Overview
When Abu Lahab raised his hand to beat a defenceless Muslim servant in the days following the Battle of Badr, it was Lubaba bint al-Harith رضي الله عنها who took a tent pole and cracked him over the head with such force that she split his skull open — and he died from the wound days later. This single act reveals the essence of who Lubaba was: a woman of fearless conviction, protective instinct, and physical courage at a time when such qualities could cost everything. She was the first woman to accept Islam after Khadija رضي الله عنها, endured the bitterest years of the boycott, raised the greatest scholar this ummah has produced, and was counted by the Prophet ﷺ himself among al-akhawat al-mu’minat — the faithful sisters. Scholars such as al-Dhahabi identified her as akram ajuz fil-Islam — the most noble elderly woman in all of Islam — on account of the extraordinary density of her connections to the Prophet ﷺ, the rightly guided caliphs, and the greatest figures of early Islamic history. She is, as Omar Suleiman has observed, “the part of everyone’s story” — and yet, for all that, she is frequently overlooked.
Early Life
Lubaba رضي الله عنها was born into the tribe of Banu Hilal, a Bedouin people renowned for their mastery of desert survival. The Banu Hilal were not soft urbanites; they were expert shepherds and agriculturists, hardened by the demands of arid terrain, people who knew how to endure. This upbringing would prove to be more than incidental to who Lubaba became.
Her father was al-Harith ibn Hazan, and her mother was Hind bint Auf — a woman whose remarkable fertility in faith would come to define an entire generation of Islamic history. Through Hind bint Auf, Lubaba’s family became one of the most extraordinarily connected in the entire ummah. Her full sister Maymuna bint al-Harith رضي الله عنها would become the last of the Prophet’s ﷺ wives. Her half-sisters — daughters of Hind bint Auf by another father — included Asma bint Umais رضي الله عنها, who would marry in sequence Ja’far ibn Abi Talib, then Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, then Ali ibn Abi Talib, and Salma bint Umais رضي الله عنها, who was the wife first of Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib and then of Shaddad ibn al-Had. Another half-sister, Zainab bint Khuzayma رضي الله عنها, known as Ummul Masakin — the Mother of the Poor — was also a wife of the Prophet ﷺ. And Lubaba’s younger full sister, Lubaba al-Sughra, became the mother of Khalid ibn al-Walid رضي الله عنه, who was himself raised among the Banu Hilal. It is on account of this constellation of connections — to the Prophet ﷺ through marriage in the family, to the caliphs through her half-sisters, to the great commanders through her nephew — that the classical scholars called her the most noble elderly woman in Islam.
Lubaba married al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib رضي الله عنه, the Prophet’s ﷺ uncle, who at the time was one of the wealthiest merchants in all of Makkah. Through this marriage she became embedded at the very heart of Banu Hashim, the Prophet’s ﷺ own clan, while remaining of Banu Hilal by birth.
Entrance into Islam
Lubaba رضي الله عنها holds one of the most precious distinctions in the history of this religion: she was the first woman to accept Islam after Khadija رضي الله عنها. She herself narrated that she embraced Islam on the very same day as Khadija — and from that earliest moment, her support for the Prophet ﷺ was complete and unconditional. She would frequently sit with the Prophet ﷺ in Dar al-Arqam and in his private home, learning the new religion, absorbing its teaching, committing herself to its practice — all of this while her husband al-Abbas had not yet publicly announced his own faith.
This disparity between husband and wife, so early in the Makkan period, speaks volumes about Lubaba’s character. She did not wait for social permission or domestic consensus. She recognised the truth and she acted on it. Notably, even before the prohibition of usury (riba) was formally revealed, she was already praying that her husband would leave it — a detail that the scholars found remarkable, because it suggests a heart already calibrated to revelation before revelation had arrived. As her son Abdullah ibn Abbas رضي الله عنه would later narrate: “I and my mother were from the mustad’afin — the weak — those who embraced Islam and who suffered as a result.” That she and her son bore that suffering willingly, at the beginning, before the community had numbers or power, is the measure of her faith.
