Hind bint Utbah
Encyclopedia
Hind bint ‘Utbah was an Arab
woman who lived in the late 6th and early 7th centuries CE; she was the wife of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb
, a powerful man of Mecca
, in western Arabia
. Both Abu Sufyan and Hind originally opposed the Islamic prophet
Muhammad
. She was the mother of Muawiyah I
, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, and of Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan
, who was one of Muhammad's wives. Her status as a Sahaba
(companion of Muhammad) remains questioned because of actions she took against the Muslim community
before her conversion, particularly an incident of alleged battlefield cannibalism.
. She had two brothers: Abu-Hudhayfah ibn Utbah
and Walid ibn Utba
.
It is not known exactly when she married Abu Sufyan, one of the leading authorities in the tribe of Quraysh, but it is most probable that the marriage occurred in her early years of youth.
s at the Battle of Uhud
when she ate the liver of Muhammad's slain uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib
. Although she later converted to Islam
, the founder of the Umayyad Caliphate was thus later slandered to be an illegitimate son of a cannibal. Even in the modern age, arguments continue to be raised about whether Hind bint ‘Utbah was a Sahaba or not because of her pre-Islamic actions.
In the earlier Sunni reference Istīʻāb fī Maʻrifat al-Aṣḥāb, Islamic scholar Yusuf ibn abd al-Barr
(978-1071) lists summaries for the biographies of the Sahaba, and Hind is indeed mentioned as one of Muhammad's Sahaba.
Other scholars say that she became pregnant from Abu Sufyan out of wedlock and Abu Sufyan was bribed to marry her.
,Mūsá ibn ‘Uqbah narrated that Wahshi gouged out the liver of Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib and took it to Hind bint ‘Utbah and she ate it. Ibn Kathir
mentions this in his Al-Bid‘ayah wa n-Nihaayah (4/43).
Ibn Ishaq
narrated with a broken isnād that Hind was the one who gouged the liver of Hamza.
. They were at war with the Meccans and attacked Meccan caravans.
The Meccans sent out a force to defend the caravans. The Meccans and the Muslims clashed at the Battle of Badr
. The Muslims defeated the Meccans and Hind's father, brother and uncle were all slaughtered in that battle. Hind's anger at the Muslims was of the greatest and most intense; she kept wailing publicly in the open desert and pouring dust over her face and her clothes, while lamenting her deceased relatives; and she did not stop not until her husband Abu Sufyan urged her to weep no more and promised her to avenge the death of her father and brother.
She is claimed to have been the one responsible for inciting Wahshy ibn Harb
to murder Muhammad's uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, who was claimed responsible for the death of her father and brother, and she offered Wahshi his freedom and her jewelry in return if he managed to murder Hamza and bring back his heart to her.
Wahshi eventually did so by hiding behind a tree and striking Hamza with a spear which left him dead; Wahshi then split open Hamza's belly and took out his raw heart and brought it back to Hind as promised. Hind was claimed to have tasted the raw heart as a prominent sign of revenge, but was said to have not relished it and immediately spat it out.
One of the earliest chronicles of Islamic history, Ibn Ishaq's Sirah Rasul Allah, a life of Muhammad, says that Hind accompanied the Meccan forces that went to besiege the Muslims in Medina. At the Battle of Uhud
, Hind and her women sang and danced, urging on their warriors. The Muslims were forced to flee and, according to Ibn Ishaq, Hind and the others mutilated the Muslim corpses, making garlands of ears and noses.
According to Ibn Ishaq, after the battle, Hind cut open the body of Muhammad's uncle Hamza, whom she believed responsible for the death of her relatives, cut out his heart, and gnawed on it. According to Ibn Ishaq, she couldn't swallow it and spat it out. Ibn ‘Abdu l-Barr states in his book "al-Istī‘āb" that she cooked Hamza's heart before eating it. This report has been widely copied by Muslim historians. However, neither Watt
nor Madelung
mention it.
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
woman who lived in the late 6th and early 7th centuries CE; she was the wife of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb
Abu Sufyan ibn Harb
Sakhr ibn Harb , more commonly known as Abu Sufyan was a leading man of the Quraish of Mecca. He was a staunch opponent of the Islamic prophet Muhammad before accepting Islam later in his life.-Opposition to Islam:...
