Among his wives was Umāmah bint Abī al-ʿĀṣ ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn ʿAbd Shams (1) ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy. Her mother was Zaynab, daughter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and she is the child whom the Prophet ﷺ used to carry while he prayed: when he stood he held her, and when he prostrated he set her down. She bore him Muḥammad the Middle (Muḥammad al-Awsaṭ).
As for his son Muḥammad the Elder (Muḥammad al-Akbar), he was the son of al-Ḥanafiyyah—Khawlah bint Jaʿfar ibn Qays ibn Muslimah ibn ʿUbayd ibn Thaʿlabah ibn Yarbuʿ ibn Thaʿlabah ibn al-Duʾul ibn Ḥanīfah ibn Lujaym ibn Saʿb ibn ʿAlī ibn Bakr ibn Wāʾil. Khālid [ibn al-Walīd] captured her from Banū Ḥanīfah during the Ridda campaigns in the caliphate of al-Ṣiddīq. She came into the possession of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and bore him this Muḥammad. Some of the Shīʿah claim for him the rank of Imamate and infallibility. He was indeed one of the eminent leaders of the Muslims, yet he was not infallible, nor was his father, nor even those of the Rightly Guided Caliphs who surpassed his father in merit; none of them enjoyed obligatory immunity from error, as has been established elsewhere. Allah knows best.
ʿAlī had many other children from various concubines, for he died leaving four wives and nineteen bondwomen—may Allah be pleased with him.
Among his children—may Allah be pleased with them—whose mothers’ names are unknown are: Umm Hāniʾ, Maymūnah, Zaynab the Younger, Ramlah the Elder, Umm Kulthūm the Younger, Fāṭimah, Umāmah, Khadījah, Umm al-Karām, Umm Jaʿfar, Umm Salamah, and Jumānah.
Ibn Jarīr (2) said: “The total number of ʿAlī’s offspring was fourteen males and seventeen females.”
Al-Wāqidī (3) said: “His posterity continued only through five: al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah, al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Kilābiyyah, and ʿUmar ibn al-Taghlibiyyah—may Allah be pleased with them all.”
Ibn Jarīr (4) also related: “Ibn Sinān al-Qazzāz narrated to me; Abū ʿĀṣim (5) narrated to us; Sukayn ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to us; Jaʿfar (6) ibn Khālid informed us, saying: My father, Khālid ibn Jābir, told me: I heard al-Ḥasan, when ʿAlī was killed, rise and address the people…"