Atika, the Wife of Imam Husain (PBUH)

Atika, the daughter of  Zayd ibn Amr ibn  Nufayl, was an Arab poetess  and a  beautiful  woman  of  great  wisdom  and  good  breeding.  She married Abdullah ibn  Abibakr ibn   Abiqahafe, or as Ibn Abd al-Barr wrote in Al-Isti’ab,his book,she married Zayd  ibn  Khatab. But he was  killed on  the  Day of Yamanah.

Afterwards, she married Umar. Soon after that, Umar was also killed.And after that,she married Zubayr ibn al-Awam.He was also killed. Then Amir-al-Muminin  (Commander of believers) proposed to her.Atika sent a message to Imam Ali saying,”I’m worried about your  life. I’ve  gotten married three times, and all my ex-husbands have been killed.”Amir al-Muminin (PBUH) replied,  “Whoever  likes  martyrdom  marries Atika.” At  that time Sayyid-ul-Shuhada (master of martyrs) (PBUH) married her.

After  His   Excellency  was  martyred  ,she  never married again. There  is a place  of  pilgrimage  (shrine) in Sham (Syria)which is called Maqam Muhsin or Mashhad-ul-Muhsin ibn al-Husain (PBUH), in which Muhsin, son of Imam Husain (PBUH) is buried.

When the caravan of captives settled on the slope of Mount Jushan,some  where to  the west  of   Halab,and to  the  south of  the place where heads of martyrs had been buried, the wife of Imam Husain (PBUH),who was quoted to be  pregnant,aborted her baby due to mental‌ strain  and the hardships of the long journey.Yaqut Hamawi called this place“Mashhad-ul-Husain ”where miscarried baby  of  Imam Husain’s  was buried. Based on what Kamune Husain i  writes,  there was a  child  who passed away  there. He seems to be Muhsin, son of Atika.

Translated by, Ms. Ebrahimi