'Amina

'Amina
Amina bint Wahb ibn Abd Manaf al-Zuhriyya was the mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She belonged to the Banu Zuhra tribe.
Early life and marriage
Amina was born to Wahb ibn Abd Manaf and Barrah bint 'Abd al-'Uzzā ibn 'Uthmān ibn 'Abd al-Dār in Mecca. Her tribe, Quraysh, descent from Ibrahim (Abraham), through his son Isma'il (Ishmael). Her ancestor Zuhrah was the elder brother of Qusayy ibn Kilab, who was an ancestor of Abdullah ibn Abdul-Muttalib, and was the first Qurayshi custodian of the Kaaba. Abd al-Muttalib proposed the marriage of Abd Allah, his youngest son, to Amina. Some sources state that Amina's father accepted the match, while others say that it was Amina's uncle Wuhaib, who was serving as her guardian. The two were married soon after. Abd Allah spent much of Amina's pregnancy away from home as part of a merchant caravan, and died of disease before the birth of his son in Madinah.
Birth of Muhammad
Three months after Abd Allah's death, in 570–571 CE, Muhammad was born. As was tradition among all the great families at the time, Amina sent Muhammad to live with a milk mother in the desert as a baby. The belief was that in the desert, one would learn self-discipline, nobility, and freedom. During this time, Muhammad was nursed by Halima bint Abi Dhuayb, a poor Bedouin woman from the tribe of Banu Sa'd, a branch of the Hawāzin.
Death
When Muhammad was six years old, he was reunited with Amina, who took him to visit her relatives in Yathrib (later Medina). Upon their return to Mecca a month later, accompanied by her slave Umm Ayman, Amina fell ill. She died around the year 577 or 578, and was buried in the village of Al-Abwa'. Her grave was destroyed in 1998. The young Muhammad was taken in first by his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib in 577, and later by his paternal uncle Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib.
Fate in the afterlife
Islamic scholars have long been divided over the religious beliefs of Muhammad's parents and their fate in the afterlife. One transmission by Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah states that Allah (God) refused to forgive Amina for her kufr (disbelief). Another transmission in Musnad al-Bazzar states that Muhammad's parents was brought back to life and accepted Islam, then returned to the Barzakh. Some Ash'ari and Shafi'i scholars argued that neither would be punished in the afterlife, as they were Ahl al-fatrah, or "People of the interval" between the prophetic messages of 'Isa (Jesus) and Muhammad. The concept of Ahl al-fatrah is not universally accepted among Islamic scholars, and there is debate concerning the extent of salvation available for active practitioners of Shirk (Polytheism), though the majority of scholars have come to agree with it, and disregard the ahadith (narrations) stating that Muhammad's parents were condemned to hell.
While a work attributed to Abu Hanifa, an early Sunni scholar, stated that both Amina and Abd Allah died upon their innate nature (Mata 'ala al-fitrah), some later authors of mawlid texts related a tradition in which Amina and Abd Allah were temporarily revived and embraced Islam. Scholars like Ibn Taymiyya stated that this was a lie, though Al-Qurtubi stated that the concept did not disagree with Islamic theology. According to Ali al-Qari, the preferred view is that both the parents of Muhammad were Muslims. According to Al-Suyuti, Isma'il Haqqi, and other Islamic scholars, all of the narrations indicating that the parents of Muhammad were not forgiven were later abrogated when they were brought to life and accepted Islam. Shia Muslims believe that all of Muhammad's ancestors, Amina included, were monotheists, and therefore entitled to Paradise. A Shia tradition states that God forbade the fires of Hell from touching either of Muhammad's parents.
References
External links
Victory News Magazine
Brill Encyclopedia Islamica
549 births
577 deaths
6th-century Arab people
6th-century women
Family of Muhammad
Banu Zuhrah