Fatima bint Muhammad (Arabic: فَاطِمَة بِنْت مُحَمَّد, romanized: Fāṭima bint Muḥammad; 605/15–632 CE), known as Fatima al-Zahra (Arabic: فَاطِمَة ٱلزَّهْرَاء, romanized: Fāṭima al-Zahrāʾ), was the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his first wife Khadija. She was the wife of Ali, Muhammad's cousin, the first Shia Imam and the fourth Rashidun caliph. She was the mother of Hasan and Husayn, the second and third Shia Imams. Via Fatima and Ali, Muhammad's lineage continued through the Twelve Imams and, through them, to numerous Sayyids who live around the world today. Muhammad is said to have regarded Fatima as the best of women and the dearest person to him. She is a prominent member of the Ahl al-Bayt and Ahl al-Kisa, and a participant in the Event of the mubahala. Hadith compare her exceptional status in Islam to that of Mary in Christianity, while some hadiths explicitly name both Fatima and Mary as the greatest women.
Fatima is regarded as an exemplary model of faith and character for all Muslim women. Her name remains a very popular choice for Muslim girls to this day. In both Sunni and Shia traditions, she is deeply revered for her piety, devotion, compassion, generosity, and perseverance in the face of hardship. She holds a particularly exalted status in Shia Islam. Accounts of Fatima's death are highly controversial because Shia and Sunni sources differ significantly over its circumstances. According to Shia Islam, following Muhammad's death, Umar and his supporters went to Fatima's house to demand Ali's allegiance to Abu Bakr. An altercation followed, during which Fatima was injured and suffered a miscarriage, and these injuries ultimately led to her death. Sunni Islam categorically reject this and do not attribute Fatima's death to an assault by Umar. It instead holds that Fatima died from deep grief following the death of her father, and that her child died in infancy of natural causes. In any case, Fatima died in Medina in 632 and was buried secretly at night, shortly after the death of Muhammad. She is believed to be buried in Baqi Cemetery. The shrine that stood over her grave was demolished, along with the cemetery itself, by Wahhabis in 1806 and again in 1925.
Her most common epithet is al-Zahra (lit. 'the one that shines, the radiant'), which encodes her piety and regularity in prayer. This epithet is believed by the Shia to be a reference to her primordial creation from light that continues to radiate throughout the creation. The Shia Ibn Babawayh (d. 991) writes that, whenever Fatima prayed, her light shone for the inhabitants of the heavens as starlight shines for the inhabitants of the earth. Other titles of her in Shia are al-Ṣiddiqa (lit. 'the righteous'), al-Tahira (lit. 'the pure'), al-Mubaraka (lit. 'the blessed'), and al-Mansura (lit. 'helped by God'). Another Shia title is al-Muḥadditha, in view of the reports that angels spoke to Fatima on multiple occasions, similar to Mary, mother of Jesus.
Fatima is also recognized as Sayyidat Nisa' al-Janna (lit. 'mistress of the women of paradise') and Sayyidat Nisa' al-Alamin (lit. 'mistress of the women of the worlds') in Shia and Sunni collections of hadith, including the canonical Sunni Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
The name Fatima is from the Arabic root f-t-m (lit. 'to wean') and signifies the Shia belief that she, her progeny, and her adherents (shi'a) have been spared from hellfire. Alternatively, the word Fatima is associated in Shia sources with Fatir (lit. 'creator', a name of God) as the earthly symbol of the divine creative power.
A kunya or honorific title of Fatima in Islam is Umm Abiha (lit. 'the mother of her father'), suggesting that Fatima was exceptionally nurturing towards her father. Umm al-Aima (lit. 'the mother of Imams') is a kunya of Fatima in Twelver sources, as eleven of the Twelve Imams descended from her.
