Al-Bayhaqī relates in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah:

Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ narrated to us; Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Aṣamm, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār, and Yūnus ibn Bukayr transmitted from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Najīḥ told me, from Mujāhid, from ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—who said:

“I asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) for Fāṭimah’s hand. A maidservant of mine said, ‘Do you know that Fāṭimah has already been proposed to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?’ I replied, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Then why do you not go to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) so that he may marry her to you?’ I said, ‘But what do I have to offer as a bridal gift?’ She answered, ‘If you go to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he will marry her to you.’

“By Allah, she kept urging me until I entered upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). When I sat before him, awe and reverence silenced me, and by Allah I could not utter a word. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, ‘What has brought you here? Do you have a need?’ I remained silent. He repeated, ‘What has brought you here? Do you have a need?’ Again I was silent. Then he said, ‘Perhaps you have come to propose to Fāṭimah.’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ He asked, ‘Do you have anything with which to marry her?’ I replied, ‘By Allah, no, O Messenger of Allah.’ He said, ‘What has become of the coat of mail with which I armed you?’ By Him in whose hand is the soul of ʿAlī, it was a Ḥuṭamiyyah coat of mail worth no more than four dirhams. I said, ‘It is with me.’ He said, ‘I have married her to you—send it to her and use it as her bridal gift.’ Thus that coat of mail became the dowry of Fāṭimah, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).”

Ibn Isḥāq adds: “Fāṭimah bore to ʿAlī al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, Muḥassin—who died in infancy—Umm Kulthūm, and Zaynab.”

Al-Bayhaqī also transmits, through the route of ʿAtāʾ ibn as-Sāʾib from his father, from ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—who said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) furnished Fāṭimah with a velvet cloak, a waterskin, and a leather pillow stuffed with fragrant idhkhir grass.”

Al-Bayhaqī further cites, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mandah in his work al-Maʿrifah, that ʿAlī married Fāṭimah one year after the Hijrah and consummated the marriage a year later.

I (the author) say: According to that reckoning, he consummated the marriage with her at the beginning of the third year after the Hijrah. Yet the apparent flow of the ḥadīth concerning the two she-camels indicates that this occurred shortly after the Battle of Badr, placing it, as we have noted, near the end of the second year. Allah knows best.

Section: A summary of events that took place in the second year after the Hijrah

We have already spoken of his marriage—peace and blessings be upon him—to ʿĀʾishah, Mother of the Believers—may Allah be pleased with her—as well as the well-known expeditions. Those accounts also recorded the deaths of prominent figures among both the believers and the polytheists.