Abdal Hakim Murad – Sukayna bint alHussein Paradigms of Leadership
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Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah while he was
off, be He, woman well.
So back to our consideration of paradigms of leadership. For those
we've indicated perhaps too many times, it's not really an Islamic
category but being exemplary. Being a model of sweat one, Asana
is the kind of concept we're reaching for. And perhaps by now,
having looked at more than a dozen of these
distinctive individuals who represent the aspirations and the
transformations of the Ummah, various points in its history,
we've recognized that
these people do not represent a single form of Muslim oneness, but
rather represent ways in which as it were, the light of revelation
passing through the original prophetic exemplar then becomes
prismatic and a whole spectrum of different human types emerges.
Very important nowadays to recognize this because ours is an
age not really of Deen, but of ideology.
The 19th century, one of the big transformations that happened in
the Islamic world was that the traditional diversities and the
tolerance of diversity which was normative throughout our history,
and particularly in the earliest times, was challenged by
scientific and Western and nationalistic paradigms. And the
intimidated Muslims in places like North India, Egypt and elsewhere,
I felt that they had to retreat into a single singular definition
of Muslim selfhood.
So 18th century Indian Muslims almost has no resemblance to 20th
century Indian Muslims. And whereas once the tradition was
embracing of difference and a multiplicity of human types and
approaches to religion and med hubs and apart
and civilizational difference.
In the 20th century, increasingly, Islam became reshaped as ideology
which tends to be a unitary type of thing.
Communism Nazism, ideology is really not very good at providing
an indefinite set of boundaries of affiliation. Science becomes the
paradigm and science likes to have one answer to everything. It's not
a culture of ambiguity. We've already refer to Thomas Bauer's
great book the culture of ambiguity in which he maps the
creation of the modern Muslim soul traces it back to those
transformations in the 19th century where Muslims still
colourful, enjoying their culture of ambiguity were confronted by
stony faced black cloud, Victorian missionaries, who really didn't
like the diversity and the splendor and the havoc of the
East. And as a result, Muslims retreated into defensive and often
puritanical
life forms. So we could say that part of our project is to see how
Islamic authenticity is measured, not in a defensive and reactive
singularity, but rather in the affirmation of what the early
Muslims called retire to feel. If
you read the very early sources of FIP. You'll see that one of the
preoccupations of the great honor that like Imam Malik was right, it
will kill off making sure one is a shepherd for diversity, and
multiplicity. And this is something that in our sectarian
and narrow and fearful world, where fear rather than hope has
become the preponderance subject of sermons has become difficult to
reach for. But we will today be going right back into that primal
formative period, we're not looking at some 20th century
mauler. We are going back to the age of the seller themselves.
The best three generations Cairo Rooney colony to the Hadith,
Thurman Medina, yeah, Luna home, Thumbelina Yolanda home, the best
of generations is mine, and then that which succeeds mine, and then
that which succeeds that generation. So the first three
generations of the sainted exemplary generations of Islam and
nobody in the history of Islam has doubted that.
So when we look at that period,
we can look at it with the eyes of classical Islamic civilization,
which Surah net, Imam Malik's world of immense fill F and
diversity and also the effulgence as we've said, the rainbow like
differentiation of different human types, or we can see it with a
modern fearful defensive AI, which wants to see them as kind of Foot
Soldiers of some ideological revolution, all of them more or
less trying to be the same thing.
And what we look for
tends to be what we find. But in fact, if you look at the earliest
sources,
rewind to the earliest books of the Autopia, the more the winner,
the malware Zia, the more you will find enormous diversity, and the
respect for diversity, and a recognition that very often one
can't come to a conclusion at all about things. In the city, the
scholars came to Imam Malik all the way from Iraq and asked him 40
questions that they come to ask him. And out of those 40. He said,
I don't know, that entry to 36 of them.
That was how the earlier generations were. And in our age,
where everybody is saying, hey, let's follow the self. That's the
reality of it, and awareness of
the fact that perhaps one doesn't know. And this reality feed if
this recognition, this shepherding of difference. So we're going to
be going back into that sated center centered apostolic age. And
looking at one of its most
spectacular individuals, and the very many of them are
extraordinary. People, not least because of the difference between
them, you see this in the Sahaba, and the tabber. A, and these are
not the foot soldiers of some Communist Party who all try to be
exactly like the party leader. No, this is an emulation
that produces the spectrum and this diversity. So if we have the
courage to put aside the modern, fearful insistence on Muslims,
sameness, and a policing of boundaries, and to get back to the
age of the self themselves, if we are courageous enough to see our
religion as a space, where differences something natural and
to be celebrated, then we can start to get into the world, which
is the world of the story that we're going to be tracing today.
And the individual I want to look at
is Hazzard or cedar Sakina binte, unforeseen, Sakina. unforeseen, so
the daughter of Emmanuel Hussein, so she's from the third
generation, great granddaughter of the Holy Prophet himself. From the
athletic baits, particularly pure and absolute lineage to elevate
today, if they're descended from Sakina will very much describe
themselves proudly in those terms because her lineage continues. So
from the self and from the athlete beat daughter of Al Hussein. Love
about Alia, as the Arab say no dust settles on her name.
And as we chopped her story, we will see how shallow and
reductionist and miserable is the modern Islamic attempt to reduce
Islam to nothing other than a kind of dull fundamentalist killjoy
Puritanism, the Salaf were not that they were diverse.
So the story here begins. And it really is,
even though she's not remembered primarily for her life story. But
for Actually, her contributions to Arabic literature, is one of the
things we'll be focusing on later on. So Kane, as a great literary
critic. The story begins with a famous meeting during the filler
for of Omar Abdullah hottub, where he's together with great Sahaba
and amongst them are Imam Ali and Imam Ali's two sons and some of
the other Sahaba and they're talking about these amazing things
that are happening to Islam in the time of Imam Ahmad, the expansion
of Islam to become a great world power symbol to simultaneous
conquest of Persia and Byzantines and those other places and the
move into North Africa. It's phenomenal talking about this and
say, Well, what, what does this mean?
During this Majlis somebody, nobody seems blue comes to the
door and says, Can I come in and this is not the green zone in
Baghdad with face recognition technology in this scene, the
artist stranger, welcome. Might have been let him come in. So the
man comes in.
Nobody's seen him before.
At this has it been husband, John Herat and Saba Lara, one of the
good things about focusing on the biography of Sita Sakina is that
we actually have a lot of information about her. Part of the
problem we have in in determining the life story of a lot of Muslim
women in the history of the Ummah is that usually through their own
preference, it's kind of private and doesn't, doesn't get written
down, but partly because of her contribution to Arabic literature
and partly because she's the daughter of Imam Hussain.
We have a lot of facts so here's Ibn hasm jumping around and
solving ROP tells the story with particular clarity so the stranger
comes Allah and the whole mechanic hillside will be a Barbie Hatter
to Allah kabhi to Allah to be he'll absorb well jolla to Hatari
carbon this eel Khalifa. Leo Kadima illegal to hire. So the man
comes in and then suddenly everybody is looking at him.
While he's stepping over people's shoulders and sitting on the floor
in the traditional way, in order to convey his greetings to the
Khalifa we're UNSECO Oh more annual Hadith. Everybody falls
silent
will be woody hem low Yachty fauna Menya coronal Heather Rajul. Ella
the tab to Allah He seemed to shut off was subdued. And they want to
know who is this man who really seems so dignified and of
aristocratic bearing.
And the Khalifa asks who he is. And he replies I am in case even
Id even out while Hina is in rfl como fi he say that Benny caliber?
What can delay is Allah Allah nos Ron Yeti so the penny drops is
before Instagram people have here heard of famous people, they don't
know who they are, what they look like. And they realize this is the
Lord of the Benny Kilbourne with the big tribes of Arabia and also
one of the top Arabic poets of the kind of pre Islamic period
imminent case. And we still have
is more Aloka ODEs. Remember that in the Hajj season before the
arrival of Islam, the big thing that Arabs had in their culture.
The only thing in their culture really was the poetry and the
great poets would compete at the market of all cars and the winning
parents will be held, will be honored by being suspended from
the drapes of the caliber. So in case a great poet is here, that's
like, I don't know, Brad Pitt or some other big influence.
celeb is here.
But it's not some stupid Hollywood
character but somebody who has really got to the depths of
poetry, his capacity to invoke beauty and that poetry was was
great. What can delay is no Alan Nasir on the Yeti he's still a
Christian. Not pagan, but But Christian.
So Omar, amiably engages him in conversation, but of course, he
has just one thought in his mind. Or you claim hula hoop and yet who
is even Hadi al Islam the allah God? Will God honor the Khalifa by
being the one on whose hand in case Eben rd is going to take his
Shahada. This is of course the way the Khalifa thinks, well as lemme
say, you do Benny kelp. And the chief of the tribe of kelp, in
rock base, takes his shahada in that spot.
