FĀṬEMA

 

FĀṬEMA, daughter of the Prophet Moḥammad.

i. In history and Shiʿite hagiography.

ii. In myth, folklore, and popular devotion.


i. IN HISTORY AND SHIʿITE HAGIOGRAPHY

The diametrically opposed views of Henri Lammens, who made the first attempt at a biography of Fāṭema, providing a pale, even negative picture, and Louis Massignon (continued by Henry Corbin, q.v.), who conceived an ideally mystical figure, reflect to some extent the information provided in the sources, particularly the earlier sources, characterized as they are by lacunae, uncertainties, and contradictions. Laura Veccia Vaglieri demonstrated that historical reality lay somewhere between the two pictures; her long and often dense article remains the best synthetic study of Fāṭema, and it will be summarized and to some degree supplemented here.

History. In contrast to the rich hagiographic material on Fāṭema (see below), purely historical information, reported particularly in Sunni sources, is rare and usually involves only insignificant episodes. Fāṭema was probably the youngest daughter of Moḥammad and his first wife, Ḵadīja, the only daughter to live long enough to bear numerous offspring. Her date of birth is variously given as between five years before and two years after the beginning of the Prophet’s mission (Lammens, pp. 8-14). She was particularly close to her father and is said to have followed him to Medina shortly after his emigration (hejra). Although there is disagreement over details, she became the wife of the Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb (q.v.) while still an adolescent, probably in 2/623-24. Moḥammad arranged this marriage in obedience to divine will, having already rejected requests for her hand by Abū Bakr, ʿOmar, and probably the very wealthy ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf (Ebn Saʿd, pp. 11-20; Ebn Rostam, p. 12). Before the occupation of the prosperous oasis of Ḵaybar ʿAlī and Fāṭema were poor, and her life does not always appear to have been happy. On a few occasions, most probably owing to ʿAlī’s attempts to take other wives, the Prophet had to intervene to reconcile the couple (Ebn Ḥanbal, p. 326; Boḵārī, II, pp. 440 ff.; Termeḏī, pp. 319-21). At any rate, as long as she lived Fāṭema was ʿAlī’s only wife and bore him five children: Ḥasan, Ḥosayn, Moḥassen (or Moḥsen, dead at very young age), Omm Kolṯūm, and Zaynab. She was apparently much affected by her father’s death and died of illness in Medina a few months later, in 11/633. Reports on her death, her burial, and the exact place of her grave are contradictory (Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīḵ II, pp. 128-30; Ṭabarī, III, pp. 2436 ff.; Masʿūdī, Morūj VI, p. 165). Today three sites in Medina are visited as her burial place. She seems to have performed only three acts of political significance, each recorded in almost all sources, both Sunni and Shiʿite, though in different versions. First, after the conquest of Mecca she refused her protection to Abū Sofyān; second, after the death of the Prophet she courageously defended ʿAlī’s cause, fiercely opposed the election of Abū Bakr, and had violent disputes with him and particularly with ʿOmar; third, she laid claim to the property rights of her father and challenged Abū Bakr’s categorical refusal to cede them, particularly Fadak and a share in the produce of Ḵaybar.

