouites (Morocco). Both dynasties trace their descent to Hazrat Hasan through Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (محمد النفس الزكية). The Alaouites (العلويون) descend from settlers who came from Yanbu (ينبع) in the Hijaz to Sijilmasa (سجلماسة) in the thirteenth century. Their political rule began in 1631, and they have reigned over all Morocco since al-Rashid (الرشيد) (1666–1672); the present king belongs to this house (Wikipedia).

The Husaynid line

• The Twelve Imams. After Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Hasan, all the Imams of Twelver Shi'ism descend from Hazrat Husayn: from Ali Zayn al-Abidin (علي زين العابدين) to the twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi (محمد المهدي).
• Fatimids (909–1171). The Isma'ili (إسماعيلي) caliphs of North Africa and Egypt named their dynasty after Hazrat Fatima and claimed descent from Isma'il (إسماعيل), son of Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق). In 1011 the Abbasid court issued the "Baghdad Manifesto", signed by Sunni and Shia notables, which denied the claim. Historians still debate the Fatimid (فاطمي) genealogy.
• Nizari Isma'ili imams. The line of Isma'ili imams recognised by the Nizaris continues today in the Aga Khan (آغا خان), who is held by his community to be a direct descendant of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima.
• Safavids (Iran, 1501–1736). Shah Isma'il I (شاه إسماعيل الأول) declared himself a Husayni, and around 1508 the family's genealogy was reworked to trace it to the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kazim (موسى الكاظم). Modern historians such as Minorsky and Savory judge the family to have been of Kurdish or indigenous Iranian origin, and the Alid genealogy a later construction (Wikipedia).
• Ba 'Alawi sayyids of Hadramawt. A Husaynid family whose scholars and traders spread Islam and Sufi learning across the Indian Ocean, from East Africa to Southeast Asia.

A note on claims

Claiming descent from Hazrat Fatima was a powerful source of legitimacy, so it was asserted often, and not always truthfully. Historians distinguish lines documented from early times, such as the Idrisids (الأدارسة), the Zaydi (زيدي) imams and the Sharifs of Mecca, from later claims such as the Safavids (الصفويون)'. The Fatimid claim remains undecided. For millions of ordinary sayyids today, descent is a matter of family record and community recognition rather than royal genealogy.

Chapter 24: Hazrat Fatima in art, architecture and literature

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) is rarely pictured and never shown with a face in mainstream Islamic art, yet her name and presence run through its calligraphy, buildings and poetry.

In painting

Where the Prophet's ﷺ family appears in manuscript painting, it is usually with faces veiled and heads ringed with flame. The grandest example is the Ottoman Siyer-i Nebi (سير النبي), a Turkish life of the Prophet ﷺ by the dervish Mustafa Darir (مصطفى الضرير), completed about 1388. Sultan Murad III (السلطان مراد الثالث) commissioned an illustrated copy, finished in 1595, which contains 814 miniatures in six volumes. It is described as the largest cycle of religious painting in Islamic art. In it the Prophet ﷺ and his family, Hazrat Fatima included, are shown with veiled faces surrounded by flames, the Islamic counterpart of a halo (Wikipedia). One scene shows the Prophet ﷺ with Hazrat Fatima and Hazrat Ali (علي) (Wikimedia Commons). The surviving volumes are divided between the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the New York Public Library and the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.

Persian painting of the Safavid (صفوي) and Qajar (قاجار) periods shows her in the same way: veiled, often faceless, in scenes of the Mubahala (المباهلة), the cloak or the mourning for Hazrat Husayn (الحسين). In the popular religious painting of Qajar Iran and in the ta'ziya (تعزية) passion plays, she appears as the grieving mother, sometimes represented only by a hand or a veiled figure.

In calligraphy and objects

Her name is a favourite subject of calligraphy. A Safavid perforated steel panel in the Aga Khan (آغا خان) Museum, Toronto, spells "Fatima al-Zahra'" in thuluth (الثلث) script (Wikipedia). The names of the "five of the cloak" (Muhammad ﷺ‎ (محمد), Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Fatima, Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) and Hazrat Husayn) are engraved on amulets, banners and seals, and on the open-hand talisman in parts of the Muslim world. The open hand itself is popularly called the "Hand of Fatima" (Chapter 19).

In architecture

The great shrine of the "Fatima Masuma" in Qom (قم), often confused with her, is the tomb of a different woman: Fatima bint Musa al-Kazim (فاطمة بنت موسى الكاظم) (d. 816), a descendant six generations later.

In poetry

• Al-Farazdaq (d. c. 728). Ibn Khallikan (ابن خلكان) (رحمه الله) tells how Hisham (هشام), the future Umayyad (أموي) caliph, unable to reach the Black Stone through the crowds at the pilgrimage, watched the people part for Ali Zayn al-Abidin (علي زين العابدين) and asked scornfully who he was. Al-Farazdaq (الفرزدق) answered with an improvised ode whose most famous line runs: "This is the son of Fatima, if you do not know him; through his grandfather God's prophets were sealed".
• Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd (d. c. 743). His Hashimiyyat (الهاشميات), odes in praise of the Prophet's ﷺ family, are among the earliest poetic evidence for devotion to the house of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima (Wikipedia).
• Di'bil al-Khuza'i (d. 860). His great Ta'iyya (التائية), recited before the eighth Imam, Ali al-Rida (علي الرضا), addresses Hazrat Fatima directly. It tells her that had she seen Hazrat Husayn lying slain and thirsty by the Euphrates, she would have struck her cheeks in grief.
• The ta'ziya plays. Persian passion plays include whole scenes of her life, among them the seizure of Fadak (فدك), her death, and the caliphs' apology. Lewis Pelly published an English version, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain, in 1879 (Calmard, Iranica).

On screen

The Lady of Heaven (2021), the first feature film centred on her, presents the Shia account of her last months. Its portrayal of the early caliphs led to protests by Sunni Muslims in Britain in 2022, and several cinemas withdrew it (Chapter 19).

Chapter 25: Where the sources disagree

The Sunni and Shia traditions agree on the outline of Hazrat Fatima's life: her parentage, her marriage to Hazrat Ali (علي), her children, her father's love for her, her grief and her early death. They differ on many particulars, several of them charged with meaning for the later history of Islam. The table gathers every disputed point in this study, with the chapter where each is discussed.

How to read this table

The disagreements cluster around the months after the Prophet's ﷺ death, because what happened then bears on the legitimacy of the first caliphs, which is the root question dividing the two traditions. Episodes with no bearing on that question, such as her poverty, her marriage and the Tasbih (التسبيح), are told almost identically on both sides. Modern historians (Chapters 12, 13 and 20) mostly agree that she opposed Hazrat Abu Bakr's succession and his decision on Fadak. They also agree that she died within months of her father and was buried at night. The rest remains a matter of each tradition's sources and trust.

Stage 7/8 · The classical record· Chapters 26 to 34

Chapter 26: The classical biographers

Four Sunni biographical works hold the core of what the classical tradition records about Hazrat Fatima's life. Read side by side, they show how much was settled early, such as her marriage, her children, her night burial and her short survival after her father, and how much was disputed from the start, above all her age and the date of her death. Usd al-ghaba (أسد الغابة) by Ibn al-Athir (ابن الأثير) (رحمه الله) (d. 1233) is not treated separately, since its entry largely combines those of Ibn Abd al-Barr (ابن عبد البر) (رحمه الله) and earlier compilers.

Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra (d. 845)

Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله), secretary to the historian al-Waqidi (الواقدي) (رحمه الله), gives her entry in his volume on women. It is a string of short reports, each with its chain, left unresolved side by side (Shamela, vol. VIII, pp. 22–24):

• Her age. When Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) told Hazrat Ali (علي) she was older than him, Hazrat Abbas (العباس) corrected her. She was born while Quraysh (قريش) were rebuilding the Ka'ba (الكعبة), when the Prophet ﷺ was thirty-five, and Hazrat Ali was born some years before that.
• Her children. Al-Waqidi lists four children: Hazrat Hasan (الحسن), Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), Hazrat Umm Kulthum (أم كلثوم) and Hazrat Zaynab (زينب).
• Khaybar. The Prophet ﷺ assigned Hazrat Fatima and Hazrat Ali a yearly share of the dates and barley of Khaybar (خيبر), about three hundred wasq (وسق) (camel-loads).
• Hazrat Abu Bakr's visit. Al-Sha'bi (الشعبي) (رحمه الله) reports that Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) asked leave to visit her in her illness, that Hazrat Ali asked her and she agreed, and that he spoke with her until she was content with him.
• Her last day. Hazrat Salma (سلمى), wife of Hazrat Abu Rafi' (أبو رافع), who nursed her, reports that she washed, put on new clothes, had her bed moved and lay facing the qibla. She said she was about to die and had already washed, and that no one should uncover her. Hazrat Ali buried her as she was.
• Who washed her. Another report says simply: "Ali washed Fatima."
• How long she outlived her father. The reports conflict. Al-Zuhri (الزهري) (رحمه الله) gives three months in one version and six in another. Abu Ja'far al-Baqir (أبو جعفر الباقر) gives six months in one chain and three in another. Al-Waqidi, whom Ibn Sa'd treats as settling the matter, dates her death to the night of Tuesday, 3 Ramadan (رمضان) 11 AH, at about twenty-nine years old (Shamela, p. 23).
• The first covered bier. Hazrat Ibn Abbas (ابن عباس) reports that Hazrat Fatima was the first woman for whom a covered bier was made, by Hazrat Asma bint Umays (أسماء بنت عميس), who had seen it in Abyssinia.
• The grave. Hazrat Abbas, Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fadl ibn al-Abbas (الفضل بن العباس) went down into her grave.
• Who prayed over her. Al-Zuhri, via Urwa (عروة) (رحمه الله), says Hazrat Ali prayed over her. Al-Sha'bi says Hazrat Abu Bakr did, and Ibrahim al-Nakha'i (إبراهيم النخعي) (رحمه الله) adds that Hazrat Abu Bakr said four Allahu akbar (الله أكبر)s.
• The night burial. Eleven separate chains, from al-Zuhri, Urwa, Hazrat Aisha (عائشة), Muhammad al-Baqir, Yahya ibn Sa'id (يحيى بن سعيد) (رحمه الله) and others, agree that she was buried at night. Hazrat Ibn Abbas adds that it was "after the people had quieted down" (Shamela, p. 24).

Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'ab (d. 1071)

The Andalusian scholar Ibn Abd al-Barr places her birth when the Prophet ﷺ was forty-one, around the start of the mission. He makes her the youngest daughter, some say with Hazrat Umm Kulthum. He dates the marriage after Uhud (أحد), when Hazrat Fatima was fifteen years and five and a half months old and Hazrat Ali twenty-one years and five months. For the dowry he records either Hazrat Ali's armour or 480 dirhams, a third of which went on perfume. He adds Hazrat Muhsin (محسن) to her children, and gives four figures for how long she outlived her father: six months, three months, eight months or seventy days. Her age at death he puts between twenty-seven and thirty-five. He notes that she was the first woman carried on a covered bier, that Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Asma washed her, and that she was buried at night, with Hazrat Abbas leading the prayer (Hadith Transmitters Encyclopedia).

Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala' (d. 1348)

Al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) calls her "mistress of the women of the worlds in her time", a deliberate qualifier. He dates the marriage after Badr (بدر) and gives her children as Hazrat Hasan, Hazrat Husayn, Hazrat Muhsin, Hazrat Umm Kulthum and Hazrat Zaynab. He reports that she lived "about five months" after her father, and prefers an age at death of twenty-four or twenty-five over the alternative of twenty-nine. His list of those who transmitted hadith from her is short: her son Hazrat Husayn, Hazrat Aisha, Hazrat Umm Salama (أم سلمة) and Hazrat Anas (أنس). He opens with the two secrets, grading the chain sound by the standards of both al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) and Muslim. He adds Hazrat Aisha's saying that she never saw anyone more truthful than Hazrat Fatima except her father, and the report of Hazrat Burayda (بريدة) that Hazrat Fatima was the woman the Prophet ﷺ loved most and Hazrat Ali the man (Shamela, Siyar).

Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba (d. 1449)

Ibn Hajar (ابن حجر) (رحمه الله) gathers the views on her birth. Al-Waqidi and al-Mada'ini (المدائني) (رحمه الله), on the authority of Abu Ja'far al-Baqir, place it when the Ka'ba was rebuilt, when the Prophet ﷺ was thirty-five. Another view puts it in his forty-first year, a year before the mission, which would make her about five years older than Hazrat Aisha. He accepts Ibn Abd al-Barr's order of the daughters: Hazrat Zaynab, Hazrat Ruqayya (رقية), Hazrat Umm Kulthum, then Hazrat Fatima. He dates the marriage to early Muharram (محرم) 2 AH, four months after the Prophet's ﷺ marriage to Hazrat Aisha, with Hazrat Ali's iron "Hutami" armour as the dowry. He notes that the Prophet's ﷺ descendants survive only through her (Shamela, al-Isaba).

The variants side by side

What the comparison shows

The Sunni biographers never settled her age. The spread runs from about twenty-four to thirty-five, and their range does not reach the Shia figure of eighteen (Chapter 2). All of them treat the night burial as certain. On who led the prayer they are divided among Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Abbas and Hazrat Abu Bakr, and the Hazrat Abu Bakr reports come through al-Sha'bi and Ibrahim al-Nakha'i, both of whom lived after the event. Al-Bukhari's narrative, that Hazrat Ali prayed over her without informing Hazrat Abu Bakr (Chapter 15), matches the chain from al-Zuhri and Urwa in Ibn Sa'd.

Chapter 27: Hazrat Fatima in Islamic law

More than a dozen legal questions in Islamic law have been argued, in part, from episodes in Hazrat Fatima's life. The jurists did not treat her story as a single precedent. Each school read the same episode differently, and sometimes the same report supported opposite rulings. As Marion Katz of Harvard's Program in Islamic Law has shown, the relationship between these narratives and the rules drawn from them was itself contested (Katz, 2019).

A wife's housework

The story of Hazrat Fatima's blistered hands produced one of the longest debates in Islamic family law. Some early authorities cited a report that the Prophet ﷺ had "ruled" between Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima, assigning the work inside the house to her and the work outside to him. Among them were Ibn Abi Shayba (ابن أبي شيبة) (رحمه الله), the Maliki Ibn Habib (ابن حبيب) (رحمه الله), Abu Thawr (أبو ثور) (رحمه الله) and al-Juzajani (الجوزجاني) (رحمه الله), and they used the report to argue that a wife is legally bound to do housework. Al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله) drew a middle position from al-Bukhari's version of the story. Because the Prophet ﷺ did not order Hazrat Ali to provide a servant, al-Tabari held that a woman able to work owes the housework suited to her social rank. The Hanafis and many others read the same story the other way: Hazrat Fatima's labour was voluntary devotion, and a wife of standing is entitled to a servant (Katz). The Hanbali Ibn al-Qayyim (ابن القيم) (رحمه الله) later argued strongly for the obligation, while most modern fatwa bodies treat housework as customary rather than strictly obligatory.

Washing the dead spouse

That Hazrat Ali washed Hazrat Fatima is reported by al-Shafi'i (الشافعي) (رحمه الله), al-Daraqutni (الدارقطني) (رحمه الله) and al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله). With the report that Hazrat Asma bint Umays washed her husband Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر), it became the main evidence of the Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools that spouses may wash each other (IslamOnline). The Hanafis allow a wife to wash her husband but not a husband his wife, on the grounds that death ends the marriage from his side. They explain Hazrat Ali's act as a special case; one Shia report in al-Kafi (الكافي) makes the same point in its own terms, saying only one who is truthful may wash one who is truthful, as Jesus washed Mary.

The daughter and the uncle

The Fadak dispute left a mark on the law of inheritance itself. In Sunni law a sole daughter takes half the estate, and a paternal uncle such as Hazrat Abbas (العباس) can take the rest. In Twelver and Isma'ili law the daughter excludes the uncle altogether. Legal historians have long noted that this difference also mattered politically. It made Hazrat Fatima, and through her the Alids (العلويون), the Prophet's ﷺ sole heirs, and denied the Abbasid (عباسي) caliphs, descendants of Hazrat Abbas, any claim to inherit from him.

Chapter 28: The Qur'an commentators

Chapter 9 covered the verses most often linked to Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة). The classical commentaries connect her with many more, usually through reports gathered in tafsir bi'l-ma'thur (التفسير بالمأثور), commentary by transmitted report. Two Sunni compilers matter most here. The first is al-Hakim al-Haskani (الحاكم الحسكاني) (رحمه الله), an 11th-century Hanafi (حنفي) scholar of Nishapur (نيسابور), whose Shawahid al-tanzil (شواهد التنزيل) ("Proofs of Revelation") collects every report linking a verse to the Prophet's ﷺ family. The second is al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1505), whose al-Durr al-manthur (الدر المنثور) preserves many reports from the lost commentary of Ibn Mardawayh (ابن مردويه) (رحمه الله) (d. 1019).

