Safiyyah bint Abd al-Muttalib (rha)
The Prophet's ﷺ aunt who killed a Qurayza scout at al-Fari'.
Aunt of the Prophet ﷺ and full sister of Hamzah, who at the fortress of al-Fari’ became the first woman in Islam to kill an enemy combatant.
Identity & lineage
Daughter of Abd al-Muttalib, she was a paternal aunt of the Prophet ﷺ and the sister of Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (Sayyid al-Shuhada). She was the mother of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam.
Role in the Seerah
During the Battle of Khandaq the women and children were sent to al-Fari’, the fortress of the Banu Harithah, with only the non-combatant poet Hassan ibn Thabit among them. Safiyyah’s decisive act there is the one story we have of the fortress.
Key episodes
- The kill at al-Fari’ — a week into the siege, Banu Qurayza scouts probed the fortress at night to see if the Muslims’ families were unguarded (intending to attack them). Hearing one climbing, Safiyyah woke Hassan, but he confessed he could not fight (jaban). So she took a man’s shawl and a dagger, climbed out into the pitch dark, surprised the intruder, slit his throat, and threw his head down to his companion, who fled shrieking that al-Fari’ was well defended (Musnad Ahmad, via Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, then a boy of 4–5 in the fortress). She then told Hassan to fetch the dead man’s weapons; he declined.
Character & lessons
Courage and initiative in the gravest hour, protecting the defenceless when the one able man could not. Her episode is narrated alongside Hassan’s frankly-recorded weakness to teach that the sahaba were human and that everyone has a unique role — including women in defence of the community.
Death
Not established in the lectures. (Open question: date of death.)
Cross-references
- Muhammad ﷺ — her nephew
- Battle of Khandaq — the kill at al-Fari’
- al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam — her son
- Hassan ibn Thabit — the poet with her in the fortress
- Madinah (Yathrib)
Sources
- S008 — Yasir Qadhi Seerah EP 051–060 (EP 057, women and children at al-Fari’).
- Classical: the al-Fari’ report is in Musnad Imam Ahmad (narrated by Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr); also in the maghazi literature (Ibn Ishaq/Ibn Hisham).