Umm Ayman (Barakah bint Tha'labah)

Her name was Barakah bint Thaʿlabah رضي الله عنها, but history knows her as Umm Ayman, the mother of Ayman. She was born approximately 557 CE in Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), about thirteen years before the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. She was the only woman who was with the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم from the moment he was born until the moment he died, and she outlived him.

She was purchased as a young girl at Sūq al-ʿUkāẓ by ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the father of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, and was the only servant in that household. When ʿAbdullāh died on a trade journey to Syria while Āminah was pregnant, Barakah kept Āminah company through the pregnancy, delivered the news of ʿAbdullāh's death to her, and was the only other person in the room when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was born. She was the first human being to hold him. She nursed him, one of three women who did, alongside Āminah and Ḥalīmah al-Saʿdiyyah.

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was six, Āminah died on the road back from Yathrib. Āminah's final whispered words were to Barakah: "Take care of him as if you are his mother." She was about nineteen years old and became his only maternal figure. She consoled him through the death of his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib three years later.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم freed her as an adult and introduced her to Khadijah رضي الله عنها with the words: هِيَ أُمِّي بَعْدَ أُمِّي, "she is my mother after my mother." Khadijah arranged her first marriage, to ʿUbayd ibn Zayd of the Khazraj in Yathrib. Her son from this marriage was named Ayman, giving her the kunya Umm Ayman. Her first husband died before Islam; she returned to the Prophet's household with her son.

She was the second woman to accept Islam after Khadijah. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Whoever wants to marry a woman from the people of Paradise, let him marry Umm Ayman." Zayd ibn Ḥārithah رضي الله عنه, at least twenty years younger, married her about six years after the revelation began. Allah blessed them with Usāmah ibn Zayd, the Ḥibbu an-Nabiyy.

During the Hijra she walked to Madinah at nearly seventy years old. When she was about to die of thirst, a bucket descended from the sky on a rope she could not see the end of. She drank until satisfied and poured the rest over herself, and by her own testimony she was never thirsty again for the rest of her life.

In Madinah the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم visited her every day and called her: هَذِهِ بَقِيَّةُ أَهْلِ بَيْتِي, "this is the entirety of what remains of my family." When asked "how are you?" she always answered: مَا دَامَ الْإِسْلَامُ بِخَيْرٍ فَأَنَا بِخَيْرٍ, "as long as Islam is well, I am well." She participated in every battle, tending the wounded and standing by the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, at Uḥud she took up a sword when others fled. She lost her son Ayman at Ḥunayn and her husband Zayd at Muʾtah.

After the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم died she went silent. When Abū Bakr and ʿUmar visited her and assumed she wept out of grief, she corrected them: "I am crying because the revelation has ceased coming from the heavens." All three wept together. She died approximately twenty days after ʿUmar's assassination, at nearly one hundred years old, and was buried in al-Baqīʿ in a direct line with the grave of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم.