2 of 4 · 2 AH · after Badr · Madinah
Fatimah bint Muhammad رضي الله عنها
A Marriage of Little Means
In Madinah, more than one of the senior Companions asked for Fatimah's hand, and the Prophet ﷺ gently declined. Then 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, his young cousin who had grown up in his house, came forward, and the Prophet ﷺ married her to him.
'Ali owned almost nothing. When the Prophet ﷺ told him to give Fatimah something as her dowry, 'Ali said he had nothing, and the Prophet ﷺ asked, "Where is your Hutami armour?" — a coat of mail 'Ali had — and that became the gift (Sunan Abi Dawud 2125). The reports of their household describe a few simple things: a cover, a waterskin, a leather pillow stuffed with fibre.
From this small beginning came the household the Muslims would love above all others: from it came al-Hasan and al-Husayn, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum, and the line of the Prophet's ﷺ descendants to this day.
The most blessed household in Islam began with a coat of armour for a dowry and a few household things; barakah is not measured in furniture.
What would you be willing to start with, if what you were starting was right?
- Sunan Abi Dawud 2125 Graded by Al-Albani: Sahih · Muhammad Muhyi Al-Din Abdul Hamid: Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: SahihSahih
- Sunan al-Nasa'i, Kitab al-NikahGrade not recorded here
- Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-KubraHistorical report
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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