Further verses linked to her

What the pattern shows

The reports linking these verses to Hazrat Fatima's family come mostly from later compilations, not from the earliest commentaries of al-Tabari or Ibn Abi Hatim (ابن أبي حاتم) (رحمه الله). Many rest on Ibn Mardawayh's lost commentary. They cluster around the house of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Fatima: its sanctity, its prayer, its children, its property. Sunni scholars of hadith criticism have judged most of them weak and have raised the problem of Meccan verses applied to Medinan events. Shia exegetes, and Sunni collectors such as al-Haskani and al-Tha'labi, preserved them as part of the tradition's memory of the family. Both positions are old: Ibn Taymiyya's Minhaj al-sunna (منهاج السنة) (14th century) and al-Haskani's Shawahid (11th century) already stand on opposite sides.

Chapter 29: The great Shia collections

Shia knowledge of Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) rests on a small number of large collections, compiled between the 10th and 17th centuries. Each has its own character and reliability, and Shia scholars themselves grade the reports within them.

Al-Kulayni, al-Kafi (d. 941)

The most authoritative Twelver hadith collection has a chapter titled "The birth of al-Zahra', Fatima" in its section on the proofs of God (Kitab al-hujja (كتاب الحجة)). It contains eleven reports, which the Thaqalayn edition grades as follows (Thaqalayn):

The three reports graded sound are those on her age, her grief and the angel's visits, and her title of martyr. They are also the basis of the 75-day date and of the Shia belief that she died a martyr.

Dala'il al-imama (5th century AH)

This book is attributed to Muhammad ibn Jarir ibn Rustam al-Tabari (محمد بن جرير بن رستم الطبري) (رحمه الله), a Shia namesake of the great Sunni historian. Its first section, about 58 pages in the Najaf (النجف) edition, is devoted entirely to Hazrat Fatima. It covers her birth, names, marriage, children, death and burial, and includes a collection of reports she narrated. The Iranian scholar Hassan Ansari (حسن أنصاري) has argued that its core was written by an unknown Baghdadi contemporary of al-Tusi (الطوسي) (رحمه الله) in the first half of the 5th/11th century, and that other parts were added later (Iqra Online, summarising Ansari). It is the source of the report naming Qunfudh (قنفذ) as the man who struck her (Chapter 12).

Ibn Babawayh (al-Saduq, d. 991)

Ibn Babawayh (ابن بابويه) (رحمه الله) left no single book on her, but his works are full of material about her:

• 'Ilal al-shara'i' (علل الشرائع) explains the reasons behind her names, her light and her secret burial.
• Ma'ani al-akhbar (معاني الأخبار) preserves her speech to the women of Medina, with notes on its vocabulary.
• al-Amali (الأمالي) records the Prophet's ﷺ prophecy of her suffering.
• al-Khisal (الخصال) counts her among the "five great weepers".

Ibn Shahrashub, Manaqib Al Abi Talib (d. 1192)

The section on Hazrat Fatima in volume III, about forty pages, lists more than seventy of her names. It gathers reports on her virtues, miracles and knowledge, drawing on both Shia and Sunni sources, and preserves early poetry about her, including that of al-Sayyid al-Himyari (السيد الحميري) (Chapter 34) (Amir-Moezzi, Iranica).

Al-Irbili, Kashf al-ghumma (13th century)

Ali ibn Isa al-Irbili (علي بن عيسى الإربلي) (رحمه الله), a Shia official in Mongol-era Baghdad, wrote a life of the Prophet's ﷺ family that deliberately builds on Sunni sources, quoting Sunni works to establish the virtues of the Imams and of Hazrat Fatima (Wikipedia). This made it one of the most widely used Shia works in debate with Sunnis.

Al-Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, vol. 43 (d. 1699)

The Safavid (صفوي) scholar Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi (محمد باقر المجلسي) (رحمه الله) gathered nearly everything the earlier Shia collections record about Hazrat Fatima into volume 43 of his great encyclopedia, some 230 pages. Its chapters cover her creation and names, her birth, her marriage, her miracles, her knowledge, her children, her grief, her death and burial, and her visitation. Volumes 28 and 29 cover the succession and Fadak (فدك). The Bihar (البحار) collects without sifting, so it holds strong and weak reports side by side, and later Shia scholars grade them individually.

How Shia scholars use these collections

The Twelver tradition does not treat any collection as wholly sound. Scholars grade each chain, as the Thaqalayn grades above show. This is why modern Shia writers can accept her martyrdom and the 75-day or 95-day dates as well founded while treating many hagiographical wonders as weakly attested. Popular devotion, by contrast, often draws on the whole corpus.

Chapter 30: Her narrations

Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) transmitted very few hadith, far fewer than Hazrat Aisha (عائشة) or Hazrat Umm Salama (أم سلمة). The classical critics explain this by her early death: she lived only months after her father, before the companions began teaching the younger generation. Al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) lists only four people who transmitted from her: her son Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), Hazrat Aisha, Hazrat Umm Salama and Hazrat Anas ibn Malik (أنس بن مالك) (Hadith Transmitters Encyclopedia). Reports passed on by her granddaughter Fatima bint al-Husayn (فاطمة بنت الحسين), who was born after her death, are classed by Ibn Hajar (ابن حجر) (رحمه الله) and al-Mizzi (المزي) (رحمه الله) as mursal (مرسل), that is, missing a link (Shamela, narrator entry).

Reports in the Sunni collections

Compilations of her hadith

• Al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) is credited with a short Musnad Fatima al-Zahra' (مسند فاطمة الزهراء) gathering what is reported from and about her.
• The Shia Dala'il al-imama (دلائل الإمامة) includes a section of reports transmitted through her (Chapter 29).
• Ibrahim ibn Abd Allah al-Mudayhish. The most complete modern Sunni collection is his Fatima bint al-Nabi: siratuha, fada'iluha, musnaduha (فاطمة بنت النبي: سيرتها، فضائلها، مسندها) ("Fatima, Daughter of the Prophet ﷺ: Her Life, Virtues and Narrations"). It was published in seven volumes in Riyadh in 1440 AH (2019) by Dar al-Al wa'l-Sahb (Shamela). Its three books cover the hadith about her life, the hadith about her virtues, and the narrations attributed to her. Each report is graded.

An example of grading: the proposals

Al-Mudayhish's treatment of the reports that Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar (عمر) asked for her hand shows how the critics sift material (Shamela):

• Hazrat Burayda's report, in al-Nasa'i: the Prophet ﷺ declined them, saying "She is young". Graded sound.
• The report of Hujr ibn Anbas (حجر بن عنبس) (رحمه الله): "I have promised her to Ali". Missing a link, but with a sound chain.
• The report of Ilba' al-Yashkuri (علباء اليشكري) (رحمه الله): "I am waiting for God's decree concerning her". Weak and missing a link.
• A report attributed to Hazrat Ali: that the Prophet ﷺ "rejected them both". Fabricated.

The same event, in other words, survives in four wordings of very unequal reliability. This is typical of the material on Hazrat Fatima.

Chapter 31: Other schools

The Sunni–Twelver contrast that runs through this study is not the whole picture. Three other schools developed their own positions on Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة), each shaped by its view of the first caliphs.

The Zaydis

Zaydi (زيدي) Shi'ism takes its name from Zayd ibn Ali (زيد بن علي), Hazrat Fatima's great-grandson through Hazrat Husayn (الحسين), who rose against the Umayyads (الأمويون) and was killed at Kufa (الكوفة) in 740 (Wikipedia).

• Descent from Hazrat Fatima as a condition. For Zaydis the imam must be a descendant of Hazrat Fatima, through either Hazrat Hasan (الحسن) or Hazrat Husayn, who is learned and rises against injustice. Unlike the Twelvers, they require neither infallibility nor explicit designation (Wikipedia, "Zaydism"). Her descent thus became the one fixed qualification for rule in the Zaydi states of Yemen and Tabaristan (طبرستان).
• The first caliphs. Zayd (زيد) himself is reported to have said that he had never heard anyone of his family disavow Hazrat Abu Bakr (أبو بكر) and Hazrat Umar (عمر), or speak of them other than well. Tradition says his refusal to disown them led some Kufans to abandon him, and that he called them al-Rafida (الرافضة), "the rejecters".
• Fadak. Sunni sources, such as al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله), attribute to Zayd the view that had he been in Hazrat Abu Bakr's place he would have ruled on Fadak (فدك) as Hazrat Abu Bakr did.
• Two currents. Later Zaydis divided. The Batriyya (البترية) held that the companions erred in judgement but did not sin. The Jarudiyya (الجارودية) held that Hazrat Ali (علي) had been clearly designated and that those who passed him over were gravely at fault. The Jarudi view became dominant in Yemen.