And then, you see, this really is about leadership, although we
haven't done said no more yet. What is their Columbia turret that
Ameerul Momineen fie and yaki de la Holywell element SMM in Kedah,
RB Shem. At that moment,
the Commander of the Faithful appoints him to be the general
over the tribes of Gwadar, who are in Syria.
Without Omar be Rompin, Waka Letta, who here and Omar sends out
for a lance, and in a symbolic gesture, invest him with this
lots.
So this,
of course, amazes everybody, because this is a major
position of responsibility. So
if we look at the Arabic Coltrane stick close to the sources, this
time
How could there be a wall in your car? Well, easily Rajamouli Saba
coffin is learned this is on the first meeting. And the man has no
precedent in Islam. The tradition was that the MaHA Julene and then
the Tsar that the length of your Islam was a major factor in being
appointed to a high position that this guy has been a Muslim for a
few seconds.
Oh, come on, Allah often hurried and Moray somebody who was there
have been hydrogen. Well, can a Yama II then be the Mejlis for
Allah Hemara ayto Raju LAN LEM, your son Li Li la Hira cotton cots
O'Meara Allah Jamaat in mineral Muslimeen public in real case,
I've never seen a man who hasn't even prayed a single Racker given
authority over a group of Muslims the way Christ was given this
authority
but
Omar knew his man. Part of leadership is making the right
appointments. And then something else happens in this Majlis which
takes us closer to the subject of our story. So the historians
report this Tamara I will go more Illa and Rocco Ali ibn Abi to Abi
Talib Karim Allah Hawa. Yes, they know who Al Asad.
So the guy leaves and then the people are still kind of dazed by
the shock of this event. Brad Pitt takes his shahada and becomes a
Field Marshal and they're processing this
and then they see Ali ibn Abi Taalib takes his sons and go out
to follow him or case
the authority where feed led Harada where she can you hear me
Lily workbench. echo.rb Sherm so this manager is gonna be carrying
this Lance, and
we'll have the ollie on Qatar who had the Andraka imra case. So Ali
hurries until he catches up with him or case for still cover one
more year. And he stops him and greets him thumbor to condemnor
Illa here Hola. And then he goes over to him and says Anna Ali ibn
Abi Taalib I'm Ali, Ibn Amira Sol Sol Allahu alayhi wa sallam was
Sahara. I'm the cousin and the son in law of the Holy Prophet were
her then what a shout out elhassan word for saying and these pointing
to Al Hassan and Hussein Ebner Yeah, Ben Ben T for Zahara these
are my two sons by his daughter Fatima
for acapella in case I love him because he would share case went
to him and in the courteous Arab tradition you do that to somebody
but you turn with all of your face and address them so he's he's
doing this
what are how em let will I need him in early in the be led lamb
yoke tabla who shut off or soft Betty he will now material and so
he fills his eyes with the sight of the family of the Holy Prophet
that El beit, when he had not himself had the good fortune of
having been honored by the company of the Prophet and having had the
blessing of seeing him.
Whether the m&m be reseller de mundo la Huzzah, and whose
messenger Hood he believed in
just a few moments ago and that was his conversion was stotra Ali
Baba Elan and Ali continues and says what are the raw rib nerf is
slippery, kapha and Kepner.
We want to be your relative so Mary into our family. So this is
an even more startling thing for her tell Bethel Murtala Bertha
imbroglio case and Carl Emeril case immediately says marhaba and
become elevated Nebby uncuffed Okay, Ali EvenOr te l mafia. Sama
Akbar Allah Allah ziptie are Rasul wa who are your live? And catoca?
Yeah, Hassan sembler binte. In real case, one catoca Hussain,
Allah Bab inreal case.
So, Alison, I give you in marriage, my daughter, Selma, and
FSH, I give you in marriage, my daughter rebab. But in our case,
now that's in tuber eight, the great early porcelain historian,
another kind of stunning event, but it's indicative of the
spontaneity and the instant, Perspicuous judgment that those
people were capable of. And the fact that if somebody was a new
Muslim, didn't matter at all, nowadays, oh, my daughter wants to
marry a convert, but I really think that you should learn blah,
blah, blah. And that's the kind of Jamelia that we've reverted to.
But you can see
that was not the way of these people so
How old was enamel Hussein, when he marries, I don't rub
it seems he was eating
but very famous already for something that usually associated
with teenagers or Waqar, or dignity and also his physical
resemblance to the Holy Prophet. People used to say if you want to
know how to profit look like that. Go look at Al Hussein.
They said they found the Prophet fragrance in him.
Allah Bab it seems still a child. The marriage wasn't consummated.
It's just an engagement. So he says I give you Selma. I'll give
you our Bab but it's a pledge it's a betregal
Hallas Hall facility Cindy her toilet that Jill Hallisey that
will send you her donor tag
deal with the word she was so young that they couldn't make
haste to the marriage. So she remains still in her father's
house and several years passed. And of course, this is the time of
gigantic political transformations and particularly transformations
which affect the Olympics, the prophetic house. Tensions in
Islam, the fitness or kind of Benny Omega moving the Hello beats
the hijas, Syria and externally on the frontiers as well, immense
events taking place. So Islam is now on the throne of the Caesars
and the chars of Persia, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the world is
really changing.
And then the Khalifa Ahmed omental, hottub. In year 23, is
stabbed to death by Abu Lulu and of course, there's enormous
political crisis. But under oath, man, as we saw in in that paradigm
lecture, the conquests continue unabated. And in the year 27, and
has a lot of saying join the army that's going into North Africa
10,000 Will hygiene in I'm sorry, are in Africa under Abdullah
inside ibn Abi Surah, one of those amazing genius generals. After
about two years in the field, they returned victorious to Medina. And
that's when the city is able to rejoice at the memorable scenes
marriage to rebab. With all a very simple wedding.
A child is dawn this is Abdullah ibn Al Hussein and also a
daughter.
And then another political shock of a different kind. Hazard off
man is assassinated, India 35 And then Imam Ali is hailed as his
successor,
his two sons by his side, and then his assassinated by the Hawaii
bridge.
What Alia is now Khalifa al Hassan seeds authority to him in a formal
pledging of authority hip nunley Dima in Muslim mean in order to
save Muslim blood.
Al Hussein pledges allegiance to more IWEA and joins him in the
siege of Constantinople in the year 49, which is one of the most
amazing things that the Sahaba do. They grew up in the desert and in
Medina and and in their tents around Constantinople, greatest
city of the world. And of course, the Sahaba buried there to this
day. That's the the far horizons that these people had. And then he
returned from the campaign and becomes a hadith instructor in the
mosque.
At some point in this time, although we didn't really have a
date for so Qeynos birth, so kind of Intel Hussein is born you can
more or less calculate since the historian say she died in the 117
of the Hijra that she was probably born around 47.
In other words, about seven years after Imam Ali's assassination and
into the reign of more Alia, because we told you you died at
about 70.
Her name, everybody calls her Sakina there's a big shrine for
her rather beautiful ancient building in the southern cemetery
in Cairo. We're not with the added date. Say designup is the famous
one but there's also a Satan, a FISA,
and Satan and others. It's quite a beautiful place around the ancient
Fatimid thought and it's obviously concerned with Alan Bates. So the
buildings tend to be from the period. There's different names
for her, which is not uncommon at the time. Sometimes she was called
omega, which is a common Arabic girl's name.
If it had been on her passport, of course, it would have been Amina
Bintelli, for seen. Named after the Holy Prophets mother, Amina
bint Wahab, but a mother rebab as mothers do when she was small gave
her a nickname, The nickname was Sakina or sometimes Sakeena.
Because the old Arabic texts are not given vows. We can't be
entirely sure whether it's to Cana or Sakina.
And here there is a kind of irony because Sakina Sakina is no Arabic
word that indicates serenity and peace more than Sakina But
actually she was throughout her life, an incredibly active and
vivacious person and was we are told like that also as a child.
Ursula delivered will
always gazes and kisses came in her direction. We're told and she
had she was famous for her mother. She was a child who really liked
Have fun and games. So why would she give them the nicknames Cana
Sakeena. Muslims now remember her by well, some some historians
speculate that it's because she brought with her sort of fumbling
around and have fun and games peace into the prophetic house at
a time of external turbulence or that people felt Sakina peace when
they looked at her.
It was a time of trauma of course and her joyfulness was a great
compensation when she was only three, her uncle Emmanuel Hassan
died.
We because we have, as I say, quite a lot of information about
this even in terms of family life. It's clear that Imam Al Hussein
was really really devoted to his women folk.
And he was sometimes reproached for this. Some of the Arabs sort
of absorbed uxorious nature is not really what we expect of a hero
but he replied,
with a poem which has been preserved from Imam
Hossein la marina Nila or him Buddha and today for her Sakina
tone wala babble, or hey boo, Huma Abdullah about an early release.
