Atikah bint Zayd

ProfileAtikah bint Zayd

Atikah (may Allah be pleased with her) was the daughter of Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, the man who turned away from idols before the Prophet ﷺ was sent, and the sister of Sa'id ibn Zayd. According to the early biographies, her father refused idol worship and wine, and would take in baby girls who were to be buried alive and raise them, and the clan of Adi forced him out of Makkah for it. According to the early biographies, she was a woman of beauty and eloquence, and a poet, and was known for her worship and her character.

According to the early biographies, she was first married to Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr, a son of Abu Bakr who had helped the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr on the Hijrah by bringing them news of Quraysh. According to the early biographies, he was so taken with her that he held back from the mosque and from service, and Abu Bakr told him to divorce her. He wrote verses of grief, and Abu Bakr let him take her back. According to the early biographies, Abdullah was struck by an arrow at the siege of Ta'if, and died of it in Madinah some time later, and she swore never to stop weeping for him.

According to the early biographies, she then married Zayd ibn al-Khattab, the brother of Umar, who was killed at Yamamah. According to the early biographies, Umar then asked for her himself, and told her not to forbid for herself what Allah had made lawful. Ibn Umar told that one of Umar's wives used to pray the dawn and the night prayers in congregation in the mosque, and when she was asked why she went out, knowing that Umar disliked it and was jealous, she said, what stops him from forbidding me? They said that the words of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, telling men not to stop Allah's women-slaves from going to Allah's mosques, stopped him (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies and the commentators on this report, she was Atikah.

According to the early biographies, after Umar was killed she married az-Zubayr, who was killed at the Battle of the Camel. According to the early biographies, people used to say that whoever wanted martyrdom should marry Atikah. Some early biographies add Husayn ibn Ali as a fifth husband, and say that she died before he was killed. According to the early biographies, she died in Madinah in the caliphate of Mu'awiyah.

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