Fatima al-Zahra

Fatima al-Zahra was the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and his first wife Khadija, and the wife of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's cousin. She is known by the epithets al-Zahra ("the radiant"), al-Batul ("the chaste/devoted"), and Umm Abiha ("mother of her father," a term of tenderness for her care of the Prophet).

Her birth year is uncertain: Sunni reports place it around 605 CE, while many Shia sources favour roughly 612-615; her birthplace is given as Mecca. After the Prophet's emigration (hijra) to Medina in 622, she settled there, married Ali, and bore Hasan and Husayn (later revered as imams in Shia Islam) and the daughters Zaynab and Umm Kulthum.

After the Prophet's death in 11 AH/632, Fatima reportedly clashed with the first caliph, Abu Bakr, over the estate of Fadak, which she said her father had given her, and over the broader succession. The course and even the facts of this dispute, including a reported raid on her house and the death of an infant son, Muhsin, are sharply contested between Sunni and Shia traditions and are not settled by the sources.

She died in Medina within months of her father, traditionally held to be 11 AH/632. By her wish, Ali is said to have buried her secretly at night; her exact grave is unknown. Her descendants carry the titles sayyid and sharif, and the Fatimid dynasty (909-1171) claimed descent through her, a claim debated since the Middle Ages.