The Mu'tazilis

The rationalist theologians of the Mu'tazila (المعتزلة) argued over Fadak in some of the most detailed debates on the subject:

• Qadi Abd al-Jabbar (القاضي عبد الجبار) (رحمه الله) (d. 1025), the leading Mu'tazili of his age, defended Hazrat Abu Bakr's decision in his al-Mughni (المغني).
• Al-Sharif al-Murtada (الشريف المرتضى) (رحمه الله) (d. 1044) answered him point by point from the Twelver side in al-Shafi fi al-imama (الشافي في الإمامة). His rebuttal covers the inheritance hadith, the witnesses, and the Sermon of Fadak, which he quotes with a Sunni chain (Chapter 14).
• Ibn Abi'l-Hadid (ابن أبي الحديد) (رحمه الله) (d. 1258), a Mu'tazili who held Hazrat Ali to be the most excellent of the companions while accepting Hazrat Abu Bakr's caliphate, reproduced both sides at length in his commentary on Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة). He added his own conversations with his teachers, such as the one recorded in Chapter 14.

The Isma'ilis

For the Isma'ilis (الإسماعيلية), Hazrat Fatima is the ancestor of the imams through Isma'il (إسماعيل), son of Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق).

• The Fatimid (فاطمي) dynasty made her name its own (909–1171).
• Al-Qadi al-Nu'man (القاضي النعمان) (رحمه الله) (d. 974), the Fatimid chief judge, compiled her virtues in Sharh al-akhbar (شرح الأخبار) and gave Isma'ili law its classic form in Da'a'im al-Islam (دعائم الإسلام) (Wikipedia).
• Inheritance. Isma'ili law shares with Twelver law the rule that a daughter excludes the paternal uncle from inheritance (Chapter 27). For a dynasty claiming descent from Hazrat Fatima against the Abbasids (العباسيون), the descendants of Hazrat Abbas (العباس), this rule had obvious political weight.
• Esoteric roles. In Isma'ili and other esoteric currents she also carries cosmological meanings, such as the symbol of a spiritual rank, which the Iranica articles survey (Chapter 17).

Chapter 32: Her descendants in revolt

For two centuries after Karbala (كربلاء), men of Hazrat Fatima's line repeatedly rose against the Umayyad (أموي) and Abbasid (عباسي) caliphs, and most were killed. Their memory was gathered by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (أبو الفرج الأصفهاني) (رحمه الله) (897–967), himself a descendant of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II (مروان الثاني) with Zaydi (زيدي) sympathies. In 313 AH (925), in Maqatil al-Talibiyyin (مقاتل الطالبيين) ("The Slain of the Talibids"), he compiled more than two hundred biographies of descendants of Hazrat Abu Talib (أبو طالب). All of them were killed, executed, poisoned, imprisoned or driven into hiding, from Hazrat Ja'far ibn Abi Talib (جعفر بن أبي طالب) at Mu'ta (مؤتة) to his own day (Wikipedia). It remains the main source for the Alid (علوي) uprisings.

The principal risings of her line

Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya and the argument from Hazrat Fatima

The revolt of 762 turned directly on Hazrat Fatima's lineage. Muhammad, "the Pure Soul", and his brother Ibrahim (إبراهيم) were sons of Abd Allah al-Mahd (عبد الله المحض), a grandson of Hazrat Hasan (الحسن). They rejected the Abbasids, descendants of the Prophet's ﷺ uncle Hazrat Abbas (العباس), as usurpers of what belonged to the Prophet's ﷺ own descendants. The historians preserve an exchange of letters between Muhammad and the caliph al-Mansur, recorded by al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله). Muhammad based his claim on his descent from the Prophet ﷺ through Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة). Al-Mansur replied that God had not made women like uncles or fathers, and that descent through a daughter did not carry the right to rule. The argument over whether Hazrat Fatima's line or Hazrat Abbas's line inherited the Prophet's ﷺ authority, first raised over Fadak (فدك) (Chapter 13), was here fought out in arms.

From defeat to dynasties

The defeats scattered Hazrat Fatima's descendants to the edges of the Islamic world, and this is how their dynasties began (Chapter 23). Idris (إدريس), brother of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, escaped Fakhkh by mingling with the pilgrims and founded the Idrisid (إدريسي) state in Morocco. Zaydi imams descended from Hazrat Hasan founded states in Tabaristan (طبرستان) in 864 and in Yemen about 897. The memory of these martyrs, preserved by Abu al-Faraj, became part of the devotional culture that honours Hazrat Fatima as mother of the persecuted.

Chapter 33: Medina through travellers' eyes

Before the demolitions of 1806 and 1926, pilgrims and travellers described the places in Medina associated with Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة). Their accounts show that the three competing sites for her grave (Chapter 16) were each marked and visited for centuries.

Ibn Jubayr (1184)

The Andalusian pilgrim Ibn Jubayr (ابن جبير) (رحمه الله) visited Medina in 1184 and described al-Baqi' (البقيع) east of the city. He noted that the grave of Hazrat Hasan ibn Ali (الحسن بن علي), near the gate on the right, had a high dome over it (al-Islam.org, quoting Ibn Jubayr). This is the mausoleum later known as the dome of Hazrat Abbas (العباس), which sheltered Hazrat Abbas, Hazrat Hasan and three later Imams, and which many visitors regarded as the resting place of Hazrat Fatima too.

Ibn Battuta (1326)

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (ابن بطوطة) (رحمه الله) described al-Baqi' as holding the graves of many of the Emigrants, the Helpers and the companions, most of whose names were no longer known (al-Islam.org). Both Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta listed the principal marked graves, among them those of Hazrat Safiyya (صفية), Malik ibn Anas (مالك بن أنس) (رحمه الله) and the Prophet's ﷺ son Hazrat Ibrahim (إبراهيم) (Madain Project).

Richard Burton (1853)

The fullest eyewitness account in English comes from Richard Burton, who entered Medina disguised as a pilgrim in 1853. He recorded all three sites (Burton, ch. 16; ch. 22):

• Inside the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque. Her tomb stood outside the curtain around her father's grave, "so strict is Moslem decorum". The wall of the chamber curved to set it apart. Through a square opening pilgrims could see "a long catafalque, covered with a black pall". Burton recorded the prayer recited there, which begins "Peace be upon thee, daughter of the Apostle of Allah ﷺ!"
• Al-Baqi'. Some held that she lay with her son Hazrat Hasan, who had asked to be buried "by my mother".
• The House of Sorrows. A small mosque in al-Baqi', south of Hazrat Abbas's tomb, was said to mark where "the lady passed the end of her days, lamenting the loss of her father. Her tomb appears to have formerly been shown there."

Burton observed that pilgrims prayed for her twice, at the mosque and at the dome of Hazrat Abbas. He found it remarkable that "three several localities claim the honour of containing the Lady Fatimah's mortal spoils", when one might suppose the Prophet's ﷺ daughter would not lie in an unknown grave. He also reported the tradition that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (عمر بن عبد العزيز), as governor of Medina, had included her room in the mosque, believing her buried there.

After 1926

All the structures Burton saw in al-Baqi', including the dome of Hazrat Abbas and the House of Sorrows, were levelled in April 1926. Only the enclosure in the Prophet's ﷺ Mosque still marks a place associated with her.

Chapter 34: Early poetry about her

The early Muslim community mourned, argued and took sides in verse, and Hazrat Fatima (فاطمة) entered its poetry early. The verses fall into three groups. The first is lines attributed to Hazrat Fatima herself and to Hazrat Ali (علي), which survive with weak chains or none. The second is the work of Shia poets of the Umayyad (أموي) and early Abbasid (عباسي) periods, whose collections (diwans (دواوين)) are well attested. The third is verses by Sunni scholars declaring their love for the Prophet's ﷺ family. This chapter takes each group in turn and says how firm each attribution is. The English renderings are free translations.

Verses attributed to Hazrat Fatima

The elegy after the Fadak speech. Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (ابن أبي طاهر طيفور) (رحمه الله) (d. 280/893) records in Balaghat al-nisa' (بلاغات النساء) ("The eloquence of women") that after her address in the mosque she turned toward her father's grave and recited two lines (Balaghat al-nisa', Shamela):

قد كان بعدك أنباءٌ وهنبثةٌ ... لو كنتَ شاهدَها لم تكثرِ الخطبُإنّا فقدناكَ فقدَ الأرضِ وابلَها ... واختلّ قومُكَ فاشهدْهم ولا تغبِ

"After you came tidings and turmoil; had you been there to see them, the troubles would not have multiplied. We have lost you as the earth loses its rain, and your people have fallen into disorder: be witness to them, and do not be absent."

