Khālid ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ concluded the marriage contract, and the Negus paid a dowry of four hundred dinars on the Prophet’s behalf and sent her to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the seventh year AH (1).

When her father came in the Year of the Conquest to reaffirm the pact that had existed between them and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ (2), he entered her quarters and she folded the Prophet’s bedding away from him. He said, “By Allah, my daughter, I do not know—did you deem this bedding too good for me, or me too good for it?” She replied, “Rather, it is the bedding of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, while you are a man who still associates others with Allah.” He answered, “By Allah, my daughter, you have suffered evil since leaving me.” (3)

She was indeed among the noblest of women, a Mother of the Believers, devout and God-fearing.

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī said: Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Sabrah related to me, from ʿAbd al-Majīd ibn Suhayl (4), from ʿAwf ibn al-Ḥārith, who said: I heard ʿĀʾishah say, “Umm Ḥabībah summoned me during her final illness and said, ‘There has been between us what normally occurs between co-wives.’ I replied, ‘May Allah forgive both you and me for all of that; I pardon you completely.’ She said, ‘You have made me happy; may Allah make you happy.’ She then sent word to Umm Salamah and said the same to her.” (5)

[Then came the year 45 AH.]

In that year Muʿāwiyah appointed al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Azdi as governor of Basra, but after four months he dismissed him and installed Ziyād. Ziyād (6) arrived first in Kufa, where al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah was governor, and remained there awaiting Muʿāwiyah’s envoy confirming his governorship of Basra. Al-Mughīrah supposed that he had come to take charge of Kufa, so he dispatched Wāʾil ibn Ḥujr to discover his intentions, but obtained no clear answer. A courier from Muʿāwiyah then arrived ordering Ziyād to proceed to Basra as its governor; he also placed Khurasan and Sijistan under him, and later added India, Bahrain, and Oman.

Ziyād entered Basra on the first of Jumada al-Ūlā. In the very first sermon he delivered—having found open vice widespread in Basra—he declared:

“O people! It is as though you have never heard what Allah has prepared of reward for those who obey Him and punishment for those who disobey. Will you be like one whose eyesight has been dazzled by worldly life and whose hearing has been sealed by passions, so that he chooses the perishable over the everlasting …” (7)