A Year of Weeping in the Valley

When the Muslims began emigrating to Madinah, Abu Salamah set out with Umm Salamah and their small son Salamah on a camel. Men of her clan, Banu al-Mughirah, blocked the way: he could go where he liked, they said, but he would not take their daughter. Then her husband's clan, Banu 'Abd al-Asad, arrived in anger and pulled the child away from her, saying he belonged to them. In a single hour she lost her husband, who went on alone, and her son, who was taken by his father's family.

She later recalled that she would go out every morning to the valley outside Makkah and sit there weeping until evening, for about a year. At last a man of her clan took pity on her and shamed the others into letting her go. Her son was returned to her, and she set off for Madinah alone with him, with no one to accompany her.

At al-Tan'im she met 'Uthman ibn Talhah of Banu 'Abd al-Dar, who was not yet Muslim. He refused to let her travel alone, and led her camel all the way to Quba', kneeling the camel and stepping away whenever she needed to mount or dismount. When they saw the village he told her, "Your husband is in this village," and turned back for Makkah. She said she never knew a man of the Arabs more honourable than he.