Umm Salama

Umm Salama, born Hind bint Abi Umayya, belonged to the Makhzum clan of the Quraysh of Mecca. According to the standard biographical (sira) tradition, she and her first husband, Abu Salama Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Asad, were early followers of Muhammad and were among the Muslims who, under persecution, migrated to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) for protection before later emigrating to Medina. The dates of these events are traditional estimates rather than firmly attested.

After Abu Salama died of wounds reportedly sustained at the Battle of Uhud, Umm Salama married the Prophet, by tradition around 4 AH (c. 625-626 CE). The sira reports that she gave the Prophet shrewd counsel at the Treaty of Hudaybiyya (traditionally 6 AH / 628 CE), when his followers hesitated to obey an unpopular order; this episode belongs to the narrative tradition.

She is remembered above all as a major transmitter of hadith (reports of the Prophet's words and deeds), with hundreds of narrations credited to her in Sunni collections. Twelver Shia tradition holds her in especially high regard, and devotional Shia accounts link her to a prophecy of the killing of Husayn at Karbala (the 'vial of soil' tradition, Hadith al-Qarura); such accounts belong to later tradition, not to the attested record.

She is widely said to have been the last of the Prophet's wives to die. Her death date is disputed in the sources, reported variously as 59, 61, 62, or 64 AH (c. 679-684 CE); she is traditionally said to have lived to about 84.