Hagiography. Hagiographical material on Fāṭema is much more ample. Whereas Sunni authors emphasized her perfectly “orthodox” virtues, in particular her rank as the daughter of the Prophet, her ascetic life, and her exemplary piety (Abu’l-Naṣr, pp. 72 ff.), Twelver Shiʿite hagiographers depicted her as a figure of cosmic significance, though early reports, as well as traditions attributed to her, are much scantier than those related to the other thirteen immaculate ones (maʿṣūm; see COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY v). Fāṭema was counted among the Prophet’s house (ahl al-bayt; AHL-E BAYT), the five people of the mantle (ahl al-kesāʾ; see AHL-E ʿABĀ), and the people of the ordeal (mobāhala) and thus occupies a central place in the pleroma of the immaculate ones, enjoying ontological, initiatory, and eschatological privileges of the same order as those attributed to the Prophet and the imams. Her luminous pre-existential entity, issuing from the divine light thousands of years before the creation of the world, devoted itself to the praise of God while circumambulating the divine throne (Ebn Bābūya, 1385/1966 pp. 135 ff.; Ḵazzāz, pp. 110-11, 169-70). Her name, like those of all the people of the mantle, was derived from a divine name (al-Fāṭer “the Creator”; Ebn Bābūya, 1405/1985, p. 252; Noʿmānī, p. 137; Ebn ʿAyyāš, p. 23). She was present in the light of the fourteen impeccable ones when it was placed in Adam’s loins (ṣolb). It was because of this light that angels were ordered to prostrate themselves before him (Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, pp. 219 ff.; Ebn Bābūya, 1385/1966, pp. 6, 209; idem, 1405/1985, p. 255). Among the names God taught to Adam (Koran 2:31-33) were those of the people of the mantle, including that of Fāṭema (Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, p. 217; Forāt, p. 56).

Her conception and birth were miraculous. Her origin was in a fruit from paradise, often identified as an apple or a date, that Moḥammad had eaten during one of his ascensions and that had become “the water of his loins” (Forāt, pp. 75-76; Ebn Bābūya, 1385/1966, pp. 183-84). According to one tradition, this fruit had previously been touched by the sweat and a plume from the wing of the angel Gabriel (Forāt, pp. 321-22). It was for this reason that the Prophet always said that Fāṭema was a celestial being in human form (ḥūrāʾ ensīya), that she emitted the perfume of paradise, and that she had a name in heaven (usually Manṣūra). Fāṭema spoke with her mother while still in the womb. All the most pious women recognized from pre-Islamic religions were present at her birth, namely, Sarah (Sārā), Āsīa, Sephora (Ṣafūrāʾ), and especially Mary the mother of Jesus (Ebn Rostam, p. 9; Ḥosayn, pp. 48 ff.). These names are often linked with that of Fāṭema, and parallels with Mary are particularly frequent, parallels emphasized by Massignon in all his works on Fāṭema (cf. Ayoub, 1976, pp. 165 ff.; idem, 1978, s.v.; McAuliffe, 1981). Yet Fāṭema’s superiority to other women is always underscored. She is given the epithet “the Great Lady/the Best of Free Women” (sayyedat/ḵīārat al-nesāʾ/al-ḥarāʾer; cf. the epithet of the mother of the qāʾem “the Great Lady/the Best of Slave Women [al-emāʾ]; Noʿmānī, pp. 331 ff.; Ebn Qūlūya, pp. 54, 78, 123-24). At her birth Fāṭema pronounced sacred formulas and announced future events; the world was bathed in light (Ebn Šahrāšūb, pp. 119 ff.).

In fact, light and Fāṭema are always linked: at the anthropogonic stage already mentioned, in Shiʿite commentaries on the Light verse, and at her birth and later in her life, especially when she prayed and meditated. She is said to have been “the source of the light on the horizon,” and it is for that reason that she is called “the Confluence of the Two Lights” (majmaʿ al-nūrayn, i.e., those of exoteric prophecy and of the esoteric imamate; Marandī, pp. 4-19), and that her most famous epithet was al-Zahrāʾ (Resplendent; Ḥosayn, pp. 46 ff.; Ebn Šahrāšūb, pp. 106 ff.). Ebn Šahrāšūb (pp. 133 ff.) listed more than seventy honorary names for Fāṭema, among which the most common are Maryam Kobrā (the supreme Mary), Batūl (lit., “Virgin,” defined by the Prophet as “she who never menstruates”; Ebn Bābūya, 1385/1966, p. 181), and the mysterious Omm Abīhā (Mother of her father), which has been variously interpreted.

