Umm Habiba

She was born in circa 589 or 594. Abu Sufyan was the chief of the Umayya clan, and she was the daughter of the leader of the whole Quraysh tribe and the most powerful opponent of Muhammad in the period 624–630. However, he later accepted Islam and became a Muslim warrior. The first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah I, was Ramla's half-brother, and Uthman ibn Affan was her maternal first cousin and paternal second cousin. ==Marriage to Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh==

Her first husband was Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh, a brother of Zaynab bint Jahsh, whom Muhammad also married. Ubayd-Allah and Ramla were among the first people to accept Islam. In 616, in order to avoid hostilities from Quraish, they both emigrated to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), where she gave birth to Habibah bint Ubayd-Allah. ==Marriage to Muhammad==

Muhammad sent Ramla a proposal of marriage, which arrived on the day she completed her Iddah (widow's waiting period). The marriage ceremony took place in Abyssinia even though Muhammad was not present. Ramla chose Khalid ibn Said as her legal guardian. The Negus (King) of Abyssinia gave Khalid a dower of 400 dinars and hosted a huge wedding feast after the ceremony. The Negus then arranged to send all thirty of the remaining immigrant Muslims back to Arabia. They travelled to Medina in two boats. Shurahbil ibn Hasana accompanied Ramla on this journey. According to some sources, she married Muhammad one year after the Hijra, though she did not live with him until six years later, when Muhammad was sixty years old and she was thirty-five. Tabari writes that her marriage took place in 7 A.H. (628) when "she was thirty-odd years old." ==Life in Medina==

On one occasion, Abu Sufyan visited his daughter Ramla in her house in Medina. "As he went to sit on the apostle’s carpet she folded it up so that he could not sit on it. 'My dear daughter,' he said, 'I hardly know if you think that the carpet is too good for me or that I am too good for the carpet!' She replied: 'It is the apostle’s carpet and you are an unclean polytheist. I do not want you to sit on the apostle’s carpet.' 'By God,' he said, 'since you left me you have gone to the bad.'" Ramla died in the year 45 A.H. (664 or 665 C.E.) during the rule of her half-brother, Muawiyah I. She was buried in the Jannat al-Baqi cemetery next to other wives of Muhammad. ==Legacy==

The Hadith literature includes about sixty-five hadiths narrated by Ramla. Muhammad al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj agreed on two of them, and Muslim took two of them alone. ==References==