Lila me fee her i terrible. Wallace Tula home in Otter, Boo
Mati and piety, oh, your Eboni to rob boo, which means something
like by my life, I love a house in whom, in which Sakeena and rebab
are the guests. I love both of them, and I spend my money in
their support. And I do not accept the reproach of anybody who would
reproach me for that.
And this is my life, and I will not obey the reproaches
until the time when the dust
covers me.
This is narrated in many of the early texts of Arabic, Persian
indicates that he clearly was not interested in the kind of sort of
more tribal macho
thoughts that you didn't really have a sort of strong affection
for the women of your house.
Sometimes it's thought that this reproach to remember has been
spent a lot of time with his family is based on the idea that
some people thought that he should have been taking a more active
political interest in the affairs of his time he's spending all the
time at home with your family and your little girl. You know that
the Muslim ummah needs you that kind of reproach seems to have
been around, but he's not going to
put up with that. We know that Sakina actually in her kind of
running about the house and playfulness, always tried to avoid
discussing the things that visitors were discussing other
political clouds that were gathering in order to give him
some Sakina at home, but
she was following the news and was very affected by the news because
of the risks that it posed to her family. Well, kinder her mother
saw me i Czechia wala wrote yet back here. She was never heard to
complain, nor was she known to be tearful.
Now, she has a sister, Fatima. And they're really, really different.
Sometimes, if she was asked, why is it that you're both daughters
of the same father, and you're so unlike forgotten or thought and
has always in a corner, praying and remembering the akhirah and
Sakina is kind of rolling around the house. Giggling as it was
because of our names. You named Fatima after her grandmother, and
you named me after Fatima's grandmother. She spent most of her
life
the Jackie Lyon world of poetry. So, Fatima was the the austere
figure. An example of slightly edgy rip party that she was famous
for. Fontenot is said to have been more beautiful than Sakina but
didn't have her kind of playful spirit.
There's various family reasons for that. Before the marriage, her
mother had been through a very difficult divorce before that,
that's one explanation that they offer.
So she has a sister Fatima, who's very different. And she has her
brother Abdullah, who we've already mentioned, she has her
have brothers as well. Imam Hussein has other wives.
These are important in the history of the debate. There's Al Akbar.
His mother is woman called Leila Ben Abby model at a soccer field.
And his mother is
MIA Moana bent. Abby, Sophia and Ben harp, need to think about that
if you look at their marriages, you can then start to step back
from some of the later kind of conflict to a readings of what's
happening at that period. We think all the Umayyads are against the
added bait and they hate the Sophia needs and it's all kind of
like two families feuding with each other.
It's easy to forget that Imam Ali
had a son called Abu Bakr and another son called Omar, this is
mentioned by all of the historians, these later
projections of a simple dichotomy between Sunni and Shia in this
period, nobody would have understood any of that you might
have your political preferences, I think he should be highly I think
he should be ready for. But the idea that this was some kind of
cosmic split or battle between light and dark was just just
wouldn't have been recognized. And the later doctrines, the doctrines
of the later infallible Imams and so forth in this generation, it's
just
a historical to say that these would have been understood. So
note, Imam Hussain is marrying into women from Abu Sofia Ann's
family, and that doesn't seem to be
a problem.
Yet another son, Ali Al Asad, Ali Akbar and Ali Asghar, the greater
and the younger Ali, and Ali Al Oscar is no more usually as Ali's
in Aladdin.
And she's interesting because she's born to saliva, who is the
daughter of Yezdi gear two is the last of the Persian Emperor's.
So this is even marrying outside the Arabian world into the Persian
world. So even though we think added baked the lineage purity,
this is not what the excellent beat actually means. It's not some
kind of perfectly maintained DNA.
It's, even if it's half a drop of the prophetic blood that is fully
sufficient to convey full membership of the ad and beat how
that particular quality was transmitted. It's impossible to
know but I've been to a village and in Bosnia, up in the cloud,
central Bosnia, and the tradition there is that only the added baits
are allowed to live in the village.
You go to the village and all the kids have blonde hair and
Allen bait
so this has been an important spiritual principle in in the
Muslim world. So the Persian blood is being honored by this marriage
as well through Ali Xin Aberdeen.
One of her sisters, Marissa, Mohammed, Ben had the backer, the
son of Abu Bakr so again, the idea is, there isn't this kind of
rivalry? It's about a political allegiance is not about anything
else.
So Alexandra Aberdeen is about eight or nine years older than
Sakina known as a very austere child and like her play much he
was called the Tsar head of the family. So remember for saying has
four sons and two daughters, the daughters again for ultimate and
so Cana, but it's pretty clear that Sakina is his favorite.
Remember in his poem he says that AnnMarie in the little hippo data
and tacos will be has to Cana turn water rabada I love any house
which contains Sakina and his wife are a Bab
now the politics are the cloud on the horizon for years before more
Alia dies what how he appoints his son years Eid as his heir
apparent, and this looks even more problematic in many mosque going
circles in the year 60 years Eid takes over. Memel Hussain is in
Makkah teaching Hadith not talking about politics
but regarded as a potential rival by Yazeed and Sakina. Now, this is
really when she comes
into her own, not quite debutantes.
1920s concept, but she's 13 and she's already known in Makkah as
quite a personality.
She used to roam around Macau, she loved to visit the places
associated with the Sahaba and also learning from the city's
great poetic heritage. She has a kind of mind that can Hoover
up poetry and she's a very good critic.
This is kind of aristocratic Millia. Many of the coloration,
there are kinds of aficionados of poetry. And there is a strong kind
of saddled culture of people sitting around and reciting poetry
to each other. And really, really enjoying it.
You can still see that in traditional Arab places, I very
soon got out of my depth in Cairo when these old guys were sitting
around, and somebody would recite along passleader, from some 12th
century Iraqi poet. Another thing was that you could only interrupt
that person, when you had another Crusader that was in the same
meter, and was using the same figures, sort of alliteration or
something, and then it was your turn.
So I never managed to interrupt.
But it is it's the great kind of cultural thing of the Arabs, their
language and their poetry. And this was certainly something that
she was getting into.
In in Makkah, at the age of only 13, or the Hajj was a great
opportunity to learn from poets coming from wherever and the
Hydrangea 60 was a significant one, because of course, this is
where the the hill effort is changing. And there's political
emissaries, spies. fifth column lists store pigeons coming from
Iraq and from Syria, just keep an eye on the hijackers and
particularly on the debate.
But she's not involved with that she's, as it were, having her
career launched as a sort of literary phenomenon. And not just
literary phenomenon. And here is where some modern Puritans might
scratch their heads, even though it's documented in all of the
history, she's a kind of style icon. All of the teenage girls in
Makkah want to be like Sakina. When she walks in the way she
dresses, and there's even a hairstyle, a toddler, so cania,
which is a particular curl in the hair, and kind of all the girls in
Macau want to be like that. So that the current sort of what you
call influences nowadays, that you get on YouTube that you think is
just a sign of the times, teenage girls do tend to do that kind of
thing. So you know, this 16 year old who has 5 million views on
YouTube or something and all she does is
unbox a new handbag or something. And everybody's like, Oh my god,
oh my god.
That makes you despair. But it is part of human culture. And this
was not being suffocated and Makana teenage girls, and NACA,
considered Sakina to be the great influence her because she was just
so stylish, and she knew poetry and she knew the songs and
so that imitate her style of speech. And they'd like to poems
and the songs that she would know.
She was known to be really intelligent, very stylish, very
cool.
But, yeah, this the style, the Sakina style was a kind of
phenomenon in the hijas in that time, and
yep, so here's a historians account of when she was a young
teenager what either candidate he said or what age at year one, and
yet hood now under the balloon Melania, which Allah Tala or Nora
Nebby forgot Bucky at La Nevada Delica and aka to her you can
listen to her face almost a tongue. So all of the beautiful
women of Quraysh
were struggling to learn the nobility of her gestures and the
majesty of her stature, posture perhaps, and the prophetic light
which was in her
and after that, they were fascinated by her elegance and aka
your allegiance to her faithfulness to Tatiana they would
emulate her elegance whenever they could, or share it told her it is
to cania so this Sakina Sakina style of hairstyle became very
widespread. For Linda by Wahida tone Minh Hana, learn to necec
Shadow her Allah Namath and was status. So there wasn't a girl in
Makkah who didn't rearrange her hair according to this new style,
and love the IP to that IP to the ATO and her she Mia to hasna which
is beautiful Hashemite girl had invented. What are humble stammer
and mucky Yadi for V. Banerjee author on the mortgage of Fareed
and every everyone in makin society was aware in their own
daughters of the influence of this remarkable style leader
Well, you'll see Allama Tanaka, Lu Amin and a lot of he had one or
the other but he had the guillotine marry her. And the talk
of the town was of her wit, and her jokes and her
playful intelligence. So she's
young but already
an influencer. Of course, inevitably, all the young men in
Macau want to marry her.