Ibn Abi Tahir gives no chain for the verses. Anthologies of early Arabic poetry also carry the same opening under the name of Hazrat Hind bint Uthatha (هند بنت أثاثة), a woman poet of the clan of al-Muttalib (المطلب) who became Muslim after Badr (بدر), as an elegy for the Prophet ﷺ (al-Diwan). The lines were probably in circulation as a lament for him, and whether Hazrat Fatima composed them, or recited lines already known, cannot be settled.

The couplet on the soil of his grave. Later Sunni and Shia biographies attribute to her two lines spoken, tradition says, after she took a handful of earth from his grave and pressed it to her eyes:

ماذا على من شمّ تربةَ أحمدٍ ... أن لا يشمَّ مدى الزمانِ غوالياصُبّتْ عليّ مصائبٌ لو أنّها ... صُبّتْ على الأيامِ عُدْنَ لياليا

"What harm is it to one who has smelled the soil of Ahmad ﷺ if he never again smells rare perfumes? Such misfortunes have been poured on me that, had they been poured on the days, the days would have turned to nights." Al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) quotes the second line in Siyar a'lam al-nubala' (سير أعلام النبلاء) (II, 134) without vouching for it, and Sunni preachers in Syria still quote both lines in sermons on the Prophet's ﷺ family (Ahmad al-Na'san). The couplet has no early chain and is best read as part of the devotional tradition that grew up around her grief.

Hazrat Ali's lament

Al-Hakim al-Nishapuri (الحاكم النيسابوري) (رحمه الله) (d. 405/1014) includes in al-Mustadrak (المستدرك), in his section on Hazrat Fatima beside the report of the first covered bier, the lines Hazrat Ali is said to have spoken after her death (al-Mustadrak, IslamWeb):

لكلّ اجتماعٍ من خليلينِ فرقةٌ ... وكلُّ الذي دون الفراقِ قليلُوإنّ افتقادي فاطماً بعد أحمدٍ ... دليلٌ على أن لا يدومَ خليلُ

"Every meeting of two friends ends in parting, and every sorrow short of parting is slight. That I have lost Fatima after Ahmad ﷺ is proof that no friend endures." The couplet became one of the most quoted verses of Arabic mourning, used by Sunnis and Shia alike. Hazrat Ali's prose farewell at her grave, which is better known in Shia devotion, survives in Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة) (see al-Sharif al-Radi (الشريف الرضي) (رحمه الله), below).

Poets of the Umayyad period

Al-Farazdaq (c. 641 – c. 730). The great Tamimi (تميمي) poet of Basra (البصرة) spent most of his career praising Umayyad caliphs and governors. His most famous poem, however, praises Hazrat Fatima's grandson. According to the story, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (هشام بن عبد الملك), then heir to the caliphate, could not reach the Black Stone through the crowd of pilgrims, while the crowd parted for Ali ibn al-Husayn (علي بن الحسين) (Zayn al-Abidin). A Syrian asked who that was, and Hisham said he did not know, fearing the Syrians would be drawn to him. Al-Farazdaq (الفرزدق) answered with a poem in the rhyme -mu (the Mimiyya (الميمية)) (El Kadiri and El Kadiri, Abdelmalek Essaadi University):

هذا ابنُ فاطمةٍ إن كنتَ جاهلَه ... بجدِّه أنبياءُ اللهِ قد خُتِموا

"This is the son of Fatima, if you do not know him; with his grandfather God's prophets were sealed." "Son" here means descendant: Zayn al-Abidin was her grandson, and the poet names him through her because descent from the Prophet ﷺ ran through her. Hisham had al-Farazdaq imprisoned for the poem (Wikipedia). Ibn Khallikan (ابن خلكان) (رحمه الله) (d. 681/1282) tells the story in his entry on the poet. Some lines in the circulating text are credited in other sources to the poet al-Hazin al-Kinani (الحزين الكناني), so the poem as recited today is probably composite.

Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadi (679/680 – 743). A Kufan poet and a devoted follower of Muhammad al-Baqir (محمد الباقر), al-Kumayt (الكميت) wrote the Hashimiyyat (الهاشميات), a series of odes in praise of the Prophet's ﷺ family that are "considered among the earliest evidence for the doctrine of imamate" (Wikipedia). The odes argue that the Prophet's ﷺ kin, the Banu Hashim (بنو هاشم), are the rightful leaders of the community because of their kinship with him. He was killed in Kufa (الكوفة) in 743. The Hashimiyyat survive as a collection with an early commentary and have been printed several times (Arabic edition, Internet Archive); the German orientalist Josef Horovitz published an edition with translation in 1904.

Poets of the early Abbasid period

Al-Sayyid al-Himyari (d. 173/789; other dates to 179/795). Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-Himyari (إسماعيل بن محمد الحميري) of Basra was the most prolific early poet of the Prophet's ﷺ family. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (أبو الفرج الأصفهاني) (رحمه الله) gives him a long entry in Kitab al-Aghani (كتاب الأغاني) and reports that his parents were Ibadi (إباضية) Kharijites (الخوارج) who cursed Hazrat Ali, which the poet rejected. He first followed the Kaysaniyya (الكيسانية), who held that Hazrat Ali's son Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya (محمد ابن الحنفية) was alive in hiding, and later accepted the imamate of Ja'far al-Sadiq (جعفر الصادق). Later biographers gave other dates for his death, up to 199 AH (Hasan al-Sadr, al-Islam.org).

Ibn Shahrashub (ابن شهرآشوب) (رحمه الله) quotes many of his verses in Manaqib Al Abi Talib (مناقب آل أبي طالب) (Chapter 29), including a poem on Hazrat Fatima's wedding in heaven. In the poem God sets up a pulpit for Gabriel beneath the Tuba (طوبى) tree of Paradise, which grows from ground of peridot, and the angels attend the marriage of Hazrat Fatima to Hazrat Ali. It is the same heavenly-wedding tradition that the Shia collections tell in prose, here put into verse within a century and a half of her death.

Di'bil al-Khuza'i (765–860). Di'bil (دعبل) was a satirist feared by caliphs and a committed Imami (إمامي). His Ta'iyya (التائية) (ode rhyming in -ti) opens:

مدارسُ آياتٍ خلتْ من تلاوةٍ ... ومنزلُ وحيٍ مقفرُ العرصاتِ

"Schools of Qur'anic verses, empty now of recitation; a home of revelation with deserted courtyards." Di'bil recited it before Ali al-Rida (علي الرضا) in Khurasan (خراسان) while al-Rida was the designated heir of al-Ma'mun (المأمون) (817–818). Ibn Babawayh's 'Uyun akhbar al-Rida (عيون أخبار الرضا) (Chapter 29) tells that the Imam wept, added two lines of his own about a grave to come at Tus (طوس), and gave the poet a robe and money. The ode addresses Hazrat Fatima directly as the mourner of her son:

أفاطمُ لو خلتِ الحسينَ مجدَّلاً ... وقد ماتَ عطشاناً بشطِّ فراتِإذنْ للطمتِ الخدَّ فاطمُ عندَه ... وأجريتِ دمعَ العينِ في الوجناتِ

"Fatima, if you could picture Husayn cast down, dead of thirst on the bank of the Euphrates, then, Fatima, you would strike your cheek beside him and let your tears run down your face." This way of calling on Hazrat Fatima to witness Karbala (كربلاء) became a standard move of Shia elegy.

Poets of the tenth and eleventh centuries

Abu Firas al-Hamdani (932–968). A Hamdanid (حمداني) prince, cousin of Sayf al-Dawla (سيف الدولة), and one of the finest poets of his century, Abu Firas (أبو فراس) wrote several pro-Shia poems attacking the Abbasids (Wikipedia). The most famous, called al-Shafiya (الشافية) ("the healing one"), opens (al-Sibtayn):

الحقُّ مهتضمٌ والدينُ مخترمٌ ... وفيءُ آلِ رسولِ اللهِ مقتسمُ

"Right is trampled and religion violated, and the fay' of the family of God's Messenger ﷺ is shared out among others." The complaint that the family's share of the public revenues had been taken from them goes back to the disputes over Fadak (فدك) and the khums (خمس) that began with Hazrat Fatima. The poem attracted a later commentary, Sharh Shafiyat Abi Firas fi manaqib Al al-Rasul wa-mathalib Bani al-'Abbas (شرح شافية أبي فراس في مناقب آل الرسول ومثالب بني العباس) ("Commentary on Abu Firas's Shafiya, on the virtues of the Prophet's ﷺ family and the vices of the Abbasids").

