Fatima al-Zahra
605 CE–632 CE · Mecca
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.
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Mecca
What they did here
Traditionally born in Mecca to the Prophet Muhammad and Khadija. The year is disputed: Sunni reports favour c. 605 CE, while many Shia sources place it c. 612-615; the discrepancy bears on her age at marriage. She is reported to have spent her childhood in Mecca through the early years of the Prophet's mission.
About Mecca
Mecca (Makka), in the Hejaz of western Saudi Arabia, is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the site of the Ka'ba; it is Islam's holiest city and the destination of the annual hajj pilgrimage, toward which Muslims pray. As a centre of learning that drew scholars from across the Muslim world, it hosted many of the figures connected here during periods of study, teaching, or pilgrimage.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Fatima al-Zahra’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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