In addition to light, the life of Fāṭema was characterized by piety; sadness over the destinies of her relatives and children; courage; obedience to God, her father, and her husband; and initiatory knowledge (ʿelm; for this translation, see Amir-Moezzi, pp. 174-99; on Fāṭema’s knowledge, cf. Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, pp. 221-22; Ebn Bābūya, 1404/1984, p, 596; Ebn Šahrāšūb, pp. 102-4). She is the guardian of two of the secret and sacred books of the immaculate ones, Ketāb Fāṭema and Moṣḥaf Fāṭema, which may in fact be only a single book, and two secret tablets, of white pearl and emerald respectively (Amir-Moezzi, pp. 188-89; Kohlberg, pp. 302-05). Miracles resulting from her superior nature, piety, and esoteric knowledge are frequently attributed to her (Ebn Šahrāšūb, pp. 16 ff.; Borsī, pp. 85-86; Majlesī, pp. 19-81).

Other salient points in the hagiography of Fāṭema have been brought together by Veccia Vaglieri: her betrothal and marriage to ʿAlī, raised to the level of cosmic events; her glorious resurrection on the Day of Judgment; her complaint to God about the injustices wreaked by the community on her kinsmen and followers; her intervention in favor of the Shiʿites; and her hagiography as it developed in other branches of Shiʿism, specifically the Bāṭenīya (q.v.).

Finally, according to early Imami writings, the name Fāṭema is explicitly mentioned in the “integral” Koran (in 20:115; see Kolaynī, p. 283; on the “integral” Koran, see Amir-Moezzi, pp. 200-27), and early Imami exegetes, finding allusions to Fāṭema in a number of suras, sometimes resorted to rather daring interpretations, for example, identification of the “night of the decree” (laylat al-qadr) or the “holy spirit” (al-rūḥ al-qods) with the daughter of the Prophet (Forāt, pp. 581-82). These interpretations differ little in nature from those of “extremist” Shiʿites (see ḠOLĀT), some of whom identify her with the cavern of the Seven Sleepers or with the rock of Moses from which water gushes forth (characterized by Veccia Vaglieri, p. 849, as “deviant”). The distinction between early esoteric Imamism and the Shiʿism considered “extremist” must be made with great care (Amir-Moezzi, pp. 313-16).

 

Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):

ʿO. Abu’l-Naṣr, Faṭema bent Moḥammad omm al-šohadāʾ wa sayyedat al-nesāʾ, Cairo, 1366/1947.

M. A. Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shiʿisme originel. Aux sources de l’ésotérisme en Islam, Paris, 1992; tr. D. Streight as The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism, Albany, N.Y., 1994.

M. Ayoub, “Towards an Islamic Christology: An Image of Jesus in Early Shīʿī Muslim Literature,” Muslim World 66, 1976, pp. 163-88.

Idem, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ʿÃshûrâ in Twelver Shiʿism, The Hague, 1978.

Moḥammad Boḵārī, al-Jāmeʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, n.p. [Cairo], 1360/1940.

Ḥāfeẓ Rajab Borsī, Mašāreq anwār al-yaqīn, 10th ed., Beirut, n.d.

H. Corbin, Terre céleste et corps de résurrection. De l’Iran mazdéen à l’Iran shiʿite, Paris, 1960.

Idem, En Islam iranien, 4 vols., Paris 1971-72. al-Ḏarīʿa I, pp. 343-44.

Ebn Ayyāš Jawharī, Moqtażab al-aṯar, Tehran, 1346/1927.

Ebn Bābuya, ʿElal al-šarāʾīʿ wa’l-aḥkām, 2 vols. in 1, Najaf, 1385/1966.

Idem, al-Amālī, ed. and tr. M.–B. Kamaraʾī, Tehran, 1404/1984.

Idem, Kamāl al-din wa tamām al-neʿma, 2 vols. in 1, ed. ʿA.–A. Ḡaffārī, Qom, 1405/1985.

Aḥmad Ebn Ḥanbal, Mosnad IV, Cairo, 1311/1893.

Ebn Qūlūya Qomī, Kāmel al-zīārāt, 11th. ed., n.p., n.d.

