1 of 2 · Before and in the early years of Islam · Makkah
Ruqayyah bint Muhammad رضي الله عنها
A Daughter of the First Home
Ruqayyah grew up in the house of Muhammad ﷺ and Khadijah, the first home in which Islam was believed. She accepted Islam with her mother and sisters at its very beginning.
The biographers report that before Islam she had been betrothed or married to 'Utbah, a son of the Prophet's uncle Abu Lahab, and that when the Qur'an condemned Abu Lahab: ﴿تَبَّتْ يَدَا أَبِي لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ﴾ (“Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and perish he!”) (111:1), he ordered his son to separate from her, hoping to wound the Prophet ﷺ. She then married 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, one of the earliest Muslims.
Beyond this, the sources say little of her childhood. What is remembered of her is what she chose: to stand with her father when it was costly to do so.
Some lives are remembered less for the details than for the direction they took when it mattered.
If little were remembered of you, what single choice would you want it to be?
- Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-KubraHistorical report
- Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'abHistorical report
- Qur'an 111:1
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