Barakah Umm Ayman: The First Hands

There is a way to measure who truly knew the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Khadijah رضي الله عنها knew him from his mid-twenties. ʿĀʾisha رضي الله عنها knew him as an adult. Baqiyyatu ahli baytī, "the entirety of what's left of my family", was how the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم described one particular woman. Her name was Barakah bint Thaʿlabah رضي الله عنها. She knew him from the moment he came out of his mother's womb until the moment he died. No one else, not a single other human being, can claim that.

❧Barakah in the household of ʿAbdullāh

Barakah was from Abyssinia, present-day Ethiopia. She was born approximately in 557 CE, about thirteen years before the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. She was purchased as a young girl at Sūq al-ʿUkāẓ, the great market of the Jāhiliyyah, by ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the father of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. She was the only servant ever brought into that household: just ʿAbdullāh, Āminah bint Wahb, and this one young girl Barakah.

Not long after the marriage of ʿAbdullāh and Āminah, ʿAbdullāh set out on the summer trade route to ash-Shām (Syria). He did not know that Āminah was pregnant. And while he was away, Āminah had a dream: she saw a light coming from her stomach illuminating the hills and valleys of Makkah, all the way to ash-Shām and beyond. She told Barakah, and Barakah said, this young Abyssinian girl who had barely seen the world, "It is a blessed child with good news." She had noticed that Āminah was getting sick, and she thought: perhaps these are the signs of pregnancy. They were.

So the household was Āminah and Barakah alone, the husband away on trade. Āminah, pregnant and longing for her husband, would send Barakah every day to the place where caravans returned from ash-Shām, to see if ʿAbdullāh had come back. One day Barakah came back alone and had to tell Āminah what she had heard: the caravan had returned, and ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib had not come back with it. He had died on the road. Barakah was the one who delivered that news to the mother of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, and she was the one who stayed by her side through the grief, the pregnancy, and everything that followed.

❧The first hands

When the day came, when Āminah went into labour, the only other person in the room was this young girl Barakah. She was the first human being to hold the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم when he came into the world. She held him, she cleaned him, she saw a light come out of the house at the moment of his birth, and she said: "This is the interpretation of your dream." Then she handed the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to his mother Āminah bint Wahb. She was also one of the three women who nursed the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, the authentic narrations name Āminah herself, Barakah Umm Ayman, and Ḥalīmah al-Saʿdiyyah رضي الله عنها, who took the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to be raised in the open desert, as was the custom.

❧The death of Āminah

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was six years old, Āminah took him to Yathrib to visit the grave of his father. On the return journey she fell ill with a fever. And before she died she whispered to Barakah, who was present, and entrusted her:

وَصَّت بَرَكَة, she entrusted her and said: "Take care of him as if you are his mother."

So Barakah was present for both moments: when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم came out into the world, and when his mother left it. A six-year-old boy who had never known his father, now watching his mother die, and the only one there to console him was Barakah. She was about nineteen years old at the time.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم then went to the household of his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. When ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib died, the Prophet was nine, she consoled him again. Through each loss, she was there.

❧"She is my mother after my mother"

Technically, when ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib died, Barakah passed as part of his estate. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, as an adult, freed her. She was no longer anyone's property. She was free.

But she did not leave.

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم married Khadijah رضي الله عنها, he introduced Barakah to his new wife with these words:

هِيَ أُمِّي بَعْدَ أُمِّي

"She is my mother after my mother." Not "my servant." Not "a woman of the house." My mother after my mother.

Khadijah رضي الله عنها then said to Barakah: I will bring you the best of men and cover all the expenses of your marriage. Barakah said: "I never left him and he never left me. مَا تَرَكْتُهُ وَلَمْ يَتْرُكْنِي." But they both insisted, and eventually she agreed. The suitor Khadijah رضي الله عنها found for her was ʿUbayd ibn Zayd, a good man from the tribe of al-Khazraj in Yathrib. They married before the revelation. She had a son from him, and she named him Ayman, and that is why she became known as Umm Ayman, the mother of Ayman. Her husband died before the coming of Islam, and she moved back into the household of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and Khadijah with her son.

