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Asma bint Marwan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search Asm? bint Marw?n (Arabic ????? ??? ?????)
is a female poet who lived in Hijaz in medieval Arabia during the life of Muhammad.
Her affair is first written in Ibn Ishaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah" or the Biography of the Prophet of God,
the oldest and primary biography of Muhammad.
The Siraat are one of the most important sources of information about the history of Islam, but are not necessarily authoritative.
Such passages as this and the Satanic Verses, for example, are some of the most contested issues in Islamic theology.
For all Muslims the Qur'an is the definitive explanation of historical, theological and social truths, and for the vast majority the Hadith,
or the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed and his companions, have secondary authority. The Hadith are categorized according to
verifiability and reliability using rules of transmission, or isnad. The Siraat do not fall under these strictures, and some Muslims
reject the following story as a fabrication.[1]
Poetry was the usual medium of political discourse in medieval Arabia and Asma Marwan wrote a politically charged poem against
Muhammad and his army; this poem was preserved in the Sira. Poetry, being the political medium of the time, could have a huge impact
on the political landscape. Muhammad decided to silence her by having her assassinated. This story is described in the Sira written by
Ibn Ishaq. Following is an excerpt from Alfred Guillaume's translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sira, describes that Muhammad commanded
one of his soldiers to murder Asma Marwan; the assassination squad is described as having murdered Asma with knives while she
was sleeping alongside her children.
From the Sirat Rasul Allah, by Ibn Ishaq
(A. Guillaume's translation "The Life of Muhammad") page 675, 676:
She had five sons, and when Umayr went to them from the apostle he said, "I have killed bint Marwan,
O sons of Khatma. Withstand me if you can; don't keep me waiting.
" That was the first day Islam became powerful among B. Khatma;
before that those who were Muslims concealed the fact.
The first of them to accept Islam was Umayr b. Adiy who was called the "Reader",
and Abdullah b. Aus and Khuzayma b. Thabit.
The day after Bint Marwan was killed the men of B. Khatma
became Muslims because they feared for their lives."
