Death of Ruqayyah, Daughter of the Prophet

# The Death of Ruqayyah, Daughter of the Prophet

A Life of Two Migrations

Ruqayyah bint Muhammad ﷺ was the second daughter of the Prophet ﷺ and Khadijah, born before prophethood. She grew up in the household of Mecca and was initially betrothed to Utbah ibn Abi Lahab — a son of Abu Lahab, the Prophet's ﷺ uncle and one of Islam's most bitter enemies. When Surah al-Masad (Surah 111) was revealed — condemning Abu Lahab and his wife — Abu Lahab ordered his son to divorce Ruqayyah before the marriage was consummated, as an act of spite. She was thus freed from a marriage into a hostile family, and the Prophet ﷺ then gave her in marriage to Uthman ibn Affan, one of the early converts.

Uthman ibn Affan was wealthy, from the aristocratic Umayyad clan of the Quraysh, and he had given up everything to follow the Prophet ﷺ. With Ruqayyah, he became part of the first migration to Abyssinia — the two of them among the first Muslims to leave Mecca for a foreign land seeking religious freedom. When the Quraysh's persecution continued after their return, they made the second migration to Abyssinia as well. In Mecca, the couple had also faced the persecution, social isolation, and economic pressure that defined the early Muslim experience. The Prophet ﷺ said of Uthman and Ruqayyah: "They are the first to emigrate in the way of Allah after Ibrahim and Lut."

The Hijra to Medina

When the Hijra was authorized and the Muslim community began its migration to Medina, Uthman and Ruqayyah made the journey north. They settled in Medina as Muhajirun — migrants who had left family, property, and city for the sake of Islam. Ruqayyah was now in her early twenties, far from Mecca, established in the new city that was becoming the center of the Muslim world.

She and Uthman had a son, Abdullah ibn Uthman, who was born before the Hijra. Abdullah died in Medina in childhood — approximately six years old — after a rooster pecked his face and the wound became infected. This grief — the loss of a child — preceded Ruqayyah's own illness.

The Illness at the Time of Badr

In Sha'ban or Ramadan of 2 AH, as the Prophet ﷺ was preparing the expedition that would become the Battle of Badr, Ruqayyah fell gravely ill. The narrations indicate she was already too sick to travel when the Muslim army departed for Badr. The Prophet ﷺ instructed Uthman to remain in Medina to care for his wife rather than join the expedition. This was a significant personal sacrifice for Uthman — to miss the first major battle of Islam and the spiritual honor of being counted among the veterans of Badr — but the Prophet ﷺ told him his reward would be the same as if he had participated, because of his care for Ruqayyah.

She died in Medina while the Battle of Badr was being fought. Zayd ibn Harithah, the Prophet's ﷺ freed slave and close companion, arrived in Medina with news of the Muslim victory at Badr on the same day that Ruqayyah was being buried. The two events — the greatest Muslim victory of the early period and the death of the Prophet's ﷺ daughter — arrived simultaneously.

The Prophet's ﷺ Grief

The Prophet ﷺ returned from Badr to find his daughter already buried. He visited her grave and wept. The hadiths record that he sat by the graveside of Ruqayyah and grieved in a way that was visible to the community. His grief was not suppressed — prophetic character, in the Islamic understanding, does not require the performance of stoicism. Weeping at the death of one's child is part of the mercy that Allah places in the hearts of parents.

When his daughter Zaynab had died later, the Prophet ﷺ is also recorded as weeping. When his son Ibrahim died at seventeen months, he wept and said: "The eye weeps, the heart grieves, and we say only what pleases our Lord. We are saddened by your departure, O Ibrahim." The thread of prophetic grief runs through these deaths — the same capacity for deep love that made him the Prophet of mercy also made each loss a profound personal sorrow.

Uthman and the Two Daughters of the Prophet

After Ruqayyah's death, the Prophet ﷺ gave his third daughter, Umm Kulthum, in marriage to Uthman ibn Affan. This gave Uthman the unique distinction in Islamic history of having been married to two daughters of the Prophet ﷺ sequentially — for which he received the title Dhu al-Nurayn, "the Possessor of Two Lights." No other man in Islamic history has this distinction.

Umm Kulthum also died before the Prophet ﷺ, in 9 AH. When she was being buried, the Prophet ﷺ sat at the graveside and someone noticed tears in his eyes. He said he was remembering both daughters.

What Ruqayyah's Life Signifies

Ruqayyah's biography is one of the most complete human narratives among the women of the early Muslim community. She was present at the beginning — betrothed, then freed from that betrothal by revelation, then married to one of the great companions. She migrated twice. She buried a child. She died while her father and community were at war, surviving just long enough to see the community established in its new city but not to see its ultimate triumph.

Her life represents the full weight of the early Islamic experience borne not just by the men but by the women and families around the Prophet ﷺ. Her migrations were real migrations — physical departures from home, family, and safety. Her grief at her son's death was real grief. Her final illness during a moment of the community's greatest military crisis is a reminder that the seerah is not only a story of battles and negotiations but of births, deaths, marriages, and the quiet suffering of ordinary life during an extraordinary time.

Sources: Sahih al-Bukhari (Kitab al-Maghazi, Kitab Fada'il al-Sahaba); Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Umam wal-Muluk