, a powerful man of Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, in western Arabia
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
. Both Abu Sufyan and Hind originally opposed the Islamic prophet
Prophets of Islam
Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
. She was the mother of Muawiyah I
Muawiyah I
Muawiyah I was the first Caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty. After the conquest of Mecca by the Muslims, Muawiyah's family converted to Islam. Muawiyah is brother-in-law to Muhammad who married his sister Ramlah bint Abi-Sufyan in 1AH...
, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty, and of Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan
Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan
Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan, رملة بنت أبي سفيان, aka Umm Habiba, أم حبيبة, was the daughter of Abu Sufyan. She was born c. 589 and died in 666...
, who was one of Muhammad's wives. Her status as a Sahaba
Sahaba
In Islam, the ' were the companions, disciples, scribes and family of the Islamic prophet...
(companion of Muhammad) remains questioned because of actions she took against the Muslim community
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
before her conversion, particularly an incident of alleged battlefield cannibalism.
Life
She was born in Mecca, daughter of one of the most prominent leaders of the Quraysh, Utba ibn Rabi'ahUtba ibn Rabi'ah
Utbah ibn Rabi'ah was one of the prominent Leaders of Quraish during the era of Muhammad.-Family:Utba's father was Rabi'ah ibn Abd Shams. Utba's daughter, Hind bint Utbah, married Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, another of the Leaders of the Quraish and Muhammad's arch-enemy...
. She had two brothers: Abu-Hudhayfah ibn Utbah
Abu-Hudhayfah ibn Utbah
Abu Hudhayfah ibn Utbah full name Abu Hudhaifah bin `Utbah bin Rabi`ah bin `Abd Shams bin `Abd Manaf) was a sahaba of Muhammad. He was the son of Utba ibn Rabi'ah, one of the Leaders of Quraish...
and Walid ibn Utba
Walid ibn Utba
Walid ibn Utbah was the son of Utba ibn Rabi'ah and brother of Hind bint Utbah of the Quraysh. He was a fierce Meccan warrior who was killed by Ali in the traditional 3 champions' combat duel on the day of the Battle of Badr before the full battle began...
.
It is not known exactly when she married Abu Sufyan, one of the leading authorities in the tribe of Quraysh, but it is most probable that the marriage occurred in her early years of youth.
Controversies from Shia Sources
Hind is infamous in Islamic history for her exultation at the defeat of the MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s at the Battle of Uhud
Battle of Uhud
The Battle of Uhud was fought on March 19, 625 at the valley located in front of Mount Uhud, in what is now northwestern Arabia. It occurred between a force from the Muslim community of Medina led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and a force led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb from Mecca, the town from...
when she ate the liver of Muhammad's slain uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib
Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib
Hamza ibn ‘Abdul-Muttalib [b.568-d.625] was the paternal uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and his foster-brother. He and Muhammad were raised together as they were almost the same age. With excellence in the arts of wrestling and swordsmanship...
. Although she later converted to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, the founder of the Umayyad Caliphate was thus later slandered to be an illegitimate son of a cannibal. Even in the modern age, arguments continue to be raised about whether Hind bint ‘Utbah was a Sahaba or not because of her pre-Islamic actions.
In the earlier Sunni reference Istīʻāb fī Maʻrifat al-Aṣḥāb, Islamic scholar Yusuf ibn abd al-Barr
Yusuf ibn abd al-Barr
Yusuf ibn Abdallah ibn Mohammed ibn Abd al-Barr, Abu Umar al-Namari al-Andalusi al-Qurtubi al-Maliki, commonly known as Ibn Abd-al-Barr was a famous Sunni Maliki Islamic Scholar...
(978-1071) lists summaries for the biographies of the Sahaba, and Hind is indeed mentioned as one of Muhammad's Sahaba.
Alleged claims about adultery
Shīʻī scholars quote earlier sources which claim that Hind had relations with men other than her husband Abu Sufyan, and that her son Mu'awiya might have been the result of any of those illegitimate relations.Other scholars say that she became pregnant from Abu Sufyan out of wedlock and Abu Sufyan was bribed to marry her.
