Umm Habiba

Umm Ḥabība Ramla bint Abī Sufyān ( ar, أم حبيبة رملة بنت أبي سفيان; 589 or 594–665) was a wife of Muhammad and therefore a Mother of the Believers.

Early life

She was the daughter of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb and Safiyyah bint Abi al-'As. Abu Sufyan was the chief of the Umayya clan, and he was the leader of the whole Quraysh tribe and the most powerful opponent of Muhammad in the period 624-630. However, he later accepted Islam and became a Muslim warrior. The first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah I, was Ramla's half-brother, and Uthman ibn Affan was her maternal first cousin and paternal second cousin.

Marriage to Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh

Her first husband was Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh,Islam online
/ref> a brother of Zaynab bint Jahsh, whom Muhammad also married.

Ubayd-Allah and Ramla were among the first people to accept Islam. In 616, in order to avoid hostilities from Quraish, they both emigrated to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), where she gave birth to her daughter, Habibah bint Ubayd-Allah.

It is claimed that Ubayd-Allah later converted to Christianity. He tried to persuade Ramla to do the same, but she held on to Islam. His conversion led to their separation.

Marriage to Muhammad

Muhammad sent Ramla a proposal of marriage, which arrived on the day she completed her ''Iddah'' (widow's waiting period).

The marriage ceremony took place in Abyssinia even though Muhammad was not present. Ramla chose Khalid ibn Said as her legal guardian at the ceremony. The ''Negus'' (King) of Abyssinia read out the Khutba himself, and Khalid ibn Said made a speech in reply. The Negus gave Khalid a dower of 400 ''dinars'' and hosted a huge wedding feast after the ceremony. He also sent musk and ambergris to the bride through the slave Barrah. Muhammad did not give a dower larger than this to any of his other wives.

The Negus then arranged to send all thirty of the remaining immigrant Muslims back to Arabia. They travelled to Medina in two boats. Shurahbil ibn Hasana accompanied Ramla on this journey. According to some sources, she married Muhammad one year after the Hijra, though she did not live with him until six years later, when Muhammad was sixty years old and she was thirty-five. Tabari writes that her marriage took place in 7 A.H. (628) when "she was thirty-odd years old."Tirmadhi 2226, Musnad Ahmed 12039

Life in Medina

On one occasion, Abu Sufyan visited his daughter Ramla in her house in Medina. "As he went to sit on the apostle’s carpet she folded it up so that he could not sit on it. 'My dear daughter,' he said, 'I hardly know if you think that the carpet is too good for me or that I am too good for the carpet!' She replied: 'It is the apostle’s carpet and you are an unclean polytheist. I do not want you to sit on the apostle’s carpet.' 'By God,' he said, 'since you left me you have gone to the bad.'"Guillaume/Ishaq, p. 543.John Glubb, The Life and Times of Muhammad, Lanham 1998, p. 304-310.

Ramla died in the year 45 A.H. (664 or 665 C.E.) during the Kingship of her brother, Muawiyah I. She was buried in the Jannat al-Baqi cemetery next to other wives of Muhammad.

Legacy

The Hadith literature includes about sixty-five hadiths narrated by Ramla. Muhammad al-Bukhari and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj agreed on two of them, and Muslim took two of them alone.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sufyan, Ramla bint Abi
594 births
665 deaths
Muslim female saints
Wives of Muhammad
Banu Umayya
6th-century Arabs
7th-century Arabs
Burials at Jannat al-Baqī