Hafsah bint Umar

Ḥafṣah bint ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was born roughly five years before the daʿwah began and married young, around eleven or twelve, to Khunays ibn Ḥudhāfah, with whom she emigrated to Abyssinia. Khunays fought at both Badr and Uḥud, dying of wounds from the latter; Ḥafṣah was left a childless widow in her late teens.

ʿUmar sought a suitable second marriage for her, first approaching ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, recently widowed himself after the death of his wife Ruqayyah at Badr, who demurred without explanation, then Abū Bakr, who also gave no answer. Both men, unknown to ʿUmar, were aware the Prophet (ﷺ) intended to propose for her himself and could not disclose it. Deeply hurt by what felt like a double rejection, ʿUmar eventually raised the matter with the Prophet (ﷺ), who told him: "Ḥafṣah will marry someone better than ʿUthmān, and ʿUthmān will marry someone better than Ḥafṣah", ʿUthmān would go on to marry the Prophet's (ﷺ) own daughter Umm Kulthūm. The Prophet (ﷺ) then proposed for Ḥafṣah directly, becoming his fourth living wife (Khadījah, Sawdah, ʿĀʾishah, then Ḥafṣah). Abū Bakr later explained his silence to ʿUmar directly, adding that had the Prophet (ﷺ) not proposed first, he would gladly have accepted.

ʿĀʾishah described Ḥafṣah as her closest rival among the Prophet's (ﷺ) wives, sharing a similar age, sharp wit, and boldness inherited from their respective fathers. On at least one occasion tension arose between Ḥafṣah and the Prophet (ﷺ) serious enough that he considered, or, in one report, issued, a divorce; Jibrīl is reported to have intervened, telling the Prophet (ﷺ) to take her back, describing her as "ṣawwāmah qawwāmah" (one devoted to fasting and prayer) and destined to be his wife in Jannah. On another occasion, finding her in tears after a dispute with the Prophet (ﷺ), ʿUmar told her plainly that if he divorced her again he would never speak to her, making clear he would not take his own daughter's side against his son-in-law.

Ḥafṣah was among the very few women of her era literate enough to read and write. After Abū Bakr's death, custody of the original compiled muṣḥaf of the Qurʾān, first assembled in his caliphate, passed to ʿUmar as caliph, and upon ʿUmar's assassination, with no successor yet installed, it passed into Ḥafṣah's keeping. She held it until ʿUthmān, as caliph, needed it to produce the standardized muṣḥaf distributed across the Islamic lands, after which she retained her copy until her own death (41 or 45 AH), and was buried in Baqīʿ al-Gharqad.