UMMU SALAMA HIND BINT ABI UMAYYA
Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayya, may Allah be pleased with
her, was married to the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) 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 Mecca. 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 Mecca, 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
Mecca, 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 Medina 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 Umayya 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 Medina, and
leave my son, part of my own flesh and blood, in Mecca
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 Mecca?
"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 Medina. I just
had just reached Tan’im (3 miles from Mecca) 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
Mecca). "‘Were are you going, Bint Zad ar Rakib?’ he
asked. ‘I am going to my husband in Medina.’ ‘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 Medina.’
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
Medina. When we reached a village near Quba (about two
miles from Medina), 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 Mecca."
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 Medina al Munawarra.
They were present when the Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) and Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with
him) arrived safely from Mecca, 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 (peace and blessings of Allah
be upon him) 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 (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him) 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. Amin.”
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’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 Salama whose
family was the first to emigrate to the Messenger of
Allah?” All the Muslims in Medina were aware of Umm
Salama’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 (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) 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 AH, 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’.