Life During the Prophethood
The Boycott and the Birth of Ibn Abbas
When the Quraysh imposed their devastating boycott against Banu Hashim and Banu Muttalib, sealing off the besieged Muslims in the valley of Shi’b Abi Talib, Lubaba رضي الله عنها endured it alongside her husband and the Prophet ﷺ. The community was reduced to eating grass and leather. The sound of children crying from hunger, as the narrations describe, could be heard from beyond the walls. Lubaba — a woman of Banu Hilal, who knew what it meant to endure hardship — survived these years. It was during the boycott that she and al-Abbas, despite everything, managed to hide away some money for their children’s future, a quiet act of parental love in the most desperate of circumstances.
It was also during this period that she gave birth to her son Abdullah ibn Abbas رضي الله عنه — the man who would become Habr al-Ummah, the great scholar of this ummah, the one of whom the Prophet ﷺ would pray: “O Allah, give him understanding of the religion and teach him interpretation.” That this towering figure was born during the very depths of the boycott, in hunger and siege, is one of those details that invites reflection: the most intellectually luminous companion of the next generation entered the world in darkness and constriction, nursed by a mother whose faith never flickered.
The Tent Pole and the Death of Abu Lahab
The Battle of Badr was fought in 2 AH. Al-Abbas رضي الله عنه was among those Makkans compelled to march out against the Muslims, though the tradition holds that his heart was not with the pagan army. Back in Makkah, when the news arrived of the catastrophic Qurayshi defeat, the mood was volatile. Abu Lahab — the Prophet’s ﷺ uncle and his most vicious enemy, the man condemned by name in Surah al-Masad — was in a foul temper. He came upon Abu Rafi, a servant who had been freed by al-Abbas and who had joyfully shared the news of the Muslim victory. Abu Lahab began to beat him, striking a man who had no one to defend him and no recourse.
Lubaba رضي الله عنها saw it. She picked up a tent pole and walked straight at Abu Lahab. “Do you think you’re stronger than him, O Abu Lahab?” she demanded. “Are you taking advantage of him just because his sayyid is gone?” And then she struck him — cracking the pole across his head with such force that she split his skull open. Abu Lahab staggered away. Within a few days, he was dead.
The scholars have noted that this is a woman striking the Prophet’s ﷺ most virulent enemy, the man cursed in the Quran, at a moment when the Muslim community had almost nothing and the balance of power in Makkah lay entirely with the Quraysh. She did not calculate the risk. She saw a vulnerable person being abused and she acted. This is the quality that Omar Suleiman identifies as the defining note of her personality: a courage so deep and so instinctive that it expressed itself in the moment, without hesitation, regardless of consequence.
The Farewell Pilgrimage and the Ruling on Fasting at Arafah
When the Prophet ﷺ performed his Farewell Pilgrimage — Hajjat al-Wada’ — Lubaba رضي الله عنها was present. It fell to her, through a simple and intimate act, to settle a question the companions were uncertain about: whether a pilgrim should fast on the day of Arafah. The Prophet ﷺ was standing at Arafah when Lubaba sent him a glass of milk. He drank it in full view of the people. That act established the ruling: the Prophet ﷺ was not fasting at Arafah, and his example is the guidance of the ummah.
Nursing Al-Husayn
Lubaba رضي الله عنها had once come to the Prophet ﷺ and told him of a dream: she had seen a piece of his flesh placed in her home. The Prophet ﷺ interpreted it as a sign that Fatimah رضي الله عنها would give birth and that Lubaba would nurse the child. The dream proved true. When Al-Husayn ibn Ali رضي الله عنه was born, Lubaba nursed him alongside her own son Quthum, making Al-Husayn her son through the bonds of breastfeeding — a relationship Islam treats with the gravity of blood kinship.
There is a tender and human postscript to this connection. On one occasion, the infant Al-Husayn urinated on Lubaba, and she struck him in response — the spontaneous reaction of a woman who forgot, for a moment, whose child she was holding. The Prophet ﷺ said to her, gently: “Athaytani fee ibni” — “You have hurt me through my son.” That exchange captures something of the closeness and familiarity between Lubaba and the Prophet ﷺ — a closeness born of decades of shared faith, shared hardship, and shared love.
Life After the Prophet ﷺ
Lubaba رضي الله عنها migrated to Madinah with her family approximately three years before the Prophet’s ﷺ death — a late migration, but one she made fully. In Madinah she remained close to her sister Maymuna and continued her role as the great matriarch of a remarkable household. Her husband al-Abbas, who had been a secret Muslim for years and had finally made his faith public around the time of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, was now openly of the community of believers.