The only one who took a practical step was somebody called Alison
and Athena, who is the son and now of Imam Hassan so her cousin.
So he goes along to Imam Hussain to try his chances and historians
unfortunately didn't really tell us what happened in that
encounter. But we know that Imam Hussain answered him like this.
So he says, Can I marry your daughter
miltefosine says if time to laka eternity Fatima for here, UK
thorugh Abner Teja. Chabot Han be all me fault him up into
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the hair there to join
in with Jamal.
So he replies I've chosen for you. My daughter thought Emma. Because
of my two daughters. She's the one who most resembles my mother
Fatima, the daughter of Allah's Messenger.
She is the mistress of religion and beauty.
So we don't know what went wrong. Maybe the young man's confusion
had forgotten to mention which daughter he wanted to marry.
We don't really know. But this is Imam.
Hussein's view. And then interestingly, look at what the
girl's father then says we're enmasse Sakina.
As for Sakina, for volleyball, and Elena is still an Akuma Allah for
Allah TouchFLO. Holy Raju. She's overcome by her connection to God,
and she is not suitable for any man.
So all the teenage girls in Makkah think, Oh, my God, I want to be
like Sakina. And she does this. The father who really knows her
says she's with God, not suitable for marriage, at least not not at
this time. So that seems paradoxical. But her father knew
her and believed or saw that her kind of stylishness and her humor
was reflex designed to raise the spirit of the family after the
disasters that had befall and in other words, it was kind of put on
to some extent, let me cheer up dad by telling him some crazy joke
about a cow that fell over, who knows but just cheer him up
because he's getting so much bad news.
And in private, it seems he recognized that she would throw
herself into private devotions and steal the rock which means I'm
drowning in devotion or the Divine Presence and it's really important
to bear this in mind in order for sane was speaking frankly, and
knew his daughter
and didn't say no, she's she's in the tool or she has to superfood
new. He said she's with God.
And it's important because often later in the history of Arabic
literature says remember this this kind of stylish
fashion icon who really hangs out with poets and singers.
Not very serious. But that wasn't her father's judgment and others
do say that she was monitorable methyl fit Taku our Eman she was
proverbially pious and believing.
Now, some people say well she became
she was passed on her father was alive and then he died. She got
into poetry and singing and stuff but we know when she was an early
teenager when she was still in remember Hussein's house that she
was
doing these things in in Morocco. In any case.
It has an authentic that gets to marry Fatah that marriage does go
ahead, so Cana stays in her father's house. Now everybody in
Makkah now knows of Sakina let us know holy Raju she she's not
suitable for any man with a memorable scene himself has said
of his daughter so of course the young men are now
kind of confused.
And the interests of the young man movement diminish some thought she
just above me and she's great granddaughter of the Prophet and
she's you
We need to prayer and stuff and all the teenage girls are into her
shoes or whatever. But none of her saints they see something
different.
Some it said fell into yes or despair. They just couldn't bear
it. She wasn't available. But others were cheering, cherishing
the hope. And one of them was a really significant local young man
called Musab ibn Zubayr. Who is this again from the family of Abu
Bakr, Siddiq Zubayr. It's our opponents of the money or MATT
Yeah, they're from Abu Bakr. And his father is Zubayr Obernai worm,
who's one of the great Sahaba and who is the grandson of Hawaii
lead, who is the father of Khadija. So many of these people
are related and famous in a kind of traditional Arab way for his
generosity, that his courage for his furusiyya is horsemanship, and
for Moruga generally, the kind of chivalric male ideal virtue of the
Arab. So it said that
if he thought that drinking water would detract from his manliness,
he'd give up water. People used to kind of always think he went to
excess in
in this sort of chivalric virtue. So
three of his friends
discover that he is in love with Sakina and has this kind of
hopeless hope. One of his one is his brother, Ottawa. Urbanears
debayer. Now the important Sahabi. But he doesn't venture to propose
right away, perhaps because he can see that the family is really
preoccupied with the political situation, he doesn't want to
trouble Imam Hussein, or perhaps because you know, she's still in
her mid teens at the time, she's young.
And then this news breaks that Fatima is going to get married.
And that Memphis, Cena said of Sakina into her letter, sloppily,
Raju, she's not suited. She's not eligible for any man.
And then he changes his mind about proposing to her because he has
this kind of pride and dignity. And he thinks that his reputation
will be forever broken. If he's rejected, he can't stand the
scandal, he goes to somebody asking for his daughter in
marriage. And he's declined. And he said he could never carry that.
So he says, he now has to fight his love, death would be better
than rejection.
And there's other stories of maca at the time, the sensation that
she was causing, one of them is Ahmad ibn Abi Robbie,
who is maybe the greatest poet of his early Islamic period. He is
called Omar and actually his born on the day said that Omar dies.
And
there's an ongoing controversy in the study of Arabic literature as
to whether his poems, which are all love poems, he doesn't have
any other theme. And it's D word of poems from the great monument
of Arabic literature is all about his exploits with with women,
whether some of them are actually about Sakina. And this is a big
argument in modern sort of Egyptian faculties of Arabic
literature. Beginning of the 20th century, somebody called Zacky.
Mubarak says, well, Omar actually was this kind of Don Giovanni and
he's got all of these girls names in his poems. I mean, Ali, not
Amin, Anta Hardin for morbid kyrou Or that Rodan Umrah Han femoral
head Giro, you heard it enough cylinder cool fijo, Bihar, the
tubular Alderaan, one Nacala to toe the Rosa. Yes, this it's great
poetry and he's talking here about a girl called Nam. And he's
talking to some random traveler, he meets on the road, have you
come from the tents of norm? Has she got any answer for me? Even if
it's no, that means that she's thinking about me this kind of
stuff, and goes on and of course these things usually end unhappy.
So there's, there's a verse in which she says, Every time I go
near her tents, her relatives are crouching around like tigers
and ends up and then the last third of the poem. This is rather
beautiful description of the desert and the animals.
A bit of a downer at the end, but all of his posts are like the anti
sometimes names these women and in many cases, you can identify them
with actual sort of famous, usually Qureshi beauties of the
time. So there's a controversy. This guy's hacky Mubarak at the
beginning of the 20th century on the second person initiative says
yeah, this is how it was.
Medina was in the
grip of a very sort of luxurious
and indulgent age. And they were just doing solid women and fashion
and why it's the Benny or Maya who wanted to keep them from thinking
about politics or do send them slave girls and poets, and it kind
of got distracted by this. Rather like if you're the king of Gulf
country at the moment, and you want people to stop joining up,
either you get Mariah Carey or somebody to sing, and somehow this
is supposed to stop young people thinking about.
So this is one one theory. But more recently,
Tara Husayn for instance, mid 20th century, didn't like this quite so
much. He thought it was a little unlikely. And then one of the
great
writers about early women in Islam, who actually has a book on
Sakina, if you know Arabic, I can recommend it. It's got a careful
book. She was called. Abdurrahman known her nom de plume was been to
shot it, the daughter of the Riverside because she was from
Domi out which is one of the mounts of of the Nile. And she
became a professor of literature, the girl's College of ancients
University in Cairo, and writes about a lot of the early women of
Islam. She has a book on cedars Xena, and also is one of the few
women in Islamic history to have completed a full Tafseer of the
Quran.
And she pushes back against this she has this idea that men should
never write biographies of women.
Okay, she's professor of literature, but she's not a
feminist. She's you can't really understand how women's lives
operate unless you're a woman yourself. And so in her book, she
often says
the stories have been written by men. And they think she's some
kind of airheaded person who's into singing and fashion, but they
don't really understand woman's experience and the
woman's mind as she calls it.
So this is a debate and for Ben to shut it off. Omar is kind of part
of a culture of
a sophisticated enjoyment of beauty, but it's not really
talking about actual experiences. I lifted the flap of her tent, and
that didn't happen. It's a kind of fiction.
That is the basis for the subsequent history of Islam and
amatory verse, which I want to talk about later on. We do the
biography first, because
unless we understand this literary context, we won't really get a
sense of achievement and how she is remembered. So Ahmed, Ibn Abi
Robbie, writes these amazing poems, and some of them maybe are
about her. Maybe not, there aren't any solid manuscripts that
indicate that her name so Cana is in any of his poems. Definitely.
They seem to be in some manuscripts with any of another
manuscripts in poem and it's not Sakina it's Seder. Nobody can
really tell.
But in any case, at this Hajj takes place and it's a great
literary festival as well. And then famously during the Hajj.
10,000 warriors of Iraq turn up some say 40,000 saying, we're
going to defend the LGBT and Iraq from this guy years Eid in
Damascus, come and join us in Kufa
the Sahaba and it seems his family urged Imam Hussain not to do this.
