Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayyah (radiAllahu anha) was
married to the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) 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 Salama and Abdal 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 Quraysh 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, Abdal
Asad and Umm Salama had received the Prophet's permission to
immigrate to Medina, but this proved not to be as easy as they
might have imagined.
In the words of Umm Salama: "When Abu
Salama (my husband) decided to leave for Medina, he prepared a
camel for me, lifted me up onto it and put my son Salama 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 betaken 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
Mecca 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 was in
charge of looking after the Ka'bah, but did not embrace Islam until
the Conquest of Makkah).
"'Were 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 Salama and her son were reunited with Abu
Salama, and in the next few years that followed, they were always
near the heart of the growing Muslim community of Madinah al
Munawarrah.
They were present when the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam)
and Abu Bakr (radiAllahu anhu) arrived safely from Makkah, and
at the battle of Badr, Abu Salama 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 Salama was nursing him, he said to her, "I once
heard the Messenger of Allah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) 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 Salama remained sick in bed for several
days. One morning the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) came
to see him. The visit was longer than usual, and while the Prophet
was still at his bedside, Abu Salama died.
With his blessed hands, the Prophet closed the eyes of his dead
Companion and then raised them in prayer.
"O Allah, grant forgiveness to Abu Salama; 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. Ameen."
Once again Umm Salama 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'oon!" "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
Salama whose family was the first to emigrate to the Messenger of
Allah?"
All the Muslims in Madinah were aware of Umm Salama's situation,
and when her idda period of four months and ten days were over,
Abu Bakr (radiAllahu anhu) proposed marriage to her, but she
refused.
Then Umar (radiAllahu anhu) asked her to marry him, but again
she refused. Then the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) himself
asked for her hand in marriage.
"O Messenger of Allah," Umm Salama 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, "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 A.H., and so it was that Allah
answered the prayer of Umm Salama and gave her better than Abu
Salama.
From that day on, Umm Salama was not only the mother of Salama,
but also became the 'Mother of the Believers' 'Umm al
Muminin'.
Umm Salama 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 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 (radiAllahu ahna) said, "When the
Messenger of Allah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) married Umm
Salama, 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 (salAllahu alayhi
wasalam) asked her advice in tricky situations.
Like A'isha and Hafsa, Umm Salama 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 (salAllahu alayhi
wasalam) while Umm Salama was with him, and had a conversation
with him.
After Jibril had left, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him) said to Umm Salama, "Do you know who that was?"
and she replied that it was a man called Dihya al Khalbi.
"By Allah," said Umm Salama, "I didn't think it was anyone else
until the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him) told me who it really was."
She also had a home for her four children:
Salama, Umar, Zainab, and Durra who were the foster children of
the Prophet.
Once she was with the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) with her
daughter Zainab when Fatimah came with al Hasan and al Husain.
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 Salama began to weep and the Messenger of Allah
(salAllahu alayhi wasalam) 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 Zainab grew up in the care of the Messenger of
Allah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) and become one of the most
intelligent women of her time.
Once Zainab came in while the Prophet was bathing and he
splashed water in her face. Afterwards face retained its
youthfulness even into her old age.
Her son Salama later married Umama, the
daughter of Hamza, the martyred uncle of the Prophet.
Umm Salama was married to the Prophet (salAllahu alayhi
wasalam) for seven years until his death in 10 A.H. 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, may Allah be pleased with them, until she died in
61 A.H., at the age of eighty four , and Abu Hurairah said the
funeral prayer over her.
RadiAllahu anha.