She lived to see the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman رضي الله عنهم — decades of transformation, expansion, and testing for the young Muslim community. She died during the caliphate of Uthman ibn Affan, and was buried in al-Baqi’, the blessed cemetery of Madinah, where so many of the companions came to rest.
Legacy
Lubaba رضي الله عنها narrated approximately thirty ahadith, several of which carry particular legal weight. Among them are narrations that established rulings on the purity of an infant’s urine and on the prohibition of fasting at Arafah for the pilgrim. These ahadith were transmitted and recorded by Ibn Hajar, al-Dhahabi, Ibn Sa’d, and Ibn al-Jawzi, ensuring that her voice continued to inform Islamic legal reasoning long after her death.
But the fullest dimension of her legacy lives in her children. Her eldest son al-Fadl ibn Abbas رضي الله عنه had the honour of riding with the Prophet ﷺ during the Farewell Pilgrimage. And then there is Abdullah ibn Abbas رضي الله عنه — Habr al-Ummah, the ocean of knowledge, the greatest interpreter of the Quran this community has known. The Prophet ﷺ prayed specifically for him. The scholars of every generation after have drawn from him. And he himself traced the beginning of it all back to his mother, narrating that he and she were from the mustad’afin — those who were weak and who bore their Islam through suffering. Lubaba’s faithfulness in the earliest, hardest years of Islam was the soil in which the greatest scholarship of the ummah took root.
Firsts & Distinctions
- The first woman to embrace Islam after Khadija رضي الله عنها — accepted Islam on the same day as Khadija.
- One of the al-akhawat al-mu’minat — the faithful sisters — a title given by the Prophet ﷺ himself to Lubaba, Maymuna, Asma, and Salma.
- Identified by al-Dhahabi as akram ajuz fil-Islam — the most noble elderly woman in Islam — for the breadth of her family connections to the Prophet ﷺ and the Khulafa Rashideen.
- The woman whose strike against Abu Lahab resulted in his death, fulfilling the promise of Surah al-Masad.
- Mother of Abdullah ibn Abbas, Habr al-Ummah, the greatest scholar of the Companions.
- Foster mother of Al-Husayn ibn Ali through breastfeeding.
- The companion whose provision of milk to the Prophet ﷺ at Arafah established the ruling that a pilgrim does not fast on the Day of Arafah.
Key Lessons
Courage is its own form of worship. When Lubaba struck Abu Lahab to defend a defenceless man, she was not acting out of rage but out of a deep sense of justice. Her example teaches that standing up for the vulnerable — even at personal risk, even against the powerful — is part of what it means to live one’s faith.
The heart can know what revelation has not yet stated. Lubaba’s revulsion at riba before it was formally forbidden points to something the scholars called the alignment of a noble heart with divine will. The fitrah — the innate disposition toward what is right — is itself a kind of guidance, and tending it matters.
Mothers shape civilisations. Omar Suleiman’s reading of Lubaba’s life centres on her role as the primary nurturer of some of the greatest figures in Islamic history. Abdullah ibn Abbas did not emerge from a vacuum; he emerged from a mother who sat in Dar al-Arqam from the beginning, who endured the boycott without breaking, and who prayed her household into righteousness before it was fashionable to be Muslim.
Faithfulness before recognition. Lubaba accepted Islam when it offered nothing in the way of social advantage and everything in the way of hardship. She was, with her children, among the mustad’afin — the weak. Her willingness to be numbered among them, at the very start, before the tide turned, is the mark of a faith that needed no audience.
Intimacy with the Prophet ﷺ is built over a lifetime. The ease with which Lubaba could send the Prophet ﷺ a glass of milk at Arafah, the familiarity of their exchange over the infant Al-Husayn — these are the fruits of decades of nearness. Proximity to the Prophet ﷺ, in spirit and practice, is not a momentary event but a life’s work.
References & Further Reading
Classical Sources
- al-Dhahabi, Siyar A’lam al-Nubala'
- Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah
- Ibn Sa’d, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra
- Ibn al-Jawzi, [work title unspecified in source]
Further Reading
- Omar Suleiman, The Firsts: The Faithful Sisters — Lubaba bint al-Harith (Umm al-Fadl) (Yaqeen Institute)