Umm Salamah
أُمُّ سَلَمَةَUmm Salamah
Companion · Umm al-Mu'minin · Narrator of Hadith
Biography
Umm Salamah رضي الله عنها, whose name was Hind bint Abī Umayya al-Makhzūmiyyah, was among the first women to accept Islām and among the fifteen who made the first Hijra to Abyssinia in the fifth year of the Dawah, along with her husband Abū Salamah.
Her husband died in Abyssinia, leaving her widowed in a foreign land, cut off from her family and community in Makkah, without a maḥram (male guardian) and without support. She described in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī what it meant to be in "a good land, with good neighbors, safe in our religion", but personally isolated.
Out of mercy to her situation, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم proposed marriage to her. She hesitated, saying she was a widow with young children and feared he would resent them. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم reassured her. She became one of the Ummahāt al-Muʾminīn (Mothers of the Believers), a major source of Seerah narrations and Islamic scholarship. She is one of the most prominent female narrators of hadith among the companions.
Stories
The First Hijra: Fifteen Muslims Emigrate to Abyssinia
storyAfter a year and a half of public Dawah, more than a year of open torture, of camel entrails, of burning iron, of choking, of boulder and desert heat,…
Read the full story →Surah An-Najm, the Quraysh's Sajdah, and the Return from Abyssinia
storyThree months. That is how long the first Abyssinian emigrants lasted before a rumor brought them back to the very land they had fled. They had immigr…
Read the full story →The Return from Abyssinia and the Second Hijra of Eighty
storyThe first batch of Abyssinian emigrants, twelve men and five women, seventeen in total, returned to Mecca on a false rumor that Quraysh had accepted I…
Read the full story →Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib Before the Najāshī
storySpeaker introduction: Umm Salamah (رضي الله عنها), who would later become a wife of the Prophet (SAW), is the primary narrator of the Abyssinian perio…
Read the full story →The Faith of the Najāshī, the Civil War, and the Ṣalāh al-Ghāʾib
storyAfter Jaʿfar's hearing, a new threat emerged from within the Abyssinian court itself. When the Najāshī said publicly that what the Muslims recited abo…
Read the full story →Umm Salamah's Hijrah: Sixteen Months of Separation
storyAbu Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Asad was the first companion to emigrate to Madinah. He went openly, loading his wife Umm Salamah and their infant son onto a…
Read the full story →The Marriage of Umm Salamah
companion biographyShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: Umm Salamah, Hind bint Abī Umayyah of Banū Makhzūm, was married to Abū Salamah (ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Asad), the Prophet…
Read the full story →The Hardship of the Siege, and the Night Patrols
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: Reports on the exact duration of the Trench's construction vary, Ibn Saʿd gives six days, others as many as fifteen, and…
Read the full story →Abu Lubabah's Slip, Repentance, and the Pillar of Tawbah
companion biographyShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: Late in the siege, Banū Qurayẓah asked specifically for Abū Lubābah, an Anṣārī of the Aws who, from the tribe's pre-Isla…
Read the full story →The Shaving and the Exit From Ihram
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: With the treaty done, the Prophet ﷺ told the Companions to rise, sacrifice their animals, shave their heads, and prepare…
Read the full story →Two Cousins Seek Forgiveness
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains: As the army neared Makkah, two men slipped out in fear to embrace Islam before the city fell, both first cousins of the…
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