Death of Ruqayyah, Daughter of the Prophet

Ruqayyah bint Muhammad ﷺ was the second daughter of the Prophet ﷺ and Khadijah. Initially betrothed to Utbah ibn Abi Lahab, she was freed from that betrothal when Surah al-Masad was revealed condemning Abu Lahab — whose son Utbah then divorced her as an act of spite against the Prophet ﷺ before the marriage was consummated. She was then given in marriage to Uthman ibn Affan, one of the early converts, and the two became the first couple to migrate for Islam — Uthman and Ruqayyah were the first to make the Hijra to Abyssinia, and among those who made the second Hijra as well. The Prophet ﷺ said of them: 'They are the first to emigrate in the way of Allah after Ibrahim and Lut.' They eventually settled in Medina after the Hijra, where Ruqayyah had previously buried their young son Abdullah, who died at approximately six years old from a wound caused by a rooster. In 2 AH — around the time of the Battle of Badr — Ruqayyah fell gravely ill. The Prophet ﷺ instructed Uthman to remain in Medina to care for her rather than join the Badr expedition. This was a genuine sacrifice: Badr became the most spiritually significant battle of early Islam, and being counted among its veterans carried permanent honor. The Prophet ﷺ told Uthman his reward would be the same as the fighters. Ruqayyah died in Medina while the battle was being fought. Zayd ibn Harithah arrived with news of the Muslim victory at Badr on the same day she was being buried — triumph and grief arriving simultaneously in the same city. The Prophet ﷺ returned from Badr to find his daughter already interred. He visited her grave, sat beside it, and wept. His grief was not concealed — the narrations record his tears openly. After Ruqayyah's death, the Prophet ﷺ gave his third daughter Umm Kulthum in marriage to Uthman — making Uthman the only man in Islamic history to have been married to two daughters of the Prophet ﷺ, earning him the permanent title Dhu al-Nurayn: the Possessor of Two Lights. Ruqayyah's life — two migrations, a dead child, a death in the city of hijra while her father fought the defining battle of early Islam — represents the full depth of sacrifice borne by the women around the Prophet ﷺ.