Al-Sharif al-Radi (970–1015). A descendant of Hazrat Fatima through Musa al-Kazim (موسى الكاظم), al-Radi was head (naqib (نقيب)) of the Talibids (الطالبيون) in Baghdad and was often counted the finest poet of Quraysh (قريش). His diwan contains elegies for Hazrat Husayn (الحسين) written for Ashura (عاشوراء). His lasting service to Hazrat Fatima's memory, however, was in prose. His anthology of Hazrat Ali's sayings, Nahj al-balagha, completed around 400/1010, preserves the address Hazrat Ali is said to have made at her burial, which begins: "Peace be upon you, Messenger of God ﷺ, from me and from your daughter, who has come down to stay near you and hastened to join you." His brother al-Sharif al-Murtada (الشريف المرتضى) (رحمه الله) wrote the Imami defence of her Fadak claim discussed in Chapter 31.

Sunni scholars' verses

Al-Shafi'i (767–820). The founder of the Shafi'i (شافعي) school is credited with the most quoted line on love for the Prophet's ﷺ family:

إن كان رفضاً حبُّ آلِ محمدٍ ... فليشهدِ الثقلانِ أنّي رافضي

"If loving the family of Muhammad ﷺ is rafd, then let men and jinn bear witness that I am a Rafidi." (Rafida (الرافضة), "rejecters", was a hostile name for Imami Shia.) Al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله) records the verse in Manaqib al-Shafi'i (مناقب الشافعي) (2/71), al-Dhahabi in Tarikh al-Islam (تاريخ الإسلام) through al-Hakim, and Ibn Asakir (ابن عساكر) (رحمه الله) in Tarikh Dimashq (تاريخ دمشق) (51/317). Al-Dhahabi explained that the Shi'ism meant here is "love of Ali and hatred of the Nasibis". Hadith critics note that each chain has a weak link; al-Bayhaqi's passes through Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath (محمد بن محمد بن الأشعث), who was accused of forgery (Islamink).

The printed Diwan of al-Shafi'i (الشافعي) (رحمه الله), a later compilation, also contains a couplet addressed to the Prophet's ﷺ family:

يا آلَ بيتِ رسولِ اللهِ حبُّكمُ ... فرضٌ من اللهِ في القرآنِ أنزلَهُكفاكمُ من عظيمِ القدرِ أنّكمُ ... من لم يصلِّ عليكم لا صلاةَ لهُ

"People of the house of God's Messenger ﷺ, love for you is a duty from God, revealed in the Qur'an. It is enough of your great standing that whoever does not invoke blessings on you has no prayer." The second line plays on the blessing on the Prophet's ﷺ family said in every ritual prayer. Like the first verse, it has no secure early chain.

Ibn Asakir (1105–1176). The great historian of Damascus composed a poem in praise of Hazrat Fatima that survives through Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi (ابن ناصر الدين الدمشقي) (رحمه الله) (d. 842/1438), Jami' al-athar fi al-siyar wa-mawlid al-mukhtar (جامع الآثار في السير ومولد المختار) (3/511). Ibrahim al-Mudayhish (إبراهيم المديهش) reproduces it in his collection on Hazrat Fatima (al-Mudayhish, Shamela). The poem says that the sound reports of her virtue are settled, and that her descent alone would suffice for honour: daughter of the Messenger ﷺ, wife of Hazrat Ali, mother of the Prophet's ﷺ two grandsons. It urges readers to show love for her as a means to reward, promises salvation on the Day of Judgment to those who love her, and says that only the base-born or foolish would hate her. It ends by invoking God's pleasure and mercy on her.

Later mourning poetry

From Di'bil onward, the elegy for Hazrat Husayn became the main place where Hazrat Fatima appears in Shia verse: as the mother who would have wept at Karbala, and, in later poems, as the one who mourns him still. In Persian the genre reached its classic form in the Davazdah-band (دوازده‌بند) ("Twelve strophes") of Muhtasham Kashani (محتشم کاشانی) (c. 1528–1588), a Karbala elegy that was famous in his lifetime and reached the height of its popularity under the Qajars (قاجار). It generated dozens of imitations and is still printed on long cloths that drape whole cities in Iran during Muharram (محرم) (Paul Losensky, Encyclopaedia Iranica). The poems recited in the Fatimiyya (الفاطمية) season, the days that commemorate her death, belong to the same tradition.

The poets at a glance

Stage 8/8 · Reference· Appendices A to D

Appendix A: Timeline

Dates before the Hijra (الهجرة) are approximate; where Sunni and Shia dates differ, both are shown.

More dates

Further dates, from her early years to the present. Dates before 1 AH are approximate.

Appendix B: Bibliography

No modern South Asian or South Asian diaspora author is cited in this study.

Classical sources: Sunni

• Ibn Ishaq (ابن إسحاق) (رحمه الله) (d. 767), Sirat Rasul Allah (سيرة رسول الله), in the recension of Ibn Hisham (ابن هشام) (رحمه الله)
• al-Waqidi (الواقدي) (رحمه الله) (d. 823), Kitab al-Maghazi (كتاب المغازي)
• Ibn Sa'd (ابن سعد) (رحمه الله) (d. 845), al-Tabaqat al-kubra (الطبقات الكبرى), vol. VIII
• Ahmad ibn Hanbal (أحمد بن حنبل) (رحمه الله) (d. 855), al-Musnad (المسند) (Musnad Ahmad)
• al-Bukhari (البخاري) (رحمه الله) (d. 870), al-Jami' al-sahih (الجامع الصحيح): nos. 240, 3113, 3623–3624, 3714, 4240–4241, 4433, 4462 (Sahih al-Bukhari)
• Muslim (d. 875), al-Sahih (الصحيح) (Sahih Muslim): books on the merits of the companions and on pilgrimage
• Abu Dawud (أبو داود) (رحمه الله) (d. 889), al-Sunan (السنن) (Sunan Abi Dawud); al-Tirmidhi (الترمذي) (رحمه الله) (d. 892), al-Jami' (الجامع) (Jami' al-Tirmidhi); al-Nasa'i (النسائي) (رحمه الله) (d. 915), al-Sunan (Sunan al-Nasa'i)
• Ibn Qutayba (ابن قتيبة) (رحمه الله) (attributed; d. 889), al-Imama wa al-siyasa (الإمامة والسياسة)
• al-Baladhuri (البلاذري) (رحمه الله) (d. 892), Ansab al-ashraf (أنساب الأشراف) and Futuh al-buldan (فتوح البلدان)
• Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur (ابن أبي طاهر طيفور) (رحمه الله) (d. 893), Balaghat al-nisa' (بلاغات النساء)
• al-Tabari (الطبري) (رحمه الله) (d. 923), Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk (تاريخ الرسل والملوك) and Jami' al-bayan (جامع البيان) (tafsir (تفسير))
• Abu Bakr al-Jawhari (أبو بكر الجوهري) (رحمه الله) (d. 935), al-Saqifa wa Fadak (السقيفة وفدك)
• al-Mas'udi (المسعودي) (رحمه الله) (d. 956), Muruj al-dhahab (مروج الذهب)
• al-Hakim al-Nishapuri (الحاكم النيسابوري) (رحمه الله) (d. 1014), al-Mustadrak (المستدرك)
• Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani (أبو نعيم الأصفهاني) (رحمه الله) (d. 1038), Hilyat al-awliya' (حلية الأولياء)
• Ibn Abd al-Barr (ابن عبد البر) (رحمه الله) (d. 1071), al-Isti'ab (الاستيعاب)
• al-Bayhaqi (البيهقي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1066), al-Sunan al-kubra (السنن الكبرى) and Dala'il al-nubuwwa (دلائل النبوة)
• al-Khwarazmi (الخوارزمي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1173), al-Manaqib (المناقب)
• Ibn Abi'l-Hadid (ابن أبي الحديد) (رحمه الله) (d. 1258), Sharh Nahj al-balagha (شرح نهج البلاغة)
• Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (سبط ابن الجوزي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1256), Tadhkirat al-khawass (تذكرة الخواص)
• al-Qurtubi (القرطبي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1273), al-Jami' li-ahkam al-Qur'an (الجامع لأحكام القرآن)
• al-Dhahabi (الذهبي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1348), Siyar a'lam al-nubala' (سير أعلام النبلاء); Ibn Kathir (ابن كثير) (رحمه الله) (d. 1373), Tafsir (التفسير) and al-Bidaya wa al-nihaya (البداية والنهاية)
• al-Samhudi (السمهودي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1506), Wafa' al-wafa (وفاء الوفا); al-Suyuti (السيوطي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1505), al-Durr al-manthur (الدر المنثور)

