Fatima Further Oppressed

Throughout her life, Fatima (ع) never spoke to those who had oppressed her and deprived her of her rightful claims. She kept her grief to herself. During her sickness which preceded her death, she requested that her oppressors should be kept away even from attending her funeral. Her ill-wishers even resorted to physical violence.

Once the door of her house was pushed on her, and the child she was carrying was hurt and the baby-boy was stillborn. This incident took place, and it is very well documented by Shi’ite and Sunni historians and chroniclers, when ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab was urging, sometimes even beating, people to go to the Prophet’s Mosque to swear allegiance to his friend, Abu Bark.

‘Umar promoted Abu Bakr to the seat of “caliph”, being the very first person to swear allegiance to him after being convinced that it would not be long before he, too, would occupy the same seat. Fatima’s house was set on fire.

Having been mistreated and stricken with grief, which crossed all limits of forbearance and endurance, she expressed her sorrows in an elegy which she composed to mourn her father the Holy Prophet (ص). In that elegy, she makes a particular reference to her woeful plight saying, after having taken a handful of earth from her father’s grave, putting it on her eyes, crying and saying,

ماذا على من شمَّ تربةَ أحمد أن لا يشمّ َ مدى الزمان غواليا؟

صُبّت عليَّ مصائبٌ لو أنّها صُبّت على الأيّام صِرْنَ لياليا

قد كنت ذات حمى بظل محمد لا أختشي ضيماً و كان جماليا

فاليوم أخشع للذليل وأتقي ضيمي، و أدفع ظالمي بردائيا

فإذا بكت قمرية في ليلها شجناً على غصن بكيت صباحيا

فلأجعلن الحزن بعدك مؤنسي و لأجعلن الدمع فيك وشاحيا

What blame should be on one who smells Ahmed’s soil

That he shall never smell any precious person at all?

Calamities have been poured on me (like waters boil)

Were they poured on days, they would become nights.

In the shade of Muhammad, I enjoyed all protection

And he was my beauty, and I feared no oppression,

But now I surrender to the lowly and fear I am done

Injustice, pushing my oppressor with only my gown.

So, if a dove cries during its night, forlorn,

Out of grief on its twig, I cry in my morn.

So, I shall after you let grief be a companion for me,

And my tears that mourn you my cover they shall be.

On p. 218, Vol. 2, of al-Tabari’s Tarikh (Dar al-Amira for Printing, Publishing and Distribution, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005), it is stated that when Fatima could not get her inheritance, Fadak, from Abu Bakr, she boycotted him and never spoke to him till her death.

The death of the Apostle, affected her very much and she was very sad and grief-stricken and wept her heart out crying all the time. Unfortunately, after the death of the Prophet, the Government confiscated her famous land of Fadak. Fatima (ع) was pushed behind her home door (when they attacked Ali’s house and took him away in order to force him to accept the caliphate of Abu Bakr), so the fetus she was carrying, namely Muhsin, was subsequently aborted.

‘Umar ibn al-Khattab ordered his servant, Qunfath, to set her house on fire, an incident which is immortalized by verses of poetry composed by the famous Egyptian poet Hafiz Ibrahim which is reproduced here but without English translation. The author has preferred not to translate it in order not to hurt the feelings of his Sunni brethren, especially non-Arabs:

On p. 220, Vol. 2, of al-Tabari’s Tarikh (Arabic text), it is stated that the Holy Prophet (ص) remained unburied for three days. His sacred body finally received the burial bath by his cousin and son-in-law, Fatima’s husband Ali (ع). Besides Ali (ع), those who attended the burial of the Prophet (ص) were: al-Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib, his son al-Fadhl, Qutham ibn al-Abbas, Usamah ibn Zaid, and Shuqran, a freed slave of the Prophet (ص), according to the same page. According to Ibn Ishaq, Aws ibn Khawli, who had taken part in the Battle of Badr, earnestly requested Ali (ع) to let him assist in burying the Messenger of Allah (ص) which the Commander of the Faithful accepted (ع).

The tragedy of her father's death and the unkindness of her father's followers, were too much for the good, gentle and sensitive lady and she breathed her last on Jumda I 14, 11 A.H., exactly seventy-five days after the death of her revered father, the Holy Prophet of Islam. Grieved about the way she was treated by certain “sahaba” of the Prophet (ص), the confiscation of her property, Fadak, the aborting of her son, Musin, and the confiscation of the right to caliphate from her husband, Ali, were all too much for her, so much so that they eventually put an end to her life when she was in the prime of her life at the age of eighteen, although historians provide different dates, and was buried in Jannatul-Baqi', Medina.

http://www.al-islam.org/fatima-the-daughter-of-muhammad-a-brief-biography-yasin-al-jibouri/