A narration from Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him) speaks of what the Prophet was told during the Miraj about the fate of his daughter: the usurpation of her right, the entry into the house of revelation without permission, her being struck and injured during her pregnancy, the loss of her child, and finally her martyrdom as a result of those same blows.¹
Al-Baladhuri also narrates in Ansab al-Ashraf that Umar came toward her house with a torch in his hand, and when she asked whether he would set the house on fire with those inside it, he said:
“Yes, I will set it ablaze with its people!”²
These events were not confined to the demand for her right and the threat to her home. When people came to take Amir al-Muminin (peace be upon him) from his house, Lady Fatimah (peace be upon her) stood before the attackers in defense of her husband. According to the report of al-Tabarsi in al-Ihtijaj, Qunfudh, on the order of Abu Bakr, struck her arm with a whip. Following this incident, Muhsin (peace be upon him) was miscarried, and Lady Fatimah (peace be upon her) remained bedridden until her martyrdom.³ In another narration, Majlisi, in Bihar al-Anwar, mentions the blow struck by Qunfudh, the servant of Umar, who, on Umar’s order, hit her with the sheath of a sword, a blow that led to the loss of Muhsin (peace be upon him) and ultimately to her martyrdom.⁴
Her oppression was not confined to physical injuries. According to the report in the book Dalail al-Imamah, she refused to meet those who had hurt her. When those two came into her presence through the mediation of Amir al-Muminin (peace be upon him), she recalled the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family):
“Fatimah is a part of me; whoever harms her has harmed me.”
Then she said:
“By God, you two have indeed hurt me.”⁵
These reports show that the days following the martyrdom of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) were marked for Lady Fatimah (peace be upon her) by repeated suffering and calamity. The deprivation of her right, the violation of her home’s sanctity, and the injuries she sustained while defending Amir al-Muminin (peace be upon him), together with her illness and martyrdom, reveal the many dimensions of her oppression in the days after the Prophet’s martyrdom.
- «و أمّا اِبنَتُكَ فَتُظلَمُ و تُحرَمُ و يُؤخَذُ حَقَّها»
“ (Tawil al-Ayat al-Zahirah, vol. 1, p. 837) - «فَجاءَ عُمَرُ و مَعَهُ فَتيلَةٌ فَتَلقَتهُ فاطِمَة عَلى البابِ»
“ (Ansab al-Ashraf, vol. 1, p. 586) - «فَأرسَلَ أبوبَكرٍ إلَى قُنفُذٍ اِضرِبها فَألجَأها إلَى عِضادَةِ»
(Al-Ihtijaj, vol. 1, p. 80) - «و كانَ سَبَبُ وَفاتِها أنَّ قُنفُذاً مَولَى عُمَرَ لَكَزَها»
(Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 43, p. 170) - «قالَت سَلامُاللهِعَلیها: فَواللهِ لَقَد آذَيتُماني»
(Dalail al-Imamah, p. 135)