Classical sources: Shia

• Kitab Sulaym ibn Qays (كتاب سليم بن قيس) (attributed, 1st c. AH)
• al-Ya'qubi (اليعقوبي) (رحمه الله) (d. c. 897), Tarikh (التاريخ)
• Furat al-Kufi (فرات الكوفي) (رحمه الله) (fl. c. 900), Tafsir
• al-Kulayni (الكليني) (رحمه الله) (d. 941), al-Kafi (الكافي)
• Ibn Qulawayh (ابن قولويه) (رحمه الله) (d. 978), Kamil al-ziyarat (كامل الزيارات)
• al-Qadi al-Nu'man (القاضي النعمان) (رحمه الله) (Isma'ili (إسماعيلي), d. 974), Sharh al-akhbar (شرح الأخبار)
• Ibn Babawayh al-Saduq (ابن بابويه الصدوق) (رحمه الله) (d. 991), 'Ilal al-shara'i' (علل الشرائع), al-Amali (الأمالي), al-Khisal (الخصال), Ma'ani al-akhbar (معاني الأخبار)
• al-Mufid (المفيد) (رحمه الله) (d. 1022), Kitab al-Irshad (كتاب الإرشاد) and al-Ikhtisas (الاختصاص)
• al-Sharif al-Radi (الشريف الرضي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1015), Nahj al-balagha (نهج البلاغة); al-Sharif al-Murtada (الشريف المرتضى) (رحمه الله) (d. 1044), al-Shafi fi al-imama (الشافي في الإمامة)
• Ibn Rustam al-Tabari (ابن رستم الطبري) (رحمه الله) (attributed, 11th c.), Dala'il al-imama (دلائل الإمامة)
• al-Tusi (الطوسي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1067), al-Amali
• al-Tabrisi (الطبرسي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1153), Majma' al-bayan (مجمع البيان); Ahmad al-Tabrisi (أحمد الطبرسي) (رحمه الله) (6th c. AH), al-Ihtijaj (الاحتجاج)
• Ibn Shahrashub (ابن شهرآشوب) (رحمه الله) (d. 1192), Manaqib Al Abi Talib (مناقب آل أبي طالب), vol. III
• al-Majlisi (المجلسي) (رحمه الله) (d. 1699), Bihar al-anwar (بحار الأنوار), vol. XLIII

Reference works

• Amir-Moezzi (أمير معزي), M.A. "Fāṭema i. In history and Shiʿite hagiography." Encyclopaedia Iranica IX/4, 1999. Link
• Calmard, J. "Fāṭema ii. In myth, folklore, and popular devotion." Encyclopaedia Iranica IX/4, 1999. Link
• Veccia Vaglieri, L. "Fāṭima" and "Fadak." Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. II.
• Sajjadi (سجادي), S. "Fadak." Encyclopaedia Islamica, ed. F. Daftary. Brill.
• Campo, J.E. "Fatima." Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File, 2009.
• Buehler, A.F. "Fatima (d. 632)." In Muhammad ﷺ in History, Thought, and Culture, ABC-CLIO, 2014.
• Fedele, V. "Fatima." In Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions, ABC-CLIO, 2018.
• Britannica editors. "Fāṭimah." Link

Modern studies

• Aslan (أصلان), R. No god but God. Random House, 2005; rev. 2011.
• Ayoub (أيوب) (رحمه الله), M.M. Redemptive Suffering in Islam. Mouton, 1978; The Crisis of Muslim History. Oneworld, 2014.
• Corbin, H. Terre céleste et corps de résurrection. Paris, 1960.
• El-Hibri (الحبري), T. Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History. Columbia UP, 2010.
• Hazleton, L. After the Prophet ﷺ. Doubleday, 2009.
• Klemm, V. "Image Formation of an Islamic Legend: Fāṭima, the Daughter of the Prophet ﷺ Muḥammad." In S. Günther (ed.), Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal. Brill, 2005.
• Lammens, H. Fâtima et les filles de Mahomet ﷺ. Rome, 1912.
• Madelung, W. The Succession to Muhammad ﷺ. Cambridge UP, 1997.
• Massignon, L. Opera Minora, ed. Y. Moubarac. Paris, 1969.
• McAuliffe, J.D. "Chosen of All Women: Mary and Fāṭimah in Qur'ānic Exegesis." Islamochristiana 7 (1981).
• Momen (مؤمن), M. An Introduction to Shi'i Islam. Yale UP, 1985.
• Nasr (نصر), S.H., et al. The Study Quran. HarperOne, 2015.
• Pierce, M. Twelve Infallible Men. Harvard UP, 2016.
• Shariati (شريعتي) (رحمه الله), A. Fatima is Fatima (Persian 1977; tr. L. Bakhtiar, 1981).
• Soufi, D.L. The Image of Fatima in Classical Muslim Thought. PhD diss., Princeton, 1997.
• Spellberg, D.A. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past. Columbia UP, 1994.
• Thurlkill, M.F. Chosen among Women: Mary and Fatima in Medieval Christianity and Shi'ite Islam. Notre Dame UP, 2008.

Web pages consulted

• Wikipedia, "Fatima": used as a guide to the academic literature; South Asian authors it cites were not relied on
• Wikipedia, "Sermon of Fadak"
• Wikipedia, "Twelver Shia holy days"
• Sahih al-Bukhari 3113, 3623, 4240, 4433, 4462, in the Islamic Divine System (IDS) hadith collection
• shiastudies.com, on her burial, quoting al-Mufid

Further classical, later and modern works

Classical and later works: Ibn Abi Shayba (ابن أبي شيبة) (رحمه الله), al-Musannaf (المصنف); Ibn Majah (ابن ماجه) (رحمه الله), al-Sunan; al-Nasa'i, 'Amal al-yawm wa'l-layla (عمل اليوم والليلة); Ibn Shahin (ابن شاهين) (رحمه الله), Fada'il Fatima (فضائل فاطمة); Muhibb al-Din al-Tabari (محب الدين الطبري) (رحمه الله), Dhakha'ir al-'uqba (ذخائر العقبى); al-Kanji (الكنجي) (رحمه الله), Kifayat al-talib (كفاية الطالب); al-Juwayni (الجويني) (رحمه الله), Fara'id al-simtayn (فرائد السمطين); Ibn al-Sabbagh (ابن الصباغ) (رحمه الله), al-Fusul al-muhimma (الفصول المهمة); al-Samhudi, Wafa' al-wafa' and Jawahir al-'iqdayn (جواهر العقدين); Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (ابن حجر الهيتمي) (رحمه الله), al-Sawa'iq al-muhriqa (الصواعق المحرقة); al-Sabban (الصبان) (رحمه الله), Is'af al-raghibin (إسعاف الراغبين); al-Shablanji (الشبلنجي) (رحمه الله), Nur al-absar (نور الأبصار); Ibn Khallikan (ابن خلكان) (رحمه الله), Wafayat al-a'yan (وفيات الأعيان); Ibn 'Inaba (ابن عنبة) (رحمه الله), 'Umdat al-talib (عمدة الطالب); al-Zamakhshari (الزمخشري) (رحمه الله), al-Kashshaf (الكشاف); Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (فخر الدين الرازي) (رحمه الله), al-Tafsir al-kabir (التفسير الكبير); al-Saffar (الصفار) (رحمه الله), Basa'ir al-darajat (بصائر الدرجات); Abd Allah al-Bahrani (عبد الله البحراني) (رحمه الله), 'Awalim al-'ulum (عوالم العلوم); Abbas Qummi (عباس القمي) (رحمه الله), Mafatih al-jinan (مفاتيح الجنان) and Bayt al-ahzan (بيت الأحزان).

Modern works: Clohessy, C.P. Fâṭima, Daughter of Muhammad ﷺ. Gorgias Press, 2009; 2nd ed. 2019 · al-Aqqad (العقاد) (رحمه الله), A.M. Fatima al-Zahra' wa al-Fatimiyyun (فاطمة الزهراء والفاطميون). Cairo · Abd al-Rahman, A. (Bint al-Shati' (بنت الشاطئ) (رحمه الله)). Banat al-Nabi (بنات النبي). Cairo, 1956 · al-Qurashi (القرشي) (رحمه الله), B.S. The Life of Fatimah az-Zahra'. Tr. A. al-Shahin. Qom (قم), 2006 · al-Qazwini (القزويني) (رحمه الله), M.K. Fatimah al-Zahra' from the Cradle to the Grave · Murtada al-Amili, J. Ma'sat al-Zahra' (مأساة الزهراء) · Pelly, L. The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain. London, 1879.

