Umm Salamah, Mother of the Believers (1)—Hind bint Abī Umayyah Ḥudhayfah, and it is also said: Suhayl (2) ibn al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Makhzūm, of the noble Makhzūm clan of Quraysh.

She was first married to her cousin Abū Salamah ʿAbd al-Asad. When he died, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ married her and consummated the marriage with her in Shawwāl of the second year after the Battle of Badr (3).

She had heard from her husband Abū Salamah a hadith from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in which he said:

“Whenever a Muslim is struck by a calamity and then says, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. O Allah, reward me for my affliction and grant me something better in exchange,’ Allah will surely give him something better than it.”

She related: “When Abū Salamah died, I said those words and then added, ‘But who could possibly be better than Abū Salamah, the first man to emigrate?’ Yet Allah enabled me to say them again, and He granted me someone better than him—the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” (4)

She was renowned for her beauty and her devotion in worship.

Al-Wāqidī said: She died in the year 59 AH, and Abū Hurayrah led her funeral prayer.

Ibn Abī Khaythamah said: She died during the reign of Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah.

I say: The aforementioned reports about the martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn indicate that she lived beyond that event; Allah knows best. May Allah be pleased with her.

[Then came the year 62 AH.]

It is said that in this year a delegation from the radiant city of Madinah traveled to Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah. He honored them and bestowed generous gifts upon them. They returned with those gifts, yet they deposed him and appointed ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥanẓalah al-Ghasīl as their leader. Yazīd therefore dispatched troops against them in the following year to Madinah, and the Battle of al-Ḥarrah ensued, whose details we shall recount under the next year, if Allah Most High wills.