A Daughter of Fatimah

Zaynab was born in Madinah to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ, around 5 or 6 AH, after her brothers al-Hasan and al-Husayn. The biographers, among them Ibn Hajar, count her among those born in the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime.

She was still a small child when, in the year 11 AH, she lost her grandfather ﷺ and then, a few months later, her mother. She grew up in her father's house with her brothers and her sister Umm Kulthum.

The biographers describe her as intelligent, firm and eloquent. Those qualities would be tested, decades later, on the worst day her family ever knew.