His brother Mohammed Abdullah Hanafi urges him not to do this
Abdullah bin iBurst urges him not to do this but
he brings his family
on the long journey from Makkah to Kufa which is to where the
governors of Iraq reside. So she has this last vision of of the
city of Mecca from behind the curtains of the Howard edge the
litter on which is riding on her camel and they go to
Iraq and the story of Karbala is a little bit outside topic, but
she's there so we need to mention it briefly.
Which is one of the witnesses to what happened.
They in camp outside Kufa or there's the Iraqi army.
But the Iraqi army is not on this side. And they get this
one of the most pathetic letters in history message from the people
of Kufa saying Our hearts are with you, but our swords are against
you.
So it all for saying is there with the people have come with him said
to be 73 and the Syrians and Iraqis and the 10,000 heroes you
know, thinking better of their pledge of allegiance and
we all know that can
Amity that that happens and the enamel for signs women folk are
there are above his wife is that in a tent in the middle of this
little encampment. And as I said, sister zeyneb Is there and Sakina
is and some other women. And the night before the battle,
Xena goes out to famous story and she hears Alpha seine reciting
poems that indicate that he's expecting death tomorrow, his
there, sharpening his sword getting his armor ready and
hearing this she screams. Middle of the night people hear sadism
screaming and the other woman comes saying what's happening.
And He then tells the women that if he dies, they are not to do the
traditional morning things. They're not to slap their cheeks.
They're not to tear their clothes. Well let her own the hedgehog
don't say anything inappropriate. And the women lower their heads
and agree.
And then their silence. And then one of the women has had crying
and it's Sakina.
And obviously in reproaches her and says you're always the one
who's to cheer me up. And then he tells her about to take care of
her late teens, but Mum still has to do this. And then he leaves
them stands up to pray.
They're in the tent.
And the next day the conflict begins. And they hear this noise,
the clashing of swords and the screaming and the shouting and the
chanting around the tent there in the tent quite dark because it
tends to move camelhair and
but around them, there's the heat and catastrophe and then the flap
of the tent is roughly pooled, and they're told to get out.
And so Cana sees the light of day, and she sees the bodies of the
heroes lying everywhere. There's the body of her father. Remember
Hussein, his uncle's brother, Abdullah Hussein is the dead
brother half brothers Al Akbar Jafar other family members, which
is a family goal. These are the people she loves most all dead.
Some historians say that she threw herself on her father's body
before the soldiers pull her away and make her walk
barefoot with the other prisoners to Kufa.
She recite some poetry and the interesting things about Seder
Sakina is that even though she's in this poetic world, not much of
her poetry has been preserved except laments, really, this is
the one for her.
While she has one for her father, and another a bab.
The widow
has also lost her son
is reciting this on the way
to Kufa in the lady Cannanore and you're stood out will be he be
Karbala aka T lon virome at phony sympton the BU desert con la sala
Hatton Anna, what do you need to Hassan and my wasini but currently
jubbaland Saben ellos will be he will come to Cibona B RAF me what?
Dini a contract has trouble now be rough me what? Dini manlier term?
Woman Alyssa ed in a woman
yovani why we Illa he couldn't your knee? Well, yet we Illa he
called me skinny calling. So this is Rob ABS lament as she's going
to Kufa and it's addressed to her dead husband.
The one who was a light from which people sought guidance lies now on
the field of Karbala, dead and unburied,
the grandson of the Prophet, may God reward you in the best way on
our behalf. And may you be spared any loss but the balance?
For me you used to be a strong mountain, you are the one in whom
I sought protection. And you used to keep my company with mercy and
religion who now will help the orphans and the beggars and who
will
and who will now protect all of the poor. This is some of the
poetry that
to Martha is a an energy in Arabic. They go to Kufa and
they're taken to Damascus and shown to Yazeed one of us eats
courtiers asks if he can take Sakina as a slave and Yazeed won't
go this far and refuses and finally lessons into retirement.
They go back to Medina, the led by Ali's Angel Aberdeen, who has been
sick and doesn't
Isn't killed at the massacre they enter the city and the crowds of
course are there to welcome them. And then another of the women of
the Elevate in Medina stands up in the crowd and she has a poem
as well
where's it gone so Zainab bint appeal even ABI Taalib
mother taco Luna in Colin B EULA ko murder for two and a half year
old umami. B it will be le Bardem of taka de min been home or Sara
Wyoming Home Depot Brittany McKenna Heather just in the SatoLA
calm and Turkey for navy. So in vita, we Rahimi
which means something like
what should you say? If the Prophet has said to you, what will
you do when you are the last of the Omers by my family and by my
kin, after this loss of them, now I see them as war captives, some
of them stained with blood.
This should not be my reward, after I have counseled you, that
to look after my family after I am gone.
This is a famous moment this see you there standing up in the crowd
at Medina and reciting this poem. So in Medina, for about takes a
house and Sakina stays there after about a year or about dies, and
they say that she died of grief.
Families really urging Sakina now to marry in order to have children
continue that prophetic line. Felt Fatima is in the home of her
husband at Hasson and within
and so Cana does Mary and in fact Mary's quite a few times, which
was quite normal in those days. And unfortunately here, the
historians are really in a tangle and it's very hard to see who she
marries first in what order or for how long. They tend to focus on
interesting anecdotes about her life, some of her humor, and some
of her poetry. It's really difficult to untangle this. The
Kitab Avani, for instance, is one of the great medieval dozens of
volumes collections of medieval Arabic songs and poems and stories
about the poet
gives five different lists of names of people of men who have
married her so it's really hard to work it out. Most of the lists,
however, include the name of Mossad, Ivanov Zubair remember the
one who was thinking hoping to marry her earlier
and even Callie can have many the historian say that probably he was
her first husband, so we have this
it seems to have been a happy marriage
yeah, there's lots of poetry about his courage and his his manliness
is virility
or Badal Levin case or aka yet one of the great poems of poets of
this group if this period and she knew him said in the Mermelstein
once she had been mean Allah He to gentler on what she heals on
metal. Vocal hormonal Coco what in Lisa V Jabba wrote on Allah He
Kibriya who get tequila Halfhill Ohmori rocket F la Harmon can have
you heard me heal it.
It's just a praise poem about Musab Musab is a meteor from God,
which illuminates the dark face of the earth. His strength is a true
kingdom. But in it there is no oppression and no arrogance. He
fears God in every matter
and whoever is suffering from worry, will find success. When he
comes to him. There's lots of other praise poetry about Messiah
is really one of the heroes of the Arabs of the time. Remember again
that Muslim seems to have not just proposed to her but actually
fallen in love with her in Mecca. And
there's a story in Ibn katiba Where you know Akbar which is
really an early one of the earliest works of Arabic
literature
which inshallah we'll try and read the original
says CMC library. It's quite a
interesting kind of young men's bragging to
each tema, Abdullah bin Omar will always urbanist Zubair or Musab
ibn Zubair will Abdul Malik bin Marwan be
United acaba. Okay so one day in the courtyard of the Kaaba, for
men for young men get together, Abdullah bin Ahmed, second hurry
for son, Ottawa urbanist Zubayr, another great heroes, Messiah,
even as Zubair, his brother Mossad who's the one we're talking about,
and Abdul Malik bin Mattawan, who's on Maya, who gets to be
Khalifa. Eventually Abdul Malik, the one who built the Dome of the
Rock.
So they're kind of young men chatting together fuck Allah Who
Messiah to men know. Most obsessed to them. What's your what's your
dream? We'd say nowadays, what would you really like in your
life? So they're kind of fantasizing for how long if that
and they said you start for Carl Wilayat will Iraq? What is
overdue, so Cana ignitor Hussain, where I should have been told her
been Obaidullah baby Obaidullah.
So, so, Muslim says what I would like is to be governor of Iraq,
and to marry Sakina, Intel Hussein, and it should have been
Tulsa.
And then, Otto Ibn was the Bear says, fuck, what and you're from
Allah and Hadith and to be a great and writer of Hadith.
And Abdul Malik says, I want to be Khalifa.
And Abdullah bin Omar says, I want to go to heaven. Gender is young
man chatting. And the point of the story is that all of them actually
got these wishes, even though it's this kind of young man's
speculation out to marry both of the most beautiful sensational
women in in the city.
And then, shortly after this, the news of Karbala comes and he does
marry Archbishop in Tulsa,
who's another big personality of the period and he almost certainly
is immortalized in one of Omar but I'd be happy as amatory poems and
also other other poets like even places we quoted a few minutes
ago. And these become kind of popular songs. Now should already
be married to Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman bin Abu Bakr, Abu Bakr is
grandson and marriage which I should have said Dierker had
herself facilitated. The thing is she's from the tribe of time. And
in the ancient Arabs, the women of time were really notorious for
being constantly arguing and walking out on their husbands, but
also for being extremely lovable. That was what you got. And there's
lots of Proverbs about them.
So famous for difficult women who are nonetheless beloved by the
husbands okay.
