Part of a series on Islam Umm-al-Momineen Wives of Muhammad
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid Sawda bint Zama Aisha bint Abi Bakr Hafsa bint Umar Zaynab bint Khuzayma Hind bint Abi Umayya Zaynab bint Jahsh Juwayriya bint al-Harith Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan Rayhana bint Zayd Safiyya bint Huyayy Maymuna bint al-Harith Maria al-Qibtiyya

Maria al-Qibtiyya (Arabic: مارية القبطية‎) (alternatively, "Maria Qupthiya"), or Maria the Copt, (died 637) was an Egyptian Coptic Christian slave who was sent as a gift from Muqawqis, a Byzantine official, to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 628.^[1] According to some Islamic accounts, she was Muhammad's wife, and therefore a "Mother of the Believers" (Arabic: Ummahat-al-Mu'mineen), other sources like Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya talk about her being only a concubine. She was the mother of Muhammad's son Ibrahim, who died in infancy. Her sister, Sirin, was also sent to Muhammad; Muhammad gave her to his follower Hassan ibn Thabit.^[2] Maria never remarried after Muhammad's death in 632, and died five years later. Her birthdate is unknown. No primary source mentions her age.

[edit] Year of the deputations

In the Islamic year 6 AH (627 – 628 CE), Muhammad is said to have written letters to the great rulers of the Middle East, proclaiming the new faith and inviting the rulers to join. What purport to be texts of some of the letters are found in Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, which was written some 250 years after the events it chronicled. Tabari writes that a deputation was sent to an Egyptian governor named as al-Muqawqis. A note in the State University of New York edition of Tabari states that this seems to be a version of Cyrus of the Caucasus, who was the Byzantine Patriarch of Alexandria.^[3] The note adds that Cyrus did not become Patriarch until 631, and that an account placing him in Egypt three or four years earlier is therefore questionable.

Tabari does, however, recount the story of Maria's arrival from Egypt:

In this year Hātib b. Abi Balta'ah came back from al-Muqawqis bringing Māriyah and her sister Sīrīn, his female mule Duldul, his donkey Ya'fūr, and sets of garments. With the two women al-Muqawqis had sent a eununch, and the latter stayed with them. Hātib had invited them to become Muslims before he arrived with them, and Māriyah and her sister did so. The Messenger of God lodged them with Umm Sulaym bt. Milhān. Māriyah was beautiful. The Prophet sent her sister Sīrīn to Hassān b. Thābit and she bore him 'Abd al-Rahmān b. Hassān.

—Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings.^[2]

[edit] Maria in Muhammad's household

Muhammad lived in a mud-brick dwelling next to the Medina mosque, and each of his wives had her own mud-brick room, built in a line next to his. Maria, however, was lodged in a house on the edge of Medina. Maria is also not listed as a wife in some of the earliest sources, such as Ibn Hisham's notes on Ibn Ishaq's Sira.^[4] Muslim sources are unanimous in saying that she was accorded the same honor and respect given Muhammad's wives, pointing out that she was given the same title as Muhammad's wives – "Mother of the Believers."

Historians John Gilchrist and Maxime Rodinson feel that the "story of the honey" is an expurgated version of the story of Maria.^[5][6]

[edit] See also

• List of non-Arab Sahaba

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Gilchrist, John. Muhammad and the Religion of Islam. Benoni, Republic of South Africa, 1986.
• Ibn Ishaq, translation by A. Guillaume (1955). The Life of Muhammad. Oxford University Press.
• Rodinson, Maxime Muhammad. Random House, Inc., New York, 2002.
• Tabari (1997). Vol. 8 of the Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. State University of New York Press.