The ruler of Alexandria—his name was Jurayj ibn Mīnā—sent her together with her sister, Sirīn. Abū Nuʿaym relates that she was one of four maid-servants he dispatched, and Allah knows best. He also sent a castrated servant named Maʾbūr and a mule known as al-Duldul. The Prophet accepted the gift.

He chose Māriyah for himself. She came from a village in Egypt called Ḥafn, in the district of Anṣinā. In honor of her, because she bore the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, a male child—namely Ibrāhīm—Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, during his governorship, remitted the kharāj (land tax) of the people of that village.

They say that Māriyah was fair-skinned and beautiful; the Messenger of Allah admired and loved her, and she enjoyed a special place with him, all the more so after she had given birth to his son Ibrāhīm.

As for her sister Sirīn, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave her to Ḥassān ibn Thābit, and she bore him his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥassān.

The eunuch Maʾbūr used to enter upon Māriyah and Sirīn without seeking permission, as was the custom in Egypt. Some people spoke ill because of this, not realizing that he was a eunuch until the matter became clear—as we shall explain shortly, if Allah wills.

Regarding the mule, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, rode it, and it appears—Allah knows best—that it was the one he rode on the Day of Ḥunayn. The animal lived a long time; it remained in the possession of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib during his caliphate, and when he died it passed to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. It became so old that barley had to be crushed for it to eat.

Abū Bakr ibn Khuzaymah said: Muḥammad ibn Ziyād ibn ʿUbayd Allāh narrated to us, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah informed us, from Bashīr ibn al-Muhājir, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buraydah ibn al-Ḥuṣayb, from his father, who said: “The governor of the Copts presented to the Messenger of Allah two slave-girls who were sisters and a mule. He rode the mule in Madinah, kept one of the two girls—she bore him his son Ibrāhīm—and he bestowed the other on someone else.”

Al-Wāqidī said: Yaʿqūb ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ṣaʿṣaʿah related to us, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ṣaʿṣaʿah, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was taken with Māriyah the Copt. She was fair-skinned, curly-haired, and beautiful. He lodged her and her sister with Umm Sulaym bint Milḥān. The Prophet visited them, invited them to Islam, and they embraced it there. He then had relations with Māriyah by virtue of ownership and moved her to an estate he owned in the ʿAwālī district—property that had belonged to Banū al-Naḍīr—where she stayed in the summer and during the date harvest; he would visit her there. She was devout. He gave her sister Sirīn to Ḥassān ibn Thābit, and she bore him ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Māriyah bore the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, a son whom he named Ibrāhīm. The Prophet offered an ʿaqīqah for him with a sheep on the seventh day, shaved his head, gave in charity silver equal to the weight of his hair to the poor, ordered that the hair be buried in the ground, and he named him—