A Hashimite, an Abbasid. She was the wife of Hārūn al-Rashīd and, despite the concubines and other wives he kept, the one he loved most in his day, as we mentioned in his biography (1).
She was nicknamed Zubaydah because her grandfather, Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr, used to play with her and dance her about when she was a small child, saying, “You are nothing but cream—zubd—O little Zubaydah!” The name prevailed until she was known by no other. Her given name was Amat al-ʿAzīz. She possessed an outstanding share of beauty, wealth, generosity, and piety, and she founded a vast number of charities, awqāf (endowments), and other acts of devotion.
Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī relates that when she performed the pilgrimage her expenses over sixty days reached fifty-four million dirhams (2).
When she congratulated al-Maʾmūn on his accession to the caliphate as he entered Baghdad, she said to him, “Before seeing you I had already congratulated myself on your behalf (3). True, I have lost a son who was a caliph, but I have been compensated with a son—also a caliph—whom I did not bear. Whoever gains someone like you has lost nothing, nor is the mother bereaved whose hands are filled with the likes of you. I ask Allah to reward me for what He has taken and to let me long enjoy what He has granted in return (4).”
It is further reported (5) that she died in Baghdad in Jumada al-Ūlā, 216 AH.
Al-Khaṭīb then said: al-Ḥasan (6) ibn Muḥammad al-Khallāl narrated to me verbatim; he said: I found (7) in the handwriting of Abū al-Fatḥ al-Qawwās: “[He] said: Ṣadaqah ibn Hubayrah al-Mawṣilī narrated to us, [saying:] Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Wāsiṭī narrated to us that ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak said, ‘I saw Zubaydah in a dream. I asked her, “How did Allah deal with you?” She replied, “He forgave me for the very first pickaxe that struck the ground on the road to Mecca.” I asked, “And what is this yellowness I see upon you?” She said, “A man named Bishr al-Marīsī (8) was buried among us; Hell exhaled one breath against him that made my body shudder, and this pallor is from that breath.”’” (9)
Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān noted that she owned one hundred slave-girls, every one of whom had memorized the Noble Quran; each girl’s daily portion was one-tenth of the Quran, so that a continuous humming like the buzzing of bees could be heard throughout the palace (10).