❧Second woman to believe

When the revelation came, Umm Ayman did not hesitate for a moment. She is considered the second woman to accept Islam after Khadijah رضي الله عنها. She had known this man from the moment he was born. The question of whether to believe in him had a simpler answer for her than for anyone else alive.

After she accepted Islam, her first husband had died and she was a widow with her son Ayman. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said about her:

مَنْ سَرَّهُ أَنْ يَتَزَوَّجَ امْرَأَةً مِنْ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ فَلْيَتَزَوَّجْ أُمَّ أَيْمَنَ

"Whoever wants to marry a woman from the people of Paradise, let him marry Umm Ayman."

She had no wealth. Her lineage was unknown. She was an older widow. And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم told anyone who would listen: she is a woman from Paradise. Zayd ibn Ḥārithah رضي الله عنه, at least twenty years younger than her, who had never been married before, stood up and said: "If she is a woman of Paradise, I want to marry her. Because if she is in Paradise, then I am with her in Paradise too." About six years after the revelation, Zayd married Umm Ayman.

And then something unexpected happened. She was past the expected age of childbearing. But Allah سبحانه وتعالى blessed them with a son: Usāmah ibn Zayd رضي الله عنه. The companions called him Ḥibbu Rasūlillāhi ibn Ḥibbu Rasūlillāhi, the beloved of the Prophet, son of the beloved of the Prophet. He grew up jumping on the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم back and sitting on his lap alongside al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, Zaynab, and Umāmah, loved like his own children.

❧The Hijra: water from the sky

When the migration to Madinah came, Umm Ayman رضي الله عنها was approaching seventy years old. She made the journey on foot. At some point during the crossing of the desert, she found herself with no water and feared she would die of thirst.

She narrates: "فَلَمَّا غَابَتِ الشَّمْسُ إِذَا أَنَا بِإِنَاءٍ مُعَلَّقٍ عِنْدَ رَأْسِي, when the sun set, I saw a bucket descending from the sky, suspended at my head by a rope so long I could not see its end." She took the bucket, drank from it until she was satisfied, and poured the rest of the water over her body to cool herself down. And she said:

بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ كُنْتُ أَصُومُ فِي الْيَوْمِ الْحَارِّ ثُمَّ أَطُوفُ فِي الشَّمْسِ كَيْ أَعْطَشَ, وَاللَّهِ مَا عَطِشْتُ بَعْدَهَا أَبَدًا

"After that I would fast on the hottest of days and do ṭawāf under the burning sun trying to make myself thirsty, and by Allah I was never thirsty again for the rest of my life."

When she arrived in Madinah, her feet were swollen and her face was covered with dust. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم looked at her and said:

يَا أُمَّاه، إِنَّ لَكِ فِي الْجَنَّةِ مَكَانًا

"O my mother, you have a place in Paradise." The second time he gave her the glad tidings, the first having been when he introduced her to Khadijah.

❧Her life in Madinah

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم visited her every single day. وَكَانَ يَزُورُهَا كُلَّ يَوْم. When he arrived she would set out bread and food, and if the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was fasting or not hungry, she would push the food toward him and say: "Kul!, Eat!" Just as a mother would.

كَانَتْ تُضَاحِكُهُ, she was the person who would make the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم laugh. Her Arabic was the Arabic of an Abyssinian woman, imperfect, sometimes producing the opposite of what she intended. She would try to say السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُم and it would come out "سَلَامُ لَا عَلَيْكُم, peace not be upon you." The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم told her: "When you come to me, just say السَّلَام." At the battle of Ḥunayn, she was at the back of the lines encouraging the fighters, and instead of calling out ثَبَّتَ اللَّهُ أَقْدَامَكُمْ, "may Allah make your feet firm", she called out "سَبَّتَ اللَّهُ أَقْدَامَكُمْ", which has no meaning at all. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم looked at her and laughed and said: "اسْكُتِي يَا أُمَّ أَيْمَن فَإِنَّكِ عَسْرَاءُ اللِّسَانِ, be quiet, O Umm Ayman, you have a difficult tongue." He was not scolding her. It was the warmth between a son and his mother.

