Atika bint Zayd al-Adawiyya (Arabic: عاتكة بنت زيد, romanized: ʿĀtika bint Zayd) was an Islamic scholar and poet. She was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She was a wife of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph. She was a poet who is notable for having married Muslim men who died as shaheed.
Atika bint Zayd
| |
---|---|
عاتکة بنت زيد
| |
Title | The wife of the martyrs |
Personal | |
Born | ʿĀtīḳah bint Zayd ibn ‘Amr ibn Nufayl ibn ‘Abd al-‘Uzzā ibn Rāz ibn ‘Adiyy ibn Ka‘ab ibn Lu’ayy ibn Ghālib ibn Fihr ibn Mālik c. 600 |
Died | c. 672 |
Resting place | Medina |
Religion | Islam |
Spouse |
|
Children | ʿIyāḍ ibn ʿUmar |
Parents |
|
Era | Early Islamic period |
Known for | SahabiyahofMuhammad |
Occupation | Poet, scholar |
Relatives |
|
She was the daughter of Zayd ibn Amr, a member of the Adi clan of the QurayshinMecca, and of Umm Kurz Safiya bint al-Hadrami.[1]: 186 [2] Sa'id ibn Zayd was her brother.[3]: 296 [2] Their father was murdered in 605.[4]: 102–103
Atika was probably still a child when Muhammad declared himself to be a prophet in 610.[4]: 281 Sa'id was among the early converts,[4]: 116 [3]: 299 and Atika became a Muslim too.[1]: 186
Atika married several times in her lifetime.
Her first husband was her cousin, Zayd ibn al-Khattab,[2] who was at least twenty years older than herself. He was also a Muslim,[3]: 294 and it was presumably in his company that Atika joined the general emigrationtoMedina in 622.[1]: 186 [2]
This marriage apparently ended in divorce, for Atika had already remarried by the time of Zayd's death at the Battle of Yamama in December 632.[2]
Her second husband was Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr.[1]: 186 [5]: 101 It was said that Abdullah deferred to Atika's judgment and that he spent so much time with her that he was too busy to fight in the Islamic army.[2][6]
Abu Bakr punished his son by ordering him to divorce her.[2][6] However, Al-Baladhuri says that the reason Abu Bakr ordered the divorce was because Atika was barren.[7]: 267 Abdullah did as he was told but was grief-stricken. He wrote poetry for her:[2][6]
I have never known a man like me divorce a woman like her,
nor any woman like her divorced for no fault of her own.[2]