Atikah bint Nafil

The Sahabiyat
by Jameelah Jones 


Atikah bint Nafil 

During the early years of Islam, women encouraged their husbands to go forward for the cause of Islam. These women, like their men, were courageous, strong and thoroughly ready to give all for the sake of truth. The Sahabiyat (female companions of the Prophet - sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) had personalities which cannot be scoffed at. Here is a story of one such early women of Islam. 

Atikah bint Amr ibn Nafil was one of the most beautiful women of Quraysh. She married AbdurRahman ibn Abu Bakr, who was extremely fearful of Allah, handsome and considerate of his parents. AbdurRahman was very much in love with Atikah. One day his father passed by and visited him in his home. When he saw how taken his son was with Atikah, he advised him to divorce her, as she had run away with his reason and overcome his senses. AbdurRahman told his father that he was not able to do this. His father said, "I endure you to do so!" Since AbdurRahman was not humanly able to oppose his father, he divorced his wife. However, after the divorce, he became extremely unhappy and even stopped eating and drinking. Abu Bakr went to him one day, but his son didn't even notice him. He realized that his son was totally devastated by the divorce. AbdurRahman was lying in the sun reciting the following: "I swear by Allah that I will never forget you as long as the sun rises, and as long as the ring-necked dove coos. I cannot imagine one such as me divorcing one like her, nor one like her being divorced without any reason. She is chaste, religious, and noble. She has a balanced personality and a logical mind." After hearing this, Abu Bakr advised his son to take her back. AbdurRahman obeyed his father, and they were reunited. Atikah remained with him until he was killed by an arrow while out with the Prophet -sallallahu alahi wasallam- on the day of Ta'if. 

Atikah later married Umar during his Khilafah. Their union ended with his death at the hands of an assassin. Some time passed, then Az-Zubayr ibn Al-Awwam proposed to her and subsequently married her.

It was Atikah's custom to leave the house so that she could pray in the mosque. Az-Zubayr was possessive. It upset him to see her leaving the house to pray in the mosque. He appealed to her to stop, but she saw no reason to give up praying in the mosque in which she had prayed behind behind the Prophet -sallallahu alaihi wasallam, Abu Bakr, and Umar. Az-Zubayr knew that he should not forbid her from praying in the Prophet's mosque, because he knew the hadith in which the Prophet -sallallahu alaihi wasallam had said, "Do not forbid Allah's female slaves (from attending) His mosque". 

Then Az-Zubayr was martyred, and she subsequently married Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, who was killed in Egypt. At this point, she decided that she would never marry anyone else after him, for fear that he too would be martyred. She once said, "If I were to marry all the inhabitants of the earth, they would all be killed." She was given the affectionate name "Zawjah Ash-Shuhada" - the wife of the martyrs.