Ebn Qotayba (attributed), al-Emāma wa’l-sīāsa, ed. A. Rāfeʿī, Cairo, 1957, esp. pp. 12-13.

Ebn Rostam Ṭabarī, Dalāʾel al-emāma, Najaf, 1369/1949, pp. 1-58.

Ebn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kobrā VIII, Beirut, 1968, pp. 11-20.

Ebn Šahrāšūb, Manāqeb āl Abī Ṭāleb III, Najaf, 1375/1956, pp. 101-40.

ʿEmād-al-Dīn Ḥosayn Eṣfahānī, Zendagānī-e čahārdah maʿṣūm I, Tehran, 1340 Š./1962, pp. 221-358.

Moḥsen Fayż Kāšānī, al-Wāfī, Tehran, 1376/1957, pp. 172 ff.

Forāt b. Ebrāhīm, Tafsīr, ed. M. Kāẓem, Tehran, 1410/1990.

Nūr-al-Dīn Ḥalabī, al-Sira al-ḥalabīya III, Beirut, n.d., pp. 529, 607 ff.

Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (attributed), Tafsīr, Qom, 1409/1989.

Ḥosayn b. ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb, ʿOyūn al-moʿjezāt, Najaf, 1369/1950.

Abu’l-Qāsem ʿAlī Ḵazzāz Rāzī, Kefāyat al-aṯar fi’l-naṣṣ ʿalā aʾemma al-eṯnay ʿašar, Tehran, 1305/1888.

E. Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scriptures in Early Imami Shiʿism,” in E. Patlagean and A. Le Boulluec, eds., Les retours aux Écritures. Fondamentalismes présents et passés, Louvain and Paris, 1993, pp. 295-312.

Moḥammad b. Yaʿqūb Kolaynī, al-Oṣūl men al-kāfī, ed. and tr. J. Moṣṭafawī, II, Tehran, n.d., pp. 355-56.

H. Lammens, Fāṭima et les filles de Mahomet: Notes critiques pour l’étude de la Sīra, Rome, 1912.

J. D. McAuliffe, “Chosen of All Women: Mary and Fāṭimah in Qurʾānic Exegesis,” Islamochristiana 7, 1981, pp. 19-28.

Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī, Beḥār al-anwār XLIII, Tehran and Qom, 1376-92/1956-72, pp. 2-236.

Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī Marandī, Majmaʿ al-nūrayn wa moltaqa’l-baḥrayn fī aḥwāl … Fāṭema al-Zahrāʾ, Tehran, 1376/1957.

L. Massignon, “Les origines de la méditation shiʿite sur Salmân et Fâṭima,” in Mélanges Henri Massé, Tehran, 1963, pp. 264-68.

Idem, Opera Minora, ed. Y. Moubarak, 3 vols., Paris, 1969.

Masʿūdī, Morūj IV, pp. 146, 156 ff.; VI, pp. 55-56, 165.

Ebn Abī Zaynab Noʿmānī, Ketāb al-ḡayba, ed. ʿA.–A. Ḡaffārī, Tehran, 1397/1977.

ʿAlī b. Ebrāhīm Qomī, Tafsīr, ed. Ṭ. M.. Jazāʾerī, 2 vols., Najaf, 1386-87 /1966-68.

U. Rubin, “Pre-Existence and Light: Aspects of the Concept of Nūr Muḥammad,” Israel Oriental Studies 5, 1975, pp. 62-119.

T. Sabri, “L’hagiographie de Fâṭima d’après le Biḥâr al-Anwâr de Muḥammad Bâqir Majlisî (m. 1111/1699),” Ph.D. diss., École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 1969.

Ṭabarī (Cairo2), I-II, s.v. Abū ʿĪsā Moḥammad Termeḏī, Sonan, ed. A. M. Šāker, Cairo, 1356/1936.

L. Veccia Vaglieri, “Fāṭima,” in EI2 II, pp. 841-50.

Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad Wāqedī, Ketāb al-maḡāzī, ed. J. Wellhausen, Cairo, 1970, s.v. Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkò II, pp. 19, 35, 42, 91, 128 ff., 141 ff.