It's it said of, of of them in one Arabic proverb that they would
argue with you when they were conceiving your child, they would
argue with you when they were giving birth, but you would never
love anybody more than you loved her. So that's their reputation.
So she's already been married to Abdullah she has five children
already Muslims interested and he sends to her famous singing girl
of Makkah, as the Al may lap, goes to kind of check her out.
And in return, she asks us to sing her a song and she was very happy
about this and as it goes back to Mossad and describes her
and she does this in the context of another rather complicated
recital, the implication of which is that the only thing that's
really wrong with her is that she has big ears and big feet
poem that is very appreciative but it makes this point so he agrees
to marry her and these rich people than the dowry 500,000 silver
coins and he gives her another gift of the same amount on top and
she's always difficult and I don't know if we've got time to talk
about the trials
that she brought to her
husband
most and the most urban duck Hola Hola, Yo, man. We're here near
EMA.
Ma will Somalia look look at beam Atewa Sharona dinar for number
one a thorough look look for Hijiri her for color. We're here
to Shiho be what she has. Nobody can add a Hubbert helium in her
look. Okay, so he's bringing her present. The present is precious
pearls, eight poles.
So he comes in and she's asleep siesta time.
drops the pearls gently on her. When she wakes up and she sees
what he's done, she said, No, my sleep was actually better than
these pearls.
Try the next anniversary. It's lots of stories about this. She's
really, really hard work. And the ancient Arabs love to sort of
slight terrace.
Quite a piece of work, but it's great aspiration is to marry
Sakina as well. She has now announced that
after the death of her father she was willing to marry so it was
right to Medina and visit Ali Zainul. Aberdeen
saying he wants to become his brother in law. Ali agrees, ask
Sakina Sakina consents, and according to a historian vinta
shot at this happens in the year 67. Most about the time is
Governor of Butler, so a big big cheese, she's about 20.
So she goes back, but it's back to Iraq. So it's the same journey
she's dealing with those memories. And she's she enters her new home
and in the traditional style, she's met first by her co wife, I
should have been told her who dresses herself magnificently for
this and in the home of Musab. She resumes her old kind of bright and
cheerful and carefree manner. Maybe if you want to psychologize
this because she's back in Iraq, kind of Allah is not far away.
Do you remember the humiliation of being taken in kind of rags and
chains to the governor's palace in Kufa, this is another way of
blocking out those bad memories and those assistant human
psychological response. They say for instance, why? Why did the
Jews have the best sense of humor, Jewish humors, everybody like
Seinfeld, because of their dark history, it's a kind of
compensation mechanism. So there's one explanation of why she's one
of the great kind of Joker's and humorists of the Arabs. And of
course, she's has this woman Aisha who's really making life * for
her husband is not going to make things easy for Sakina either.
It's a classic situation of the polygamous rivalry.
Aisha constantly difficult, she goes out in bright clouds kind of
shiny, silken things not really appropriate in the Muslim city,
and it drives Muslim up the wall, but she says, God has given me
this beauty and it's a great gift. So why should I deprive the world
of it and it doesn't add to deal with that. So Kainat she's various
engages in various manipulations to try and score one over on
Sakina but Sakina it seems doesn't reciprocate in kind, but relies
more on dignity and AdMob. Very often, they would argue,
lots of stories about this. Who is the most beautiful
so he resolves this one day
by saying mnts or Cana for I'm Lahore minha. We're under NTR Isha
for edge Mala
As for us, so Cana, you are lovelier than her. As view our
Isha, you are more beautiful. So this is going on all the time. But
this is
an interesting insight is is actually documented into the
difficulties of a polygamous life in a society where everybody is
doing this, a lot of men are killed on the field of battle. And
this is better than widowhood. And is accepted as a sondland as
normal pattern of life, but it's not easy. And these two really
sort of conspicuous and strong willed women seem to have had this
rivalry.
But history books are full of interesting stories about Muslims
relationship with
with Aisha didn't tell her, but don't tell us anything, really
about his relationship with Sakina. We don't know how they got
in except at the end.
When he goes out to fight as part of the Beirut rebellion against
the Umayyads and his kind of Sham his manly virtue says it's not
going to capitulate, he's going to do it but it looks like it's going
to be another Karbala and of course it's okay No, thinks it's
going to be another Karbala. We have this exchange which has been
preserved so he's setting out
limma Dhaka Allah Allah Sakina you will do her work with the higher
allele Hello Julian Italia Abdul Malik.
When he goes into see Sakina to say goodbye to her and was getting
ready to go out to fight against Abdul Malik
SAF admin Kulfi as he turned to leave, she shouted.
waffles now what I like most
OB I'm really sorry about this Messiah.
For taffeta, he lay her walk all our colon Heather Levy's callback
that he turned to her and said, is all of that for me in your heart,
Violet, a Walla Walla Quinto bookfi Athan fall and there's
something hidden which is even greater.
Now that indicates that she
really loved him and was realizing this at that moment and of course
he is.
Does lose on the field of battle Abdul Malik manages to bribe most
of his soldiers who abandoned Messiah
who was killed and in the governor's palace the news reaches
her and she's devastated but also furious against those who betrayed
him it says Iraqis again and make promises and then change their
mind. It looks like another Karbala. So
this is a tragic life really. A grandfather has been killed a
father has been killed now her husband has been killed in a world
in which the options for women were fairly limited. So the people
of Kufa
haven't been on her side become the best turbans to offer their
condolences. We're so sorry. So kind of Intel, Hossein.
She knows that the snakes and the they've behaved reasonably so
famously as they leave
she has some words
for them.
Allahu Allah, any political cutter to JD Hollien or cartel to ABI Al
Hussein was OG must urban phobia you watching tell Cooney
ASM unknown Aneesa yet and Adam ateme to Mooney Selita 10. Animal
to Mooney Kaviraj. So she's really angry with them and says God knows
that I hate you. You killed my grandfather, Ali. And you killed
my father Al Hussein, and my husband Musab. So how would you
have the effrontery to stand before me?
When I was a child, you made me an orphan. Now I am an adult. You've
made me a widow.
And then she marches out
with Muslim, she's has had a daughter they argue about the
name, but her choice which is rebab named after her mother
prevails. And so after this new reverse in her life, she goes back
with her daughter to maca.
Asha the other widow the CO widow also returns
and immediately people want to marry our Isha and
yet says she, she marries again quite quickly and the Arab
Chronicles and sort of gossip columns and are busy with her and
her stamps. Commenting on her relationship with a new husband,
who is the brother of Abdul Malik, who doesn't mind marrying the
brother of the KDF who sent the army against her. Her late husband
Sakina went into an editor and then seems to have been in a kind
of extended mourning. Even though she's got this bright, witty
temperament. She's maybe depressed. But we're told one day
her servant girl banana, start saying
it's actually this Melek Wellock she says to her what's wrong? Call
it or hippo and RR feed dairy Jinba she said I really wish we
could have a wedding party in our house.
Maid is saying this.
And
so
again, cutting through the tangle of the different durations.
We can see
what she does next. The dad said sukeena Molalla hat as it will be.
We'll call it La. It's happy la Ibrahim Ibn Abdul Rahman been our
facula Who in the La dee da NerdCon. But Bella Nephi
Antioquia, Lulu Sula, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam fog tubes so
Cana.
So, she calls a client of hers kinsmen
who she trusts and she says go to a
Brahim and Abdul Rahman been out again the son of one of the great
Sahaba I blocked him and been off
and say to him, we used not to incline to you. But now we see
your virtues. You are fond the maternal
uncles of the Holy Prophet. So seek Sakina in marriage. This is
the way she's doing it. It's the the groom that proposes but She's
inviting the proposal.
And
after Mossad had died, he had already proposed it seems and she
called him giving him a flea in his ear, but now she seems to have
changed her mind and Ibrahim is happy so he calls all of his
relations dozens of people to go to the house of Ali then Aberdeen
to make the formal proposal and this crowd is noticed in Medina.
The Gossip gets around
and some are outraged her the hill Hancock to redo antitheism water
Ibrahim been up the rock man.
That stupid woman wants to marry that man Ibrahim been under a man.
He wasn't really considered worthy of her. Even though her father
undrafted and and it's one of the Osher Mubasher in Bill Jana, one
of the 10 men explicitly promised paradise in in the Hadith. And so
the families get together some of them have sticks and as a kind of
fight outside Zeno Aberdeen's house, and the noise reaches
okayness house and she tells her maid Are those your wedding party
and the marriage is called off.
This is interesting, the society is still tribal and the old kind
of caste system is still understood. You notice that Sakina
doesn't mind effectively taking the initiative and proposing to
somebody who in the traditional hierarchy has some way beneath her
doesn't really seem to matter but the society can't can't cope. And
so she kind of gives up and gets another proposal from is bulk bin
Abdulaziz bin Marwan who is the brother of the righteous or My
khalifa, Omar bin Abdulaziz and this she accept. So see, again,
the lack of kind of tribal concern isn't Umayyad from Abdulmalik
firmly she's the elevator supposed to be a daggers drawn with the
bunny or here's the daughter of a mama her saying she doesn't mind a
proposal from an old maid and they married.
