Umm al-Banin (Fatima bint Hizam)

Umm al-Banin Fatima bint Hizam, of the Banu Kilab tribe, was a wife whom Ali ibn Abi Talib married after the death of Fatima al-Zahra. She bore him four sons—Abbas, Abdullah, Ja'far and Uthman—and so was called Umm al-Banin ('mother of the sons'). Her son al-Abbas ibn Ali, the standard-bearer of Husayn, was martyred at Karbala, and by tradition all four of her sons fell there. In Shia tradition she is deeply revered for her devotion to the Prophet's family and as the mother of the Karbala martyrs, keeping their memory alive through elegies in Medina. Her year of death is disputed in the sources: some give 64 AH (c. 683 CE), others 69 AH (c. 688 CE). According to the dominant Shia tradition she died in Medina and was buried in Jannat al-Baqi; her shrine was removed in the Baqi demolitions of 1806 and 1925. One contemporary researcher has questioned the burial location. Information about her rests chiefly on Shia sources, noted here in line with the principle of transparency.