Umm Salamah Hind bint Abi Umayyah (ra)

Umm Salamah Hind bint Abi Umayyah was married to the Prophet (saws) in 4 AH at the age of twenty nine, after her first husband, Abdullah ibn Abdul Asad, had died from the wounds he had received while fighting at the battle of Uhud. Umm Salamah and Abdul Asad had been among the first people to embrace Islam in the early days of the Muslim community in Makkah. They had suffered at the hands of the Quraish who had tried to force them to abandon their new faith, and had been among the first group of Muslims to seek refuge under the protection of the Negus in Abyssinia. When they had returned to Makkah, believing that the situation of the Muslims had improved, they had found instead that if anything it was worse. Rather than return to Abyssinia, Abdul Asad and Umm Salamah had received the Prophet's (saws) permission to immigrate to Madinah, but this proved not to be as easy as they might have imagined.

In the words of Umm Salamah: "When Abu Salamah (my husband) decided to leave for Madinah, he prepared a camel for me, lifted me up onto it and put my son Salamah on my lap. My husband then took the lead and went straight ahead without stopping or waiting for anything. Before we were out of Makkah, however, some men from my tribe, the Banu Mahkhzum, stopped us and said to my husband: "Although you may be free to do what you like with yourself, you have no power over your wife. She is our daughter. Do you expect us to allow you to take her away from us?' They then grabbed hold of him and snatched me away from him. Some men from my husband's tribe, the Banu Abdul Asad, saw them taking both me and my child and became hot with rage: "No, by Allah!' They shouted. 'We shall not abandon the boy. He is our son and we have a rightful claim over him.' So they took him by his arm and pulled him away from me. Suddenly, in the space of a few minutes, I found myself all alone. My husband headed out towards Madinah by himself; his tribe had snatched away my son from me; and my own tribe had overpowered me and forced me to stay with them. From the day that my husband and my son were parted from me, I went out at noon every day and sat at the spot where this tragedy had occurred. I would remember those terrifying moments and weep until nightfall.

"I continued like this for a year or so until one day a man from the Banu Umayyah passed by and saw my condition. He went to my tribe and said, 'Why don't you free this woman? You have caused both her husband and her son to be taken away from her.' He went on like this, trying to soften their hearts and appealing to their emotions, until at last they said to me, 'Go and join your husband if you wish.' But how could I join my husband in Madinah, and leave my son, part of my own flesh and blood, in Makkah among the Banu Abdul Asad? How could I remain free from anguish, and my eyes free from tears, if I were to reach the place of hijrah not knowing anything of my little son left behind in Makkah?

"Some people realized what I was going through and their hearts went out to me. They approached the Banu Abdul Asad on my behalf and persuaded them to return my son. I had no desire to remain in Makkah until I could find someone to travel with me, for I was afraid that something might happen that would delay me or stop me from reaching my husband. So I immediately prepared my camel, placed my son on my lap, and set out in the direction of Madinah. I just had just reached Tan'im (3 miles from Makkah) when I met Uthman ibn Talha (He as in charge of looking after the Ka'ba, but did not embrace Islam until the Conquest of Makkah). "'Where are you going, Bint Zad ar Rakib?' he asked. 'I am going to my husband in Madinah.' 'And isn't there anyone going with you?' 'No, by Allah, except Allah and my little boy here.' 'By Allah,' he vowed, 'I will not leave you until you reach Madinah.'

He then took the reins of my camel and led us on our way. By Allah, I have never met an Arab more generous and noble than he. Whenever we reached a resting-place, he would make my camel kneel down, wait until I had dismounted and then lead the camel to a tree and tether it. Then he would go and rest in the shade of a different tree to me. When we had rested, he would get the camel ready again and then lead us on our way. This he did every day until we reached Madinah. When we reached a village near Quba (about two miles from Madinah), belonging to the Banu Amr ibn Awf, he said, 'Your husband is in this village. Enter it with the blessings of Allah.' Then he turned round and headed back to Makkah."