At least it's kind of agreed the exchange vows cabal de jab.
And she's his governor of Egypt at the time. And she says the air of
Egypt is unhealthy they have fevers and things and so he says
all I'll build a house for you. So we're healthy. So it goes to one
of the hills now. Cairo as it is now and builds a mansion for her
there.
Then his uncle that made Khalifa Abdullah Malik writes to him
saying no
divorce her.
He can remain as governor of Egypt, or he can remain as the
husband of Sakina. That's the choice. So he thinks about this
and he actually divorces her without the marriage ever having
been consummated. Nice answer 20,000 gold coins by way of an
apology. Why did Abdul Malik issue this order? Another upset in so
Qeynos life? Some say it's because he was generous. Some say it's
because he was angry at the money spent on constructing the mansion.
We don't know another suitor comes along Abdullah bin Othman al his
enemy Muslims nephew, another one from the Zubayr ID faction who
have risen up against the the Umayyads in Makkah and in Iraq.
This time, the marriage is considered by the sort of extended
families and chattering relatives and Auntie's to be alright. And so
the marriage does go ahead and there seems to have been a time of
stability and security for her. She becomes a mother again. She
has a son of men. And off man. Bun Abdullah is actually the ancestor
of all her present day living descendants. That's where the line
goes. The other son called Hakeem and then Robbie Ha, who marries
abbess is the eldest son of another Umayyad Khalifa and Waleed
is one of the great generals fights against the Byzantines in
Asia Minor. So again, you see the added beat not hesitating to marry
and to marry their daughters into the family of the bunny or Maya
and a lot of modern day polarities find this very hard to conceive,
because those hatreds are very deeply rooted as a result of
various manipulations and misunderstandings. If you've ever
been to Damascus and
You go to the, the the graveyard though.
There's the tomb of more outerwear. And there's the tomb of
yours Eid. And they have been enormous steel cages around them
because of the crazy people that want to attack and desecrate the
graves because they were allegedly enemies of the prophetic house.
Rather than just being politics, he gets a sense of the real
unresolved tensions that are there. But if you look at the El
bait, they married their daughters to all my kids. And
they seem to have been very open hearted about this. There's other
other things that we learn and I really want to get into her impact
on the growth of Arabic poetry a bit.
But I think these family things were important because we do here
get an insight into a kind of messy human reality rather than
some kind of idealistic. plaster. Saint is always praying, and the
husband is perfect, and everything is lovely and Islamic. And this is
a real life. And these are real circumstances and it's a difficult
life. All of those bereavements have family members who she deeply
loved husbands who die one after another. Political catastrophe is
the difficulty of being added baked in in that time.
precarious but she maintained, so high spirits more or less,
throughout, so another suitor comes along.
After Abdullah dies, they married for about eight years seems to
have been a happy time for her. Somebody else comes it's always
regarded in this traditional Arab societies as as kind of wronging a
woman to leave her on her own as a single parent. It's part of her
dignity that she should be married. But this time, it's a
really strange story.
This is aid bin Omar been off man been a fan. So his grandson of
Othman.
Again, the idea that added baiter against off man's family. This,
the fact that it's offense, grandson does not concern her,
she's probably in her late 40s by now.
And he says he really wants to marry her, and she can specify any
condition she wants.
So she says there's three conditions, I'm going to be your
only wife, and you won't touch any other woman.
I have total access to all of your wealth, I can take whatever I
want. And you never restrict my movements. I can go wherever I
like and you facilitate that. And that well, that's kind of
now in Sherry, as she's allowed to say things like that, even though
it's kind of pushing at the boundaries. But in that position,
she can put those things in the contract.
And another thing that's odd
is that his nickname is that he has up hello Quraysh is the
meanest stingiest man. All of coloration is absolutely notorious
for doing kind of shocking things. And the fact that she's now going
to have the pin number of all of his bank accounts.
But she's quite something he agrees.
Enough third conditional, she's new wherever she likes, and he'll
have to facilitate that that's, that's strange in that world. So
some people nowadays in Arabic literature call her an Arab
feminist bit anachronistic really, but certainly she did insisted on
having very considerable power and autonomy. Now they'd has this
reputation
as being very tight and when they hear of these conditions is
unlikely marriage. People in the UK are a little bit uncertain and
anxious. But they get married. So there's lots of stories in Arabic
literature, some of them even in the Arabian Nights about the kind
of funny things happen between them, the greatest miser of
Quraysh, married to this aristocratic, courageous woman who
really likes to give money and to hold big parties. very hospitable,
very generous.
So for instance,
an example of generosity and not really thinking about wealth is
that when she did the Hajj one year, she had her seven pebbles
for the Jamaat, she dropped one of them and how does she get it back?
So she just pulls off a big ring and throws that instead.
she just, she wants to do her obligation, and she really doesn't
care about wealth, money flows to her
finger serves aides meanness, they say that on the hedge,
husband and wife come on the hedge with their own provisions, five
camel loads of food. In the evening, she orders the table to
be laid. And then some people come along say we'd like to greet Zaid
nobleman of our people, can we greet him, and then Zaid knows
that they're going to go for the food. And so he says
Oh yes this terrible stomach ache and he said oh, I'm really not
feeling well. Our hostility Oh my belly
Bismillah it foul Tom take the food away her to Tiriac when
they're ill her take the food away bring me some medicine and some
hot water to the guests. Of course it was a good moment so they go
away. After they're gone, the food comes back and we have a nice
dinner together. So lots of stories about this.
Yeah, and there's even another story which is kind of even more
extraordinary but it is in may not be true.
He has to go on Hajj with the new Khalifa Suleiman bin Abdul Malik
is kind of his duty. But he has to get her permission. She's very
much wearing the trousers in the family. She's okay, you can go but
I will send one of my people with you. Because I don't want to
marrying anybody else. Or visiting your slave girls and that farm of
yours and in Medina.
Okay. So they it goes off on the way back from the hudge. According
to this Arabian Nights type story. He says to this servant of hers,
it's called a Shabbos is kind of slightly if you know Don Giovanni
this Leporello has the kind of slimy guy who arranges all of the
dubious meetings. This is a Cheb
I wouldn't mind visiting my farm just for one day. If you don't
tell Sakina
I'll give you 400 dinars golden coins, but you may have to swear
because I know what she was like, I didn't do anything bad. So he
says, All right. So he goes off day later, he comes back. And so
they go back. And so quinoa is an ash Shabbos and she makes him
swear that her husband has been good.
And so I should have said yes, I swear I honorably swear, that has
not been out of my sight. And he certainly didn't go near his farm.
And then Zaid actually has a kind of conscience attack. That's it.
No, I'm sorry. I did do it. He doesn't like to see this guy
swearing.
And he confesses.
Then, according to the funny story,
of course, she divorces him.
And for Ashab, who's kind of treacherous Leporello she devises
a strange punishment. She spends the money on a very competent 400
dinars she takes from him.
And she orders the carpenters of Medina to make this really
complicated box in which she puts a few chickens eggs. And she says
if any of these eggs don't hatch,
you'll be for it. And so he has to physically keep the eggs warm into
strange contraption until they hatch.
That's his punishment.
So very kind of unusual, which he will not and then the Khalifa says
no, you can't be divorced. And so he ordered for them to get back
together again. So let's
think some more about what this means that I can kind of
conventional view of the seller for no women being kind of like
quiet nuns, and she's really not like that. And it's unlikely
anybody would invented this personality because it's kind of
doesn't fit, fit, fit fit the narrative or were told, for
instance, that when she heard the Umayyads had ordered Ali to be
condemned from the minibar during the hotbar. In Medina, she herself
went to the mosque, and when this was happening, stood up in front
of the preacher to solve that law who was Sakeena fisherton
shettima. They had a little Skeena interrupted him and started
insulting him for criticizing Imam Ali. She orders her servants all
to come along and do the same. The preacher can't do anything to her
but orders the police to beat her servants. And another story told
about her because this is an age where medicine is primitive. She
has something in her eye which is it seems under the surface of our
eyeball and there's a swelling and it's affecting her looks and it's
very painful. And she has a Greek servant called Ruffus who knows
about medicine?
And he says I can do an operation and get that thing out. But it's
very painful. Can you bear the pain and stay sales still and she
says Bella certainly. So he does this terrifying surgical operation
on her eye and peels back the layers of skin until he gets to
the thing that's lodged that and removes it was so Cana Wanda jaton
that his wallet had to follow him in Iraq and Sakina was just lying
there, not moving and not groaning until he had finished the
operation. And according to the
historians left a small
marks on her eye which people considered to add to her beauty
so known. Let's just talk briefly about the literary side of of it.