Fatima was born in Mecca to Khadija, the first of Muhammad's wives. The mainstream Sunni view is that Khadija gave birth to Fatima in 605 CE, at age fifty, five years before the first Quranic revelations. This implies that Fatima was over eighteen at the time of her marriage, which would have been unusual in Arabia. Twelver sources, however, report that Fatima was born in about 612 or 615 CE, when Khadija would have been slightly older. The report of the Sunni Ibn Sa'd in his Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra suggests that Fatima was born when Muhammad was about thirty-five years old.
The Sunni view is that Fatima had three sisters, named Zaynab, Umm Kulthum, and Ruqayyah, who did not survive Muhammad. Alternatively, a number of Twelver Shia sources state that Zainab, Ruqayyah, and Umm Kulthum were adopted by Muhammad after the death of their mother, Hala, a sister of Khadija. According to Abbas, most Shia Muslims hold that Fatima was Muhammad's only biological daughter, whereas Fedele limits this belief to the Twelver Shia. Hyder reports that this belief is prevalent among the Shia in South Asia. Fatima also had three brothers, all of whom died in childhood.
Fatima grew up in Mecca while Muhammad and his few followers suffered the ill-treatment of disbelievers. On one occasion, she rushed to help Muhammad when filth was thrown over him at the instigation of Abu Jahl, Muhammad's enemy and a polytheist. Fatima lost her mother, Khadija, in childhood. When Khadija died, it is said that Gabriel descended upon Muhammad with a message to console Fatima.
Fatima married Muhammad's cousin, Ali, in Medina around 1 or 2 AH (623–5 CE), possibly after the Battle of Badr. There is Sunni and Shia evidence that some of the companions, including Abu Bakr and Umar, had earlier asked for Fatima's hand in marriage but were turned down by Muhammad, who said he was waiting for the moment fixed by destiny. It is also said that Ali was reticent to ask Muhammad to marry Fatima on account of his poverty. When Muhammad put forward Ali's proposal to Fatima, she remained silent, which was understood as a tacit agreement. On the basis of this report, woman's consent in marriage has always been necessary in Islamic law. Muhammad also suggested that Ali sell his shield to pay the bridal gift (mahr).
Muhammad performed the wedding ceremony, and they prepared an austere wedding feast with gifts from other Muslims. Shia sources have recorded that Fatima donated her wedding gown on her wedding night. Later, the couple moved into a house next to Muhammad's quarters in Medina. Their marriage lasted about ten years until Fatima's death. Fatima's age at the time of her marriage is uncertain, reported between nine and twenty-one. Ali is said to have been about twenty two.
As with the majority of Muslims, the couple lived in severe poverty in the early years of Islam. In particular, both had to do hard physical work to get by. Shia sources elaborate that Ali worked at various jobs while Fatima was responsible for domestic chores. It has also been related that Muhammad taught the couple a tasbih to help ease the burden of their poverty: The Tasbih of Fatima consists of the phrases Allah-hu Akbar (lit. 'God is the greatest'), Al-hamdu-lillah (lit. 'all praise is due to God'), and Subhan-Allah (lit. 'God is glorious'). Their financial circumstances later improved after more lands fell to Muslims in the Battle of Khaybar. Fatima was at some point given a maidservant, named Fidda.
Following the Battle of Uhud, Fatima tended to the wounds of her father and regularly visited the graves to pray for those killed in the battle. Later, Fatima rejected Abu Sufyan's pleas to mediate between him and Muhammad. Fatima also accompanied Muhammad in the Conquest of Mecca.
Among others, the Sunni al-Suyuti (d. 1505) ascribes to Muhammad that, "God ordered me to marry Fatima to Ali." According to Veccia Vaglieri and Klemm, Muhammad also told Fatima that he had married her to the best member of his family. There is another version of this hadith in the canonical Sunni collection Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, in which Muhammad lauds Ali as the first in Islam, the most knowledgeable, and the most patient of the Muslim community. Nasr writes that the union of Fatima and Ali holds a special spiritual significance for Muslims, as it is seen as the marriage between the "greatest saintly figures" surrounding Muhammad.