Hind bint ʿUtba

Hind bint ʿUtba ( Arabic هند بنت عتبة, DMG Hind bt. ʿUtba , tooهند الهنود / Called Hind al-Hunūd ) was an Arab woman of the 6th and 7th centuries. As the wife of Abū Sufyān, she took a leading position in the tribe of the Quraish as an opponent of Muhammad . After converting to Islam, she gained importance as the mother of caliph Muʿāwiya I.

Preliminary remark

The sources on the life of the Hind are mostly located in the context of the narration of the life story of the Prophet and come to a large extent from the Abbasid period, which the ostracized predecessor dynasty of the Umayyads naturally had to depict poorly, while others can be attributed to the Adab literature. Likewise, the principle of historiography, effective across cultures, of portraying women as negative. Events concerning Hind are found in Ṭabarī , al-Wāqidī , Ibn Isḥāq , Balādhurī , al-Isfahani and Ibn Abdrabbih (d. 940). Hind is mostly characterized negatively: vengeful, uncontrollable, power-hungry, but always influential and self-confident. The truth of individual traditions is disputed in research.

resume

Hind, daughter of ʿUtba ibn Rabīʿa, was a prominent woman in the local nobility of the city of Mecca and priestess of the ancient Arab goddess of victory. Your year of birth can only be inferred from the birth of your own children and is assumed to be before the year 580. Hind bint ʿUtba on his father's side came from the clan of the ʿAbd Šams, i.e. the most influential clan in pre-Islamic Mecca alongside the Maḫzum. Her father was ʿUtba Rabīʿa b. ʿAbd Shams , who was head of the clan during his lifetime. Her mother Safīyya bint Umayya also came from the ʿAbd Šams. The descent from Manāf b. Quṣayy made them relatives of the Hāšim prophetic clan. She had several brothers, including Abū Huḏayfa (formerly the companion of the prophets) and Walīd (fallen at Badr). According to legends, she was the wife of an al-Fakih ibn al-Mughira, also an influential Quraish man, in her first marriage. After she was accused of adultery, the two separated and married Abū Sufyan. With Abū Sufyān she now had several children: Hanzala (fallen at Badr), Juwayriyya, Muʿāwiya (Caliph 661-680), ʿAmr, Umm Hakam and ʿUtba.

Opponent of Muhammad

When her husband Abū Sufyan was able to consolidate his control over Mecca in 624 after the Battle of Badr (in which Hind's firstborn son and her paternal uncle were also killed), this also meant Hind's further rise. In the time after Badr there is a tradition about Hind and Mohammed's daughter Zainab . At that time Zainab was married to a Meccan named Au Al-As who had been captured by the Medinese Muslims. After the ransom payment failed, Zainab wanted to leave Mecca, but was not allowed to do so due to the prestige of the Quraiš. Hind then went to Zainab and advised her to leave Mecca without prior consultation. She also offered her help with this. Zainab escaped but was caught on the run. According to Ibn Ishaq, Hind is said to have treated those who returned with abusive verses.

During her husband's argument with Medina, Hind took part in the Meccan campaigns with other priestesses. The priestesses encouraged the Quraish fighters and were supposed to incite them to victory. According to Islamic tradition, after the Battle of Uhud in 625, Hind bit into the liver of Muhammad's uncle Hamza , whom she held responsible for the death of her family members at Badr. She became known and notorious in posterity as a liver eater . The priestesses created trophies and jewelry from strung-on body parts of the enemy - a practice that Mohammed explicitly forbade his followers. According to later tradition, Hind Hamza's heart is said to have boiled and ate, or even gutted the wounded and killed after all battles.

Muhammad's mother-in-law

628 married Ramla bint Abi Sufyan , Hinds stepdaughter, Mohammed. Her son Muʿāwiya also converted to Islam after 628. In 630, after Abu Sufyan's conversion to Islam, Mohammed entered Mecca without much resistance. Because of these circumstances, Hind also converted to Islam. While Tabari and Waqidi were taking Mecca, it was reported that Hind appeared veiled before Mohammed and reproached him for the fallen. The Prophet forgave her and she swore allegiance to him. Originally, the Prophet is said to have ordered their execution after the capture of Mecca. This seems doubtful, however, as it would have contradicted the general course of reconciliation that Mohammed took with the Meccans.

Even under Mohammed, women played the important role of encouraging Islamic fighters in battles. In 636 Hind took part in the battle of Jarmuk against the Eastern Roman Empire. Here the women cheered on the fighting men with battle cries (Hind shouted after Baladhuri: "Death to the uncircumcised"), when the men retreated, the women mocked them and thus forced them back into the fight. Waqidi reports that when arrows flew in and Abū Sufyān tried to flee, Hind struck his horse and told him: "Go back and make amends for having fought against Mohammed earlier" (Waqidi).

The last mention of Hinds falls during the reign of the caliph ʿUmar (year 23, 644). Ṭabarī reports that Hind ʿUmar asked for a loan of 4,000 dirhams in order to trade in it. Then she acted in the area of ​​the calf. There she heard that Abū Sufyān and ʿAmr (her son) were with Muʿāwiya (at that time, Abū Sufyān had already divorced her). Muʿāwiya wanted to give presents to his father, but Hind advised him to give less as he would have had to justify himself to ʿUmar. Hind must have died in the following period.

Her son Muʿāwiya rebelled against the caliph ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib from 656 and founded the Umayyad dynasty in 661 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Jacobi, Renate. Portrait of an unsympathetic woman: Hind bint ´Utba, the enemy of Muhammad. In: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Volume 89 (1999), pp. 85-107
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Gerhard Konzelmann: The great caliphs 1990, ISBN 3-88199-745-8 , p. 89 ff.
3. ↑ Regarding the divorce from her first husband, the following story is passed down: Hind sleeps in the outer tent (or inner courtyard) of her husband, who leaves the place, another man enters him and is thus alone with Hind. Her husband then suspects her of infidelity and rejects her. Her father ʿUtba initially tends to take revenge on her husband, but the story ends with a fortune teller finding out that Hind is innocent and also pointing out that she will be the mother of a great king in the future; Al-Fakih offers Hind to return to his side, which she refuses. The last addition of the diviner puts the truth of this episode in an unfavorable light, since the assumption of power by Muʿāwiyas could not be known at that time.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag, Munich 1963, p. 228.