(MOHAMMAD ALI AMIR-MOEZZI)

 

ii. IN MYTH, FOLKLORE, AND POPULAR DEVOTION

Although little historical information on Fāṭema is available, her importance in myth and devotion is considerable throughout the Islamic world. In legend all historical circumstances unfavorable to her image (e.g., her quarrels with ʿAlī; see i, above) have been obliterated, whereas such favorable aspects as her courage in conflict with Abū Bakr over Fadak have been enhanced (see i, above). In addition, anecdotes, wonders, and miracles related to her birth, betrothal, wedding, virginity, pregnancy, motherhood, and powers have been elaborated. Interpretation of the koranic phrase “people of the (Prophet’s) house” (ahl al-bayt; 33:33; see AHL-E BAYT) as “family of the cloak” (āl-e ʿabā; q.v.) and cosmological notions of primordial light (see COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY v) have greatly influenced her image in popular religion. Her blood relationship with the Prophet; the charisma associated with her husband, ʿAlī, and their sons Ḥasan and Ḥosayn, the only male perpetuators of Moḥammad’s line; and her role as transmitter of traditions added to her importance for all Muslims. It was, however, mainly through Shiʿite devotion, whether moderate (partly shared by Sunnites) or extreme, that she became the foremost female figure in Islamic thought and piety. Popular veneration of Fāṭema thus remains closely linked to hagiographic, esoteric, and philosophical interpretations.

The first substantial biography of Fāṭema, by Henri Lammens (1912), was mainly based on historical and Sunnite sources. Lammens’ rather antipathetic portrait of her was severely criticized by Louis Massignon (1969, I, pp. 570, 585 ff.), who preferred to portray her both as an incarnation of divine vengeance (1969, I, pp. 514-22, a study of Fāṭema’s cult based on Noṣayrī Shiʿite texts mainly from Syria) and especially as a compassionate mother akin to the Virgin Mary (Massignon, 1969, I, pp. 550-618; for parallels among Fāṭema, Moses’ sister Maryam, and Jesus’ mother, Maryam, see p. 584; idem, 1963, p. 267). Henri Corbin took up Massignon’s study of Fāṭema, but with particular stress on redemption; unlike Massignon’s “transhistorical” approach, his method was rooted in gnostic theosophy. While accepting the main parallels between Fāṭema and Mary, he focused on her role as eternal feminine archetype, Fāṭema as Sophia, a manifestation of God and the feminine element of the Prophet and the Imams, whose own theophanic and initiatory functions depended on their degree of fāṭemīya (1960, p. 113 ff.; 1971-72, index). Massignon’s original exposition of similarities between devotion to Mary and to Fāṭema, sometimes called Maryam Kobrā, has been criticized, however (McAuliffe, 1981, pp. 27-28); the similarities remain partly conjectural, especially those involving the Marian cult at Fatima, Portugal (Massignon, I, pp. 615 ff.; Eilers, p. 98).

Corbin also drew parallels between Fāṭema and pre-Islamic Persian feminine archetypes embodied in Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā (see ANĀHĪD i). This connection was further stressed by Wilhelm Eilers in his study of Shiʿite holy water, heavenly and earthly waters having been part of Fāṭema’s dowry (mahr/mahrīya), as was salt (Eilers, pp. 97 ff.; Massé, Croyances et coutumes, p. 225). In popular belief Fāṭema has been linked with archetypes and natural elements connected to fertility rites: Ḵeżr/Elias, the rainbow, the jasmine flower, and the pomegranate (Massé, Croyances et coutumes, pp. 158 n. 2, 179, 212; Ayoub, 1978, p. 45). She is also said to symbolize the cavern of the seven sleepers of Ephesus and the Masjed al-Aqṣā, the goal of M oḥammad’s night journey (Massignon, 1969, I, pp. 569, 581, 595, III, p. 147 n. 2).

