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Hamnah bint Jahsh

حَمْنَةُ بِنْتُ جَحْشٍ

Ḥamnah bint Jaḥsh

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Biography

Ḥamnah bint Jaḥsh was the sister of the prominent Companion Zaynab bint Jaḥsh and the wife of Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr. At Uḥud she lost both her brother (in some accounts) and her husband Muṣʿab on the same day. The Prophet () personally visited her household to break the news himself, given Muṣʿab's standing as one of the two most prominent Muhājirūn martyred that day. He broke the news gradually, "iḥtasibī" (bear this with patience, expecting reward from Allah), first for her brother, to which she responded with the words of submission, "Innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn," and made duʿāʾ for him. When told next of Muṣʿab's death, she broke into loud grief. The Prophet () remarked afterward that a husband holds a station in his wife's heart unmatched even by that of a brother.

Significance

Her grief at the Prophet's (ﷺ) news of her husband Muṣʿab's martyrdom, sharper than her grief over her brother, became the basis for a hadith on the unique station of a husband in a wife's heart

Stories

Historical context