Zaynab bint Ali

ProfileZaynab bint Ali

Zaynab (may Allah be pleased with her) was the third child of Ali and Fatimah, after Hasan and Husayn, born in the fifth year after the Hijrah, so that she saw the Prophet ﷺ as a small child. Ali had three daughters named Zaynab, probably after the Prophet's ﷺ daughter, so she is sometimes called the elder. According to the early biographies, she was known as intelligent, wise and steadfast, and for her dignity and her eloquence.

According to the early biographies, Ali had reserved his daughters for the sons of Ja'far, and married Zaynab to Abdullah ibn Ja'far, a rich man who was known for his generosity. According to the early biographies, they gave freely in charity despite their wealth, and she was called the mother of the orphans and of the elderly, for having a house built for orphans and feeding the poor. According to the early biographies, she had sons, including Awn and Muhammad, and a daughter. According to the early biographies, she also set up places where women could learn their religion from a woman teacher.

According to the early biographies, when her brother Husayn left Makkah for Iraq, she insisted on going with him, with two of her sons. According to the early biographies, the party set out not for a battle but in the hope of support, with his family and a few followers. According to the early biographies, on the night before, Husayn comforted her and asked her to promise not to tear her clothes or strike her face or cry out in grief if he died, and she said how she wished death had come to her before this, after the deaths of her mother, her father and her brother. According to the early biographies, she saw her sons killed, and then her brother, and when the soldiers would have killed her nephew Ali ibn al-Husayn, the only male left, she threw herself over him and said that they would have to kill her first.

According to the early biographies, the women and children were taken as captives to Kufa and then to Damascus. According to the early biographies, in Kufa, when the people wept over the dead, she told them that their tears now meant nothing to her. According to the early biographies, when the governor had the head of Husayn brought, he said praise be to Allah who had put her family to shame, and she answered that praise be to Allah who had honoured them with the Prophet ﷺ and purified them, and that the ones put to shame were the liars and the wicked. According to the early biographies, when he asked how she had seen Allah's treatment of her family, she said that she had seen nothing but good. According to the early biographies, in the court of Yazid, when a man asked for one of the women, she asked Yazid whether it was just for the son of those who had been freed at the Conquest to hold the daughters of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ captive while his own women were kept behind curtains. According to the early biographies, when Yazid asked who she was, she said that she was Zaynab, the daughter of Ali and Fatimah and granddaughter of Muhammad ﷺ.

According to the early biographies, she then went back to Madinah. The places of her death are disputed, and there are shrines for her in Damascus, in Egypt and in Iraq. According to the early biographies, one report says that she was advised to leave Madinah for Egypt, where the people loved her family, and that she was received there and died there after about a year. Another view is that the shrines are for other women of the family, since Ali had three daughters named Zaynab.

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