Esoteric or popular beliefs about Fāṭema, often connected with episodes in her hagiography, constitute the basis of several feasts and pilgrimages (zīārāt). The most important of the former are commemorations of the ordeal (mobāhala) witnessed by the ahl al-ʿabāʾ, who are thus recognized as legitimate leaders of the community, celebrated on 21 Ḏu’l-ḥejja (Schmucker; Massignon, 1969, I, pp. 550-91); of Fāṭema’s birth (mawlūdīya) on 21 Ramażān, with a secondary celebration on 15 Šaʿbān (which also commemorates the birth of the Mahdī Fāṭemī; the laylat al-barāʿa; the death of Salmān); of her death on 3 Jomāda II, with a secondary celebration on 2 Ramażān; of her figure as al-Masjed al-Aqṣā, on 27 Rajab, commemorating Moḥammad’s meʿraj (Massignon, 1969, I, pp. 576-77). Specific zīārāt are made for Fāṭema at Medina (Massignon, 1969, III, pp. 295 ff.). In private rawża-ḵᵛānī (recitation of the martyrdom of Ḥosayn) assemblies held by Persian women at any time of year, the most popular story is of Fāṭema’s invitation to a wedding, where she converts those present (ʿarūsī-e Qorayš;Massignon, 1969, I, p. 580). Special offerings are dedicated to Fāṭema: small pots (dīgča-ye ḥażrat-e Zahrāʾ) on the last Wednesday of Ṣafar and samanū, a kind of pudding reputed to have been her favorite dish (Šakūrzāda, pp. 26-27, 46 ff., 83; Massé, Croyances et coutumes, p. 47 n. 2). On the last Wednesday of the solar year (čahāršanba sūrī) some families used to break and replace their earthenware pots in her honor (Massé, Croyances et coutumes, p. 146 n. 2). Offerings and thanks are dedicated to Fāṭema as an intercessor on various occasions and in various sanctuaries throughout the Islamic world. She is especially invoked by Shiʿite women during childbirth (Massignon, 1969, III, p. 296).

Popular devotion finds its utmost expression in representations of redemptive suffering focused on the Karbalāʾ paradigm. As mistress of the bayt al-aḥzān (house of sorrows) and the Day of Judgment (Ayoub, 1978, pp. 48 ff., 212 ff.), Fāṭema is present in most rituals as an “icon”: She wears a crown for Moḥammad, a necklace or sword for ʿAlī, and earrings of diamonds and rubies for Ḥasan and Ḥosayn (Massignon, 1969, I, pp. 517, 568, 583, 612; Kāšefī, p. 67; Calmard, p. 416; Ayoub, pp. 213-14). Ḥosayn’s daughters Fāṭema Kobrā, who allegedly married her cousin Qāsem b. Ḥasan at Karbalāʾ, and the sickly Fāṭema Ṣōḡrā, who remained in Medina, were both named after her (see Kāšefī, pp. 24, 391 ff.; Calmard, pp. 390, 393, 401). Banners (see ʿALAM VA ʿALĀMAT) related to Fāṭema are carried in Moḥarram processions. The 17th-century traveler Adam Olearius mentioned having seen at Ardabīl a miraculous ʿalam allegedly made by her daughter (Massé, Croyances et coutumes, p. 131). The large Bībī kā ʿālam, made of gold (with pendant diamonds on each side symbolizing earrings), is carried on an elephant in ʿĀšūrā processions at Hyderabad, Deccan, and is venerated by both Sunnites and Shiʿites (Hollister, p. 169; Pinault, pp. 158-59). The symbol of the open hand of Fāṭema (cf. the hand of God among Jews, of Mary among Christians) is widespread in Sunnite areas (see Kriss and Kriss-Heinrich, I, p. 23, II, pp. 2 ff., with illustrations and references to Venus and Babylonian cults), but among Shiʿites the open hand (panja) represents that of Ḥażrat-e ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī (q.v.), severed at Karbalāʾ (Massé, Croyances et coutumes, p. 27 n. 1; Eilers, p. 111 n. 7). Rawża-ḵᵛānīs and other liturgies and rituals connected with Fāṭema also found their way into passion plays (taʿzīa; see bibliography).