She dies in 117736 in the city of Medina. And we mentioned
Omar bin Abi Robbie,
and the amatory verse. And again, people are puzzled when they're
told that the great impact that Islam had on the poetry of the
Arab Arabs was to create a huge tradition of romantic verse. And
it's true, and these poets used to gather in her house.
This is the age of Leila and metronome. It originates from that
period and magic normally is said to have been real person called
dice. And we have his Deewan and his kind of infatuation with
Leila, which has given us that idea of courtly love because apart
from a few verses, which may well be spurious, it generally is very
chaste verse. There's no kind of explicit stuff.
Mostly with it. Most of it is kind of silly localizing and encampment
after the blob, it's gone. God knows well, remembering, happy
days with her.
This is the time of the poet
Jamil
and his beloved Athena, we have that Deewan. Still, this is the
time of
the poet cathedral,
and his beloved Uzza.
And of course, all urban Abbey, Robbie, all of these women whose
beauty He describes, and people think what is going on here. This
is the time of the self, or the literature that really everybody
is enjoying
is this stuff about?
Love.
This becomes very important in Islamic history because the idea
of
the quest for the beloved becomes probably the most popular mystical
troop. Laila becomes the absent divine. And Rumi says he wants to
unveil Leila to be reunited with Leila and his last turn is kind of
spiritual nostalgia and that sort of all this platonic streak of
love this nostalgia in Islamic civilization really takes its cue
from that early period and it's not really much there in the pre
Islamic Jahai verse which is rougher and more pessimistic.
There is a genuine romantic dimension, what they call an
Hogben, Audrey sort of chaste love
present in this period and it's sensationally good poetry. And as
we've seen the teenage girls in Makkah and everybody, and her
house in Medina becomes a kind of literary salon. And she tries to
get all of these people
to
recite for her.
So there's a famous incident in which the three great sort of
poetry singers at the time were resident in Medina at the time of
the greater than urban sort of age, wanted the fourth greatest to
us, honey nahiri, who lived in southern Iraq to come and join
them so they could have this amazing session of all of the
great poetry recitals together in smokiness house and hunting
accepts the invitation
comes to Medina.
And they all go together to smokiness house and she has a big
banquet prepared and then they ask her Nene to sing for them.
And everybody in Medina wants to hear this. And of course, there's
no microphone. So people get really close to the house and they
climb up onto the roof of the neighboring house. So many that
one of the house roofs collapse collapses and people are hurt. So
these people are really celebrities, both Jared and far as
duck. Two of the great early Arab poets
who had this great rivalry between them half of their poetry is kind
of poking fun at the other one saying is no good in battle. He's
no good in love. And then the other one replies and it's this
this knockout and
that adversarial poetry of Julian philosopher some of the great
masterpieces of Arabic literature and the Kitab. Avani preserves a
kind of sense of what this would have been like. And it seems that
when these poets were present,
so Cana would very much be in charge of the naturalist. She
would be behind a screen and she wouldn't speak herself. But she
would write a question or request for a poem
on a piece of paper and get her servant girl to take it around,
and then she would
read it out. And she would say, quote There Are you the one who
said, and then you get the verse. And then cathedra would say, Yes,
this is my poem, and then she would criticize it, it's not quite
good enough, and this other poem is better. And if only you'd said
that this is a little bit inappropriate. And she would
always give them a gift at the end of it. And this is said to be why
she preferred Jarier over foreign stuck in a very kind of famous
standoff between the two in her in her presence in her absent
presence. So
we need to finally to think about what this means that the daughter
of Monaco scene is patronizing these love poets, in this very
Islamic and really very conservative society, where the
prophetic mosque is next door.
Now, what's going on probably is that this is the Near East
celebration of the advent of a new era of attitudes to family life
and the body. You have to remember what was there beforehand,
basically, Christianity was dominant. And if we read books,
like Peter brands, the body and society, you'll see what a
gigantic transformation that had brought. The big impact that
Christianity had on Near Eastern society was that whereas the kind
of
quite orgiastic sensuality of late Roman culture was suddenly
replaced by monasteries, and convents, and celibate clergy, in
the time was the Council of Carthage late fourth century.
That's the thing that Pope Benedict and Pope Francis are kind
of trying to get their heads around at the moment. And it's
still a huge thing for most of the Christian churches and the Arabs,
when they went around the Near East would find these hermitage is
everywhere. There is a mortifying monk up there on the clifftop and
there is somebody sitting on a pillar, and the whole landscape
was full of these renunciant.
And it became, as Peter Brown says, like a black sheet
descending on the Near East, and everything was kind of like death
or anticipation of death. And then it's long comes along, and
suddenly the values change.
Because of the example of the Holy Prophet, salallahu, alayhi
wasallam, and the essentially world affirming message of the
Quran, which is about the world of signs of God, everything becomes
upbeat again. So I think you can understand this emergence of the
romantic principle as central to Islamic literature and then
becoming the preferred genre that Sufis and other devotional poets
like to use in their metaphorical journeys to the Divine, as part of
a general kind of cathartic reaction against the unnatural
miseries of a world that was really her shirts and flange
relations and the penitential lifestyle, De Niro is breathing a
sigh of relief Hamdulillah we can get back to this, rather like the
suddenness of the Renaissance in Western Europe, you go into, say,
a palace of the Renaissance, but the Gothic thing has gone. And the
image of the tortured saints have gone. And instead, you've got all
of that kind of pagan deities naked flying around in the sky.
Now, something very strange has happened to Christianity, but
that's the kind of reflex they're snapping out of that unnatural
ascetical mode. But the only language Western Europe could
reach for was the language of pagan antiquity. So you have these
real oddities you go into the clementine Hall in the Vatican.
And everybody in the Vatican is kind of making war on the flesh
and wearing scapulars and how shirts and pieces of barbed wire
twisted around their leg and they're really into that. Although
very polite people with it. And then you look at the way in which
the renascence Pope's decorated these spaces in the ceiling of the
clementine Hall is full of these kinds of fat pink ladies flying
around in the clouds.
This is this is an imbalance. And this is Europe moving back into
paganism effectively it sensibilities.
The Islamic world never experienced that there's no kind
of desire on the part of Muslim princes at any point to return to
the old Arab deities or the old Greek deities. There's no trace of
that because that reflects against the monastic impulse the bear Nia
didn't need to be there because the Quran had already brought a
liberation from that false liberation. So I think one thought
that we can
do
I entrust ourselves with is this idea that the whole idea of
romantic love which you don't really get in, in classical poetry
is not really in Ovid and Catellus, even though they have
good love poetry, but the idea of real sort of romantic and literary
verse
compared to this period and this amazing sensitivity and sometimes,
since you ality, Romans can't hold a candle to somebody like Omar and
Abby, Robbie, and this, that Leila imaginal idea, eventually gets
into Western Europe. And if you read
several recent studies, Jeffrey unburden Islamic romanticism talks
about how one of the key things that transformed Europe in the
romantic age, at the time of the Enlightenment and onwards was the
translation of Islamic classics, in Arabic and particularly
Persian, into German and other European languages, giving them a
Latter Day resuscitation of this early or mired, turn to romantic
love as something that is positive and actually, even spiritually, a
possibility. So I'm burdens viewers that without the existence
of this Islamic idea of
sort of Platonic that that real love, the whole Romantic movement
in in Europe really couldn't have got going. And there's other
studies of its impact on American literature as well, which is an
interesting inversion of the stereotypes, isn't it when
everybody thinks Middle East and Islam, it's all very kind of
buttoned up and puritanical and monastic, but that may be a
contemporary perspective, but as the life of Sita Sakina Bintan
Hossein shows us, those people were diverse. And it was a time
of, because it was a time of hope, a time of happiness, in the face
of very considerable sometimes excruciating adversity and a time
essentially, of the embrace of life, and of its brighter aspects.
So that I think, does represent a paradigm of leadership. And one
that in our rather darkening times, is one that we need to
cherish rather than more than we do. God has not appointed the
world, to be a kind of dangerous minefield, step on some dreadful
thing, and God will send you to * forever. That's no, that does
not do justice to the divine purpose, but rather the world is
to be experienced as an extraordinary panorama of divine
signs and beauty, or an is an aesthetic sizing document because
through our sensibility to beauty, we recognize the divine in the
physical world, which is an argument for God and therefore for
revelation and for everything that matters in religion. So you can
see her metabolism as being essentially
resuscitation of the Quranic message. She is experiencing
religion as something that gives us life you had to overcome uma
your vehicle. The death focused Christianity, which Islam was
replacing, was now swept away to be replaced by something that
affirmed marriage and motherhood and life and biology and the
normal functions of our created humanity. So not not Allah here I
lay her in sha Allah, we will remember her with affection and
respect. And if you do go to Cairo, it's worth going to the
bazaar of Sita. Sakina saying a few words to one special place. So
Monica, from
Cambridge Muslim College, training the next generation of Muslim
thinkers