At a glance
Companions- Dates
- Alive at Hunayn, 8 AH (630 CE)
- Who
- Daughter of Halimah and al-Harith of the Banu Sa'd, who carried the baby Muhammad ﷺ, was taken captive after Hunayn, and proved who she was by the mark of his bite on her arm, so that he spread his cloak for her
- Stages
- Treaty & Victory
ProfileAsh-Shayma bint al-Harith
Ash-Shayma (may Allah be pleased with her) was the daughter of al-Harith ibn Abd al-Uzza and Halimah of the Banu Sa'd, which made her the foster sister of the Prophet ﷺ. According to the early biographies, she was the older of the children in the household and helped to look after him while he lived with them. She carried him and played with him, and he loved her. According to the early biographies, once, when they were playing, he bit her on the arm.
According to the early biographies, in 8 AH, after Hunayn, the Muslims took many prisoners from the Hawazin, the tribe that the Banu Sa'd belong to. Among them was a woman who told her captors that she was the sister of their leader. They did not believe her, but they brought her to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He said that if she was his sister, there was a mark that only the two of them would know about. She showed him her arm, with the mark of the bite he had given her as a child. He recognised her, and stood up, and spread his cloak on the ground for her to sit on, and sat down beside her and talked with her for a long time about all that had passed.
According to the early biographies, he told her that if she wished she could stay with him, loved and honoured, and that if she preferred to go back to her people, she could. She chose to go back to her people, and he made arrangements for her. When the Hawazin came to him afterwards and asked for their captives, he gave the choice between their captives and their property, and when they chose the captives, he returned them all (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih).
There is little else in the books about her. What they do record is a meeting after most of a lifetime, in which a girl who had once carried the baby was now an older woman among the captives, and the baby had become the leader of the Muslims, and he did not let the years come between them.
WatchA lecture about Ash-Shayma bint al-Harith
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