was Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays. When al-Ṣiddīq was on his death-bed he instructed that she wash his body, and she did so. After her waiting period had elapsed, ʿAlī married her, and Muḥammad grew up in his care. When the caliphate devolved upon ʿAlī, he appointed Muḥammad governor of Egypt after Qays ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah, as mentioned earlier. In the present year, however, Muʿāwiyah sent ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, who seized Egypt from him and killed Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, as has already been detailed. Muḥammad was not yet thirty years old, and ʿĀʾishah, ʿAlī, and others mourned him deeply. May Allah have mercy on him and be pleased with him.
Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays (1) ibn Maʿbad (2) ibn al-Ḥārith al-Khathʿamiyyah—the mother of the aforementioned Muḥammad—embraced Islam early in Mecca. She migrated with her husband Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib to Abyssinia and later returned with him to Khaybar, bearing him ʿAbd Allāh, Muḥammad, and ʿAwn. When Jaʿfar was slain at Muʾtah, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq married her, and she bore him Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, the governor of Egypt (3). After al-Ṣiddīq’s death, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib married her, and she bore him Yaḥyā and ʿAwn. Through her mother she was the sister of Maymūnah bint al-Ḥārith, Mother of the Believers, and likewise of Umm al-Faḍl, the wife of al-ʿAbbās. In all she had nine maternal sisters, among them Salmā bint ʿUmays, the wife of al-ʿAbbās, who bore him a daughter named ʿUmārah.
Then the year 39 AH began. In it Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān mustered numerous armies and sent them to the borders of the districts held by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. Muʿāwiyah, having appointed ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ after reaching an agreement with Abū Mūsā to depose ʿAlī, considered that this investiture had taken effect (4) and that obedience was therefore due to him. Moreover, the troops of ʿAlī—men of Iraq—disobeyed him in many matters and would not carry out his commands, so that under such circumstances he could not achieve the aims of governance (5). [Thus Muʿāwiyah claimed a superior right to rule on that account] (6). Among those he dispatched that year was al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, leading two thousand cavalry to ʿAyn