Fatimah bint Aqil فَاطِمَةُ بِنْتُ عَقِيلِ | |
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| Died | |
Resting place | Shrine of Fatima bint Aqil, Basra, Iraq, in Kut al-Zayn village, Abu al-Khasib |
| Spouse | Ali ibn Yazid ibn Rukanah |
| Children | Abdullah ibn Ali Muhammad ibn Ali Muslim ibn Ali Abda bint Ali |
| Parent |
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| Relatives | |
Fatimah bint Aqil ibn Abi Talib (Arabic: فَاطِمَةُ بِنْتُ عَقِيلِ بْنِ أَبِي طَالِبٍ) was a 7th-century Arab poetess, known for an elegy attributed to her mourning Imam Husayn ibn Ali and the other martyrs of Karbala. She was the daughter of Aqil ibn Abi Talib and the sister of Muslim ibn Aqil.
She was the daughter of Aqil (d. 670 or 683), a cousin of Islamic prophet Muhammad (d. 632) and the elder brother of Ali ibn Abi Talib (who reigned as the fourth caliph from 656 until his death in 661), Fatimah was also a first cousin of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, who was martyred at Karbala. According to Musʿab ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Zubayri (d. 851), She was one of Aqil’s daughters born to different enslaved women (umm walad). Her paternal half-sisters were Umm Hani (Ramlah), Zaynab, Zaynab al-Sughra, and Umm Luqman. They all had the same father but different mothers.
Fatima was married to Ali ibn Yazid ibn Rukanah, the grandson of Rukanah (ibn Abd Yazid ibn Hashim ibn Abu Muttalib ibn Abd Manaf) (d. 666–667), a well-known wrestler of the Quraysh tribe and a member of the Banu al-Muttalib, Many people came from across Arabia to challenge him, but no one could defeat him. According to Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), Rukanah once challenged the Islamic prophet Muhammad to a wrestling match, promising to accept his message if Muhammad defeated him. Muhammad subsequently wrestled Rukanah three times and defeated him on each occasion, following which Rukanah accepted Islam, fulfilling his promise. Rukanah also narrated a hadith from the prophet Muhammad, and his grandson, Ali ibn Yazid ibn Rukanah, narrated from him.[citation needed] Fatima and Ali had four children: Abdullah, Muhammad, Muslim, and Abda.
In 61 AH (680 CE), during the Battle of Karbala, several of Fatimah's paternal brothers and other male relatives from the family of Aqil ibn Abi Talib were martyred alongside Imam Husayn ibn Ali. Among them were Jaʿfar, Abd al-Raḥman, Abd Allah al-Akbar, and Abd Allah al-Asghar ibn Aqīl. And Muslim ibn Aqil, who had served as Imam Ḥusayn's representative in Kufa, had been martyred there before the Battle of Karbala. When the news of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali and her brothers at Karbala reached Madinah, the daughters of Aqil went to the grave of the Messenger of Allah to mourn their deceased relatives.
She died in the Basra, a region of modern-day Iraq. Her grave is located in the village of Kut al-Zayn, in the Abu al-Khasib District of Basra Governorate, along the Shatt al-Arab. The exact date of her death is unknown. The grave is visited by local residents and devotees.
Ibn Abd Rabbih's Al-ʿIqd al-Farīd attributes an elegy to an unnamed daughter of Aqil ibn Abi Talib, mourning Husayn ibn Ali and those killed with him. A later report in al-Qunduzi's Yanabi al-Muwadda identifies the daughter of Aqil who composed the elegy as Fatimah bint Aqil.
The elegy begins:
“O my eyes, shed tears and lament,
and mourn for the family of the Messenger.
Six of them, all descended from Ali,
were struck down,
and five from the family of Aqil”.