Fatimah az-Zahra

c. 605 - 632 CE

Youngest daughter of the Prophet ﷺ and Khadijah, married to Ali ibn Abi Talib, mother of Hasan and Husayn. She is the origin of the Sayyid lineage. Died six months after her father, aged 27.

Life

Fatimah bint Muhammad, called az-Zahra (the radiant) and al-Batul (the pure), was the youngest daughter of the Prophet ﷺ and Khadijah. She grew up in the household of prophecy through the years of Meccan persecution.

She married her father's cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib in 2 AH in Medina. Their mahr was a suit of armour Ali sold to raise a modest dowry. Their household in Medina was so poor that Fatimah's hands grew calloused from grinding flour with a stone mill; she asked her father once for a servant, and instead he taught her the tasbih of Fatima, thirty-three subhanallahs, thirty-three al-hamdulillahs, thirty-four Allahu akbars each night before sleep, which the Muslim tradition has recited for fourteen centuries.

She bore Hasan, Husayn, Zaynab, and Umm Kulthum. Every Sayyid alive today, every descendant of the Prophet through the millennium, traces their lineage through her.

She died six months after her father in 632 CE, aged only about 27. On her death she asked to be washed and shrouded in the manner she had prepared and buried at night. Ali buried her at night in accordance with her request. The exact location of her grave remains contested among the classical sources. The Prophet ﷺ said of her: "Fatimah is a part of me. Whoever hurts her hurts me."

Stories

Each story below is drawn from the classical Islamic historical sources.