Further web pages:

• Hadith, in the IDS collections: Sahih al-Bukhari 1127, 2375, 2753, 6204; Sahih Muslim 2442; Jami' al-Tirmidhi 3872; Musnad Ahmad 769
• Wikipedia: Attack on Fatima's house, Burial of Fatima, Book of Fatimah, Hadith of Fatima tablet, Tasbih of Fatimah, Fatimiyya, Fadak, Event of the mubahala, Zaynab bint Ali, Umm Kulthum bint Ali, Asma bint Umais, Muhsin ibn Ali, Alids, Hasanids, Hashemites, Idrisid dynasty, Alawi Sultanate, Safavid dynasty, Imams of Yemen, Sharif of Mecca, Al-Baqi Cemetery, Al-Azhar Mosque, Siyer-i Nebi, Fátima, Portugal, Aisha Abd al-Rahman, Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadi, Nur al-Din al-Samhudi
• Other: Gorgias Press, Clohessy; al-Qazwini, Day of Resurrection; al-Qazwini, Hadith al-Kisa; al-Qazwini, bibliography; al-Qurashi, Ziyarah; al-Mufid via al-Islam.org; Ordoni, Fatima's knowledge; Madain Project; Zahra Trust, al-Baqi' 1926; Wikimedia Commons, Siyer-i Nebi image

Where a Wikipedia page drew on South Asian authors, those authors were not relied on. The facts were checked against the primary text or another scholar.

Sources for Chapters 26 to 34 and Appendices C and D

Classical works: Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'ab; Ibn al-Athir (ابن الأثير) (رحمه الله), Usd al-ghaba (أسد الغابة); al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala' and Tarikh al-Islam (تاريخ الإسلام); Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (ابن حجر العسقلاني) (رحمه الله), al-Isaba (الإصابة); al-Hakim al-Haskani (الحاكم الحسكاني) (رحمه الله), Shawahid al-tanzil (شواهد التنزيل); al-Tha'labi (الثعلبي) (رحمه الله), al-Wahidi (الواحدي) (رحمه الله), al-Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir and al-Alusi (الآلوسي) (رحمه الله), Qur'an commentaries; al-Suyuti, al-Durr al-manthur and Musnad Fatima al-Zahra' (مسند فاطمة الزهراء); al-Kulayni, al-Kafi; Dala'il al-imama; Ibn Babawayh, 'Ilal al-shara'i', al-Amali, al-Khisal and 'Uyun akhbar al-Rida (عيون أخبار الرضا); Ibn Shahrashub, Manaqib Al Abi Talib; al-Irbili (الإربلي) (رحمه الله), Kashf al-ghumma (كشف الغمة); al-Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, vol. 43; Abd al-Jabbar (عبد الجبار) (رحمه الله), al-Mughni (المغني); al-Sharif al-Murtada, al-Shafi fi'l-imama; Ibn Abi'l-Hadid, Sharh Nahj al-balagha; al-Qadi al-Nu'man, Sharh al-akhbar and Da'a'im al-Islam (دعائم الإسلام); Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (أبو الفرج الأصفهاني) (رحمه الله), Maqatil al-Talibiyyin (مقاتل الطالبيين) and Kitab al-Aghani (كتاب الأغاني); Ibn Jubayr (ابن جبير) (رحمه الله), Rihla (الرحلة); Ibn Battuta (ابن بطوطة) (رحمه الله), Rihla; Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur, Balaghat al-nisa'; al-Hakim al-Nishapuri, al-Mustadrak; al-Bayhaqi, Manaqib al-Shafi'i (مناقب الشافعي); Ibn Asakir (ابن عساكر) (رحمه الله), Tarikh Dimashq (تاريخ دمشق); Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi (ابن ناصر الدين الدمشقي) (رحمه الله), Jami' al-athar (جامع الآثار); al-Kumayt (الكميت), al-Hashimiyyat (الهاشميات); al-Sharif al-Radi, Nahj al-balagha; Diwan al-Shafi'i (ديوان الشافعي).

Modern works: al-Mudayhish (المديهش), I. Fatima bint al-Nabi: siratuha, fada'iluha, musnaduha (فاطمة بنت النبي: سيرتها، فضائلها، مسندها). 7 vols. Riyadh: Dar al-Al wa'l-Sahb, 1440/2019 · Katz, M.H. "Law, narrative and the case of Fatima's chores". Islamic Law Blog, 2019 · Amir-Moezzi, M.A. "Fatema i. In history and Shi'ite hagiography". Encyclopaedia Iranica · Losensky, P. "Mohtasham Kashani". Encyclopaedia Iranica · Ansari (أنصاري), H. On the authorship of Dala'il al-imama (summarised by Iqra Online) · El Kadiri (القادري), O. and El Kadiri, R. "Al-Farazdaq's poem in praise of Ali ibn al-Husayn". Rimak, 2024 · Horovitz, J. Die Hāšimijjāt des Kumait. Leiden, 1904 · al-Sadr, H. The Shi'ah and Islamic Disciplines · Burton, R.F. Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madinah and Meccah. London, 1855; Memorial ed. 1893.

Web pages:

• Shamela: Ibn Sa'd, vol. VIII p. 22, p. 23, p. 24; al-Dhahabi, Siyar; Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba; narrator entry; al-Mudayhish, title page, proposals, poems; Balaghat al-nisa'
• Qur'an commentary and hadith: al-Durr al-manthur on 24:36, al-Durr al-manthur on 55:19–22; altafsir.com on 20:132; IslamQA 300683; Thaqalayn, al-Kafi chapter 114; Hadith Transmitters Encyclopedia; al-Mustadrak, IslamWeb
• Law: Katz, Islamic Law Blog; IslamOnline, washing a dead spouse
• Wikipedia: Kashf al-Ghumma, Zaydism, Revolts of Zayd ibn Ali, Al-Qadi al-Nu'man, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, Alid revolt of 762–763, Battle of Fakhkh, Al-Farazdaq, Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadi, Abu Firas al-Hamdani
• Encyclopaedia Iranica: Amir-Moezzi, "Fatema"; Losensky, "Mohtasham Kashani"
• Travellers: al-Islam.org, history of al-Baqi'; Madain Project, al-Baqi'; Burton, ch. 16 and ch. 22
• Poetry: al-Diwan, Hazrat Hind bint Uthatha; Ahmad al-Na'san; El Kadiri, Rimak; al-Hashimiyyat, Internet Archive; Hasan al-Sadr, al-Islam.org; al-Sibtayn, Abu Firas; Islamink, al-Shafi'i's verses
• Other: Iqra Online, summarising Hassan Ansari

Appendix C: Glossary

Arabic and Persian terms used in this study, in alphabetical order (ignoring the article al- and the letter 'ayn). Where Sunni and Shia usage differs, both are given.

Appendix D: Who's who

The people who appear in this study, in alphabetical order (ignoring Hazrat, al-, ibn and 'ayn). Dates are death dates, AH/CE, unless marked otherwise; "c." marks an approximate date.

Her family and contemporaries

Descendants and later rulers

Authors and transmitters

Frequently asked questions

Qur’anic references

• Qur’an 3:61, Surah Al Imran: the Mubahala, “our women and your women”
• Qur’an 33:33, Surah al-Ahzab: the verse of Purification, the Ahl al-Bayt
• Qur’an 42:23, Surah al-Shura: the verse of Affection, “the near of kin”
• Qur’an 76:5-22, Surah al-Insan: feeding the needy, the orphan and the captive
• Qur’an 3:42, Surah Al Imran: Mary chosen above the women of the worlds
• Qur’an 24:35, Surah al-Nur: the verse of Light
• Qur’an 108:1, Surah al-Kawthar: “We have given you abundance”
• Qur’an 17:26, Surah al-Isra’: “Give the near of kin their due”
• Qur’an 59:6-7, Surah al-Hashr: property gained without fighting (fay’)
• Qur’an 8:41, Surah al-Anfal: the fifth (khums) and the share of kin
• Qur’an 26:214, Surah al-Shu’ara’: “Warn your nearest kinsmen”
• Qur’an 27:16, Surah al-Naml: Solomon inherits from David
• Qur’an 19:6, Surah Maryam: Zechariah’s prayer for an heir
• Qur’an 3:144, Surah Al Imran: “Will you turn on your heels?”
• Qur’an 24:36, Surah al-Nur: “In houses God has permitted to be raised”
• Qur’an 55:19-22, Surah al-Rahman: the two seas, pearl and coral
• Qur’an 20:132, Surah Ta Ha: “Enjoin prayer on your family”