Thus after many difficult months of separation, Umm Salamah and her son were reunited with Abu Salamah, and in the next few years that followed, they were always near the heart of the growing Muslim community of Madinah al-Munawarra. They were present when the Prophet (saws) and Abu Bakr arrived safely from Makkah, and at the battle of Badr Abu Salamah fought bravely. At the battle of Uhud, however, he was badly wounded. At first his wound appeared to respond well to treatment, but then his wounds re opened after an expedition against the Banu Abdul Asad, and after that they refused to heal and he remained bedridden. Once while Umm Salamah was nursing him, he said to her, "I once heard the Messenger of Allah (saws) that whenever a calamity afflicts anyone he should say what Allah has commanded him to say: 'Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un!' 'Surely we come from Allah and surely to Him we return!' and then he should say, 'O Lord, reward me for my affliction and give me something better than it in return, which only You, the Exalted the Mighty, can give.'"

Abu Salamah remained sick in bed for several days. One morning the Prophet (saws) came to see him. The visit was longer than usual, and while the Prophet was still at his bedside, Abu Salamah died. With his blessed hands, the Prophet (saws) closed the eyes of his dead Companion and then raised them in prayer. "O Allah, grant forgiveness to Abu Salamah; elevate him among those who are near to You; take charge of his family at all times; forgive us and him, O Lord of the worlds; make his grave spacious for him and fill it with light."

Once again Umm Salamah was alone, only now she had not one child, but several. There was no one to look after her and them. Recalling what her husband had told her while she was looking after him, she repeated the dua'a that he had remembered: "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un!" "Surely we come from Allah and surely to Him we return!" she repeated. "O Lord, reward me for my affliction and give me something better than it in return, which only You, the Exalted and Mighty, can give." Then she thought to herself, "What Muslim is better than Abu Salamah whose family was the first to emigrate to the Messenger of Allah?" All the Muslims in Madinah were aware of Umm Salamah's situation, and when her idda period of four months and ten days were over, Abu Bakr proposed marriage to her, but she refused. Then Umar asked her to marry him, but again she refused. Then the Prophet (saws) himself asked for her hand in marriage. "O Messenger of Allah," Umm Salamah replied, "I have three main characteristics: I am a woman who is extremely jealous and I am afraid that you will see something in me that will make you angry and cause Allah to punish me; I am a woman who is already advanced in age; and I am a woman who has many children."

"As for your jealousy," answered the Prophet (saws), "I pray to Allah the Almighty to take it away from you. As for your age, I am older than you. As for your many children, they belong to Allah and His Messenger."

The Prophet's answered eased her heart, and so they were married in Shawwal, 4 AH, and so it was that Allah answered the prayer of Umm Salamah and gave her better than Abu Salamah. From that day on, Umm Salamah was not only the mother of Salamah, but also became the 'Mother of the Believers' 'Ummul Mumineen'.

Umm Salamah (r.a) the wife of the Prophet Muhammad (saws) narrates: “I heard Rasulullah (saws) say: Never a slave of Allah, (who) afflicted with a calamity…says (the following words) except that Allah will grant him for his calamity better than that:

إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون ‏ اَللّهُمَّ أْجُرْنِي فِي مُصِيبَتِي ‏ ‏وَأَخْلِفْ ‏ ‏لِي خَيْرًا مِنْهَا

(Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji`un. Allahumma `jurni fi musibati wa akhlif li khairam minha) - “Verily unto Allah we belong, and unto Him shall we return. O Allah! Reward me in my calamity, and grant me from it something better than that.”

She said: “When Abu Salamah died, I supplicated as the Prophet (saws) had ordered me; so Allah then granted me Rasulullah (saws) (as a husband) better than him.” [Sahih Muslim]

Umm Salamah was not the only wife to have been widowed as a result of the battle of Uhud, and thanks to this marriage, many of the Companions followed the Prophet's (saws) example, marrying widows and thereby bringing them and their children into the circle of their families, instead of leaving them to struggle on their own.

A'isha said, "When the Messenger of Allah (saws) married Umm Salamah, I felt very unhappy when he mentioned her beauty to us. I waited until I saw her and she was even more beautiful than her description." She was also from a very noble family and known for her keen intelligence. On more than one occasion, the Prophet (saws) asked her advice in tricky situations.