Claims that Hind ate the liver of Hamza
During the Battle of UhudBattle of Uhud
The Battle of Uhud was fought on March 19, 625 at the valley located in front of Mount Uhud, in what is now northwestern Arabia. It occurred between a force from the Muslim community of Medina led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and a force led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb from Mecca, the town from...
,Mūsá ibn ‘Uqbah narrated that Wahshi gouged out the liver of Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib and took it to Hind bint ‘Utbah and she ate it. Ibn Kathir
Ibn Kathir
Ismail ibn Kathir was a Muslim muhaddith, Faqih, historian, and commentator.-Biography:His full name was Abu Al-Fida, 'Imad Ad-Din, Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir, Al-Qurashi, Al-Busrawi...
mentions this in his Al-Bid‘ayah wa n-Nihaayah (4/43).
Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
narrated with a broken isnād that Hind was the one who gouged the liver of Hamza.
Earlier hostility against Muslims
From 613 to 622, Muhammad preached the message of Islam publicly, in Mecca. As he gathered converts, he and his followers faced increasing persecution. In 622 they emigrated to the distant city of Yathrib, now known as MedinaMedina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. They were at war with the Meccans and attacked Meccan caravans.
The Meccans sent out a force to defend the caravans. The Meccans and the Muslims clashed at the Battle of Badr
Battle of Badr
The Battle of Badr , fought Saturday, March 13, 624 AD in the Hejaz region of western Arabia , was a key battle in the early days of Islam and a turning point in Muhammad's struggle with his opponents among the Quraish in Mecca...
. The Muslims defeated the Meccans and Hind's father, brother and uncle were all slaughtered in that battle. Hind's anger at the Muslims was of the greatest and most intense; she kept wailing publicly in the open desert and pouring dust over her face and her clothes, while lamenting her deceased relatives; and she did not stop not until her husband Abu Sufyan urged her to weep no more and promised her to avenge the death of her father and brother.
She is claimed to have been the one responsible for inciting Wahshy ibn Harb
Wahshy ibn Harb
Wahshy ibn Harb was the Ethiopian slave of Jubayr ibn Mut'im and a Sahaba . He is best known for killing a leading Muslim general, Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib Muhammad's uncle, prior to accepting Islam, and afterwards killing Musaylimah, the leader of an enemy apostate army who were waging war...
to murder Muhammad's uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, who was claimed responsible for the death of her father and brother, and she offered Wahshi his freedom and her jewelry in return if he managed to murder Hamza and bring back his heart to her.
Wahshi eventually did so by hiding behind a tree and striking Hamza with a spear which left him dead; Wahshi then split open Hamza's belly and took out his raw heart and brought it back to Hind as promised. Hind was claimed to have tasted the raw heart as a prominent sign of revenge, but was said to have not relished it and immediately spat it out.
One of the earliest chronicles of Islamic history, Ibn Ishaq's Sirah Rasul Allah, a life of Muhammad, says that Hind accompanied the Meccan forces that went to besiege the Muslims in Medina. At the Battle of Uhud
Battle of Uhud
The Battle of Uhud was fought on March 19, 625 at the valley located in front of Mount Uhud, in what is now northwestern Arabia. It occurred between a force from the Muslim community of Medina led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and a force led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb from Mecca, the town from...
, Hind and her women sang and danced, urging on their warriors. The Muslims were forced to flee and, according to Ibn Ishaq, Hind and the others mutilated the Muslim corpses, making garlands of ears and noses.
According to Ibn Ishaq, after the battle, Hind cut open the body of Muhammad's uncle Hamza, whom she believed responsible for the death of her relatives, cut out his heart, and gnawed on it. According to Ibn Ishaq, she couldn't swallow it and spat it out. Ibn ‘Abdu l-Barr states in his book "al-Istī‘āb" that she cooked Hamza's heart before eating it. This report has been widely copied by Muslim historians. However, neither Watt
William Montgomery Watt
William Montgomery Watt was a Scottish historian, an Emeritus Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh...
nor Madelung
Wilferd Madelung
Wilferd Ferdinand Madelung is a scholar of Islam. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where he completed his early education at Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium....
mention it.