ASMA' BINT ABI BAKR - THE FIRST LADY COMMANDO
This article was originally written by Amani Aboul Fadl Farag (IOL)
(reproduced in HARAKAH 2-5 jamadilawal)
How many mothers in history were reported to have deliberately sacrificed their dearest for the sake of an ultimate goal? Asma bint Abi Bakr Al-Siddiq is one. She was one of many ladies who lived near Prophet Mohammad and learned the secrets of immortality in his academy. They knew no boundaries in their love and servitude to Allah the Almighty.
Noble heritage
She was the daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s intimate Companion, and the sister of Aishah, the Prophet’s most beloved wife. Since she was very young, she and her sister grew up listening to the verses of the Quran being recited in their house, which attracted her to decide to embrace Islam. She had married Al-Zubair ibn Al-Awwam, the Prophet’s cousin, a short time before the great event of Hijrah (Muslims’ emigration from Makkah at the time of the Prophet) took place.
The First Lady Commando
While she was in the last months of pregnancy, her husband was ordered to emigrate to Madinah with other believers. He left her behind with the ladies of both the Prophet’s and Abu Bakr’s families waiting for their turn to leave. Shortly after that, it was the turn of the Prophet and his best friend Abu Bakr to emigrate from Makkah to Madinah. It was a dangerous journey as the two of them were all by themselves, unprotected and feverishly chased by Makkah’s pagans, who raced to catch them to win a reward.
The Prophet and Abu Bakr had to hide in a frightful cave on top of a high rcky mountain for a few days till the chasers lost hope in finding them. At that time, it was Asma’s daily job to sneak away at night and undertake a perilous journey to that cave in order to carry to them the provisions, under the stress of being arrested by the chasers.This article was originally written by Amani Aboul Fadl Farag (IOL)
(reproduced in HARAKAH 2-5 jamadilawal)
How many mothers in history were reported to have deliberately sacrificed their dearest for the sake of an ultimate goal? Asma bint Abi Bakr Al-Siddiq is one. She was one of many ladies who lived near Prophet Mohammad and learned the secrets of immortality in his academy. They knew no boundaries in their love and servitude to Allah the Almighty.
Noble heritage
She was the daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s intimate Companion, and the sister of Aishah, the Prophet’s most beloved wife. Since she was very young, she and her sister grew up listening to the verses of the Quran being recited in their house, which attracted her to decide to embrace Islam. She had married Al-Zubair ibn Al-Awwam, the Prophet’s cousin, a short time before the great event of Hijrah (Muslims’ emigration from Makkah at the time of the Prophet) took place.
The First Lady Commando
While she was in the last months of pregnancy, her husband was ordered to emigrate to Madinah with other believers. He left her behind with the ladies of both the Prophet’s and Abu Bakr’s families waiting for their turn to leave. Shortly after that, it was the turn of the Prophet and his best friend Abu Bakr to emigrate from Makkah to Madinah. It was a dangerous journey as the two of them were all by themselves, unprotected and feverishly chased by Makkah’s pagans, who raced to catch them to win a reward.
She willingly climbed the mountain in her last months of pregnancy. I saw that mountain during my pilgrimage, it was so high that it made me dizzy when I saw it, so I can’t imagine what it would have been like for Asma to climb it.
Winning the Title
In order to be able to carry both food and water, her father recommended that she split her belt into two halves, and to carry the food with one part of the belt and the water with the other. On seeing her in this condition of late pregnancy, walking a long distance and climbing up the mountain with a heavy load on her back and having her belt torn up, the Prophet pitied her, and gave her the glad tiding of Paradise saying, “May God substitute those two belts of yours by two others in Paradise” (Al-Bukhari). Since this incident, she was called “Asma, the lady of the two belts”.
A Devoted Wife
Asma’s domestic life was not an easy one. Her husband Al-Zubair was poor; he didn’t have any property except for a horse. She herself said “When Al-Zubair married me, he didn’t have either money, servants or anything except his horse, so it was my duty to feed , train and take care of it. I used to crush the date seeds for the horse to eat and give it water to drink, I also used to carry the water and prepare the dough.”
She had the characteristic of being generous to the poor although she was poor, so she asked the Prophet if it was acceptable for her to give the poor but a little, and he answered her, “Give as much as you can, even the little, but don’t hold your hand from giving (be miserly), if you do so, God will hold His hand from giving you”. She kept this lesson in her mind all her life and taught it to all women. She used to say, “Spend on charity and don’t wait to give the leftovers, because if you do so, there will be no leftovers for you to give”
Principles Before Motherhood
After the end of the era of the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs , Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan reigned. Before his death, he entitled his son, Yazeed, to succeed him in a serious breach of the democratic, consultative system the Prophet had established in his state before his death. Abdullah, Asma’s eldest son, was amongst those who challenged dictatorship and proposed himself as a nominee for the people to elect, which they did with a great majority.
Yazeed, the dictator, sent armies to defeat Abdullah, but he managed to resist and continued ruling as an elected Caliph in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula for about ten years. After the death of Yazeed, his son decided to restore his reign, so he sent a huge army to Abdullah, headed by Al-Hajjaj, who was appointed by Muawiya to fight Abdullah, So He laid siege to the army of Abdullah.
Al-Hajjaj guaranteed safety for Abdullah and his followers if they would surrender. Under the heavy pressure of the long siege, hunger, and fear, many of Abdullah’s supporters surrendered. He went to his mother, Asma, to ask her opinion, but the by-then blind woman, who was almost one hundred years old, and wholly dependant on him, gave a wonderful example of courage in the face of tyranny.
She didn’t hesitate for one second to elevate her ideals over her instinctive motherhood, she said to him firmly:
You are the only one to know your intentions. If you know you are in the right, then go ahead. If you know you want a worldly gain, then you are immoral. But if you know you are in the right, but you feel weak, then you have to understand that this is not how free men act.
Then he confessed to her his fear of having his body mutilated after they killed him, she answered him saying, “Does it really hurt the goat to take its skin off after it is slain?” Having restored his courage, he bent down to kiss her goodbye. Abdullah was killed and his dead body was crucified headless for a whole month, until it decomposed. Asma had the courage to stand in the face of the tyrant, insulting him, and ordering him to release her son’s corpse until he submitted. She took the body, washed it, prayed, and buried it. After one week — some sources say ten days — she died.
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