In the 6th Hijrah year, the Prophet (saws) accompanied by his 1,400 companions decided to perform 'Umrah (minor Pilgrimage). When Quraysh learned about this, they decided to stop the Muslims from performing the pilgrimage; but when the Muslims decided to fight them they feared and signed a treaty with the Muslims, which consisted of several terms and conditions which appeared to be unfair for the Muslims as it prevented them from performing 'Umrah that year.

The Prophet (saws) accepted these conditions in adherence to the Divine Command instructing him to do so. He then commanded his Companions to get up, slaughter their sacrificial animals, and shave their heads, but none of them got up. (The Prophet (saws)) was telling his Companions to end the state of ihraam which they had entered in order to perform 'Umrah. They had been prevented from entering Makkah, and were to wait until the following year to perform 'Umrah, but they did not want to abandon their hope of performing 'Umrah on this occasion. They did not want to accept the deal that had been struck with the Quraysh, hence they were reluctant to end their ihraam.)

He told them three times to do this, but not one of them responded. He went to his wife Umm Salamah, and told her what he was facing from the people. At this point the wisdom and intelligence of Umm Salamah become quite clear. She told him, “O Messenger of Allah, go out and do not speak to any of them until you have sacrificed your animal and shaved your head.”

The Prophet (saws) took her advice, and did as she suggested. When the Sahabah saw that, they rushed to sacrifice their animals, pushing one another aside, and some of them began to shave one another’s heads, until they were almost fighting with one another because of their distress and grief, and their regret for having disobeyed the Prophet (saws).

[Zad al-Ma'ad, 3:295, al-Tabari, 2/124]

Like A'isha and Hafsa, Umm Salamah learned the whole of the Qur'an by heart, and an indication of her high station with Allah can be found in the fact that she was permitted to see the angel Jibril in human form: It has been related by Salman that Jibril came to the Messenger of Allah (saws) while Umm Salamah was with him, and had a conversation with him. After Jibril had left, the Prophet (saws) said to Umm Salamah, "Do you know who that was?" and she replied that it was a man called Dihya al Khalbi. "By Allah," said Umm Salamah, "I didn't think it was anyone else until the Messenger of Allah (saws) told me who it really was."

She also had a home for her four children: Salamah, Umar, Zaynab, and Durra who were the foster children of the Prophet. Once she was with the Prophet (saws) with her daughter Zaynab when Fatima came with a-Hasan and al-Husayn. He embraced his two grandsons and said, "may the mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you, People of the House. He is Praiseworthy, Glorious." Umm Salamah began to weep and the Messenger of Allah (saws) looked at her and asked tenderly, "Why are you weeping?" She replied, "O Messenger of Allah, you singled them out and left me and my daughter!" He said, "You and your daughter are among the People of the House." Her daughter Zaynab grew up in the care of the Messenger of Allah (saws) and become one of the most intelligent women of her time. Once Zaynab came in while the Prophet (saws) was bathing and he splashed water in her face. Afterwards face retained its youthfulness even into her old age.

Her son Salamah later married Umama, the daughter of Hamza, the martyred uncle of the Prophet (saws). Umm Salamah was married to the Prophet (saws) for 7 years until his death in 10 AH and accompanied him on many of his expeditions: Hudaybiyya, Khaybar, the Conquest of Makkah, the siege of Ta'if, the expedition against Hawazin and Thaqif, and the Farewell Hajj. She continued to live for a long time, outliving all the other wives of the Prophet (saws) until she died in 61 AH, at the age of 84. Umm Salamah had narrated 378 Hadeeths of the Prophet (saws). In moral excellence and nobility of conduct, she ranked among the Prophet’s (saws) wives, next only to 'Aa'ishah. Abu Hurayrah led the people in her funeral prayer, after which she was buried in Al-Baqee' Cemetery in Madinah.

[Mainly taken from Imaam Ibn Kathir's “Wives of the Prophet Muhammad“, amongst other sources]