Once she came to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and said: "احْمِلْنِي, carry me", meaning: provide me a mount. He said: "I will carry you on the child of a she-camel, وَلَد النَّاقَة." She objected: "A baby camel cannot carry me, and I don't want that." He kept insisting: "I will only carry you on the child of a she-camel." She was confused. He then said: "يَا أُمَّ أَيْمَن, is there any camel except that it is the child of a she-camel?" Every camel is the child of a she-camel. And she understood, and they both laughed.

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was asked "how are you?" he would answer. When he asked her, كَيْفَ حَالُكِ, she answered: مَا دَامَ الْإِسْلَامُ بِخَيْرٍ فَأَنَا بِخَيْرٍ. "As long as Islam is well, I am well." She never told him her feet hurt, her eyes hurt, she missed Makkah. Her answer was always the same: I am fine as long as the cause I have given my life to is fine.

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم looked at her he would say: هَذِهِ بَقِيَّةُ أَهْلِ بَيْتِي, "This is the entirety of what remains of my family." She was the last living connection to his childhood, the only mother he had ever really known.

At every battle she followed the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, watching him with the eyes of a mother, making sure he was not hurt. After battles she tended to the wounded, bandaging them, tearing strips from her own garments when there was nothing else. At the battle of Uḥud, when men fled from the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, she was among those who took up a sword and went to his side.

Her son Ayman was martyred at the battle of Ḥunayn. Her husband Zayd was martyred at the battle of Muʾtah.

❧A child dies in the Prophet's hands

Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما narrates in Sunan al-Nasāʾī: a young child of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was dying, and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم held the child to his chest and placed his hand on the child as it died. Umm Ayman was present. Seeing the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم begin to weep, she wept too. He said to her: "يَا أُمَّ أَيْمَن, why do you cry?" She said: "مَا لِي لَا أَبْكِي وَرَسُولُ اللَّهِ يَبْكِي, why would I not cry when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is crying?"

He said to her: "إِنِّي لَسْتُ أَبْكِي وَلَكِنَّهَا رَحْمَة, I am not weeping. What you see is mercy." He was teaching her, and through her, all of us, that the tears of a believer at the death of a beloved are not a challenge to Allah's decree. They are compassion. And then he said:

الْمُؤْمِنُ بِخَيْرٍ عَلَى كُلِّ حَالٍ، تُنْزَعُ نَفْسُهُ مِنْ بَيْنِ جَنْبَيْهِ وَهُوَ يَحْمَدُ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ

"The believer is in good in every state. Even when his soul is being taken from his body, he remains in praise of Allah."

❧After the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم died

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم passed away, Umm Ayman went silent. She stopped talking much, she stopped joking, she withdrew from people. She watched the ummah of over a hundred thousand mourn and bury the man she had held in her hands as a newborn. She was the only person on earth for whom this was not news about a prophet who had died, it was watching the child she had raised leave the world.

After his death, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar رضي الله عنهما came to visit her, following the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم practice. As soon as they sat with her she began to cry. They assumed she was grieving for the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and tried to comfort her: "Do you not know that what Allah has given him is better than what he left behind?" She said: "I know that. That is not why I am crying."

They asked: "Then why?"

She said:

أَبْكِي لِأَنَّ الْوَحْيَ قَدِ انْقَطَعَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ

"I am crying because the revelation has ceased coming down from the heavens."

And Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه narrates: when she said that, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar began to weep, and the three of them wept together for a long time.

She outlived Abū Bakr رضي الله عنه and lived into the caliphate of ʿUmar. She died approximately twenty days after the assassination of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb رضي الله عنه, having watched every beloved person in her life be taken one by one. Some of the scholars say she lived to approximately one hundred years old. She was buried in al-Baqīʿ cemetery in Madinah, her grave placed in a direct line with the grave of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. In death as in life, she faced the same direction as him.