Beside Fāṭema’s name and variants, popular for Muslim girls, her epithets Zahrāʾ, Ṭāhera, Zakīya, Rażīya, Rāzīa, Batūl (virgin), Kanīz (maiden), and the like are also given as names, as are various diminutives: Faṭayma/Foṭaytom/Faṭṭūš, Fōtī/Fōtō in India (Schimmel, pp. 44, 69 ff.; on other names, see Veccia Vaglieri in EI2 II, pp. 847-48). Her name is sometimes given to girls born on Friday night (Schimmel, p. 23 n. 41). Fāṭema as “sovereign of feminine humanity” (Corbin, 1960, pp. 115 ff.; idem, 1971-72, IV, p. 314) has been variously appreciated in recent history. Qorrat al-ʿAyn, the Babi poet and preacher also known as Fāṭema, Zakīya, and Ṭāhera, has been considered by some the manifestation of Fāṭema (Elwell-Sutton and MacEoin; Amanat, pp. 304, 331). Fāṭema has been idealized as a symbol of feminine excellence, a model of submission both to the will of God and her husband (Meer Hassan Ali, p. 97) and authenticity and liberation for all women (Šarīʿatī).

 

Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):

A. Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, Ithaca, N.Y., 1989.

Aʿyān al-šiʿa II, esp. pp. 535-639.

R. Aubert, “Fatima” [in Portugal], in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques XVI, Paris, 1967, cols. 680-82.

M. Ayoub, “Towards an Islamic Christology: An Image of Jesus in Early Shīʿī Muslim Literature,” Muslim World 66, 1976, pp. 163-88.

Idem, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ʿÃshûrâ in Twelver Shiʿism, The Hague, 1978.

J. Calmard, “Le culte de l’Imām Ḥusayn,” Ph.D. diss., University of Paris, 1975.

H. Corbin, Terre céleste et corps de résurrection: De l’Iran mazdéen à l’Iran shiʿite, Paris, 1960.

Idem, En Islam iranien, 4 vols., Paris 1971-72.

B. A. Donaldson, The Wild Rue, London, 1938.

Ebn Hešām, Sīra, Cairo, 1937, I, p. 206; III, p. 407.

W. Eilers, “Schiitische Wasserheilige,” in V. Haarmann and P. Bachmann, eds., Festschrift Hans Roemer, Beirut, 1979, pp. 94-125.

L. P. Elwell-Sutton and D. M. MacEoin, “Ḳurrat al-ʿAyn,” in EI2 V, p. 502.

J. N. Hollister, The Shīʿa of India, London, 1953.

M. K. Hermansen, “Fatimeh as a Role Model in the Works of Ali Shariʿati,” in G. Nashat, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran, Boulder, Colo., 1983, pp. 87-96.

R. Kriss and H. Kriss-Heinrich, Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam, 2 vols., Wiesbaden, 1960-62.

H. Lammens, Fāṭima et les filles de Mahomet: Notes critiques pour l’étude de la Sīra, Rome, 1912. Idem, “Fāṭima,” in EI1 II, pp. 85-88.

J. D. McAuliffe, “Chosen of All Women. Mary and Fāṭimah in Qurʾānic Exegesis,” Islamochristiana 7, 1981, pp. 19-28.

Idem, “Fāṭimah bint Muḥammad,” in M. Eliade, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Religion V, New York, 1987, pp. 293-94.

L. Massignon, “Les origines de la méditation shiʿite sur Salmân et Fâṭima,” in Mélanges Henri Massé, Tehran, 1963, pp. 264-68.

Idem, Opera Minora, ed. Y. Moubarak, 3 vols., Paris, 1969.

Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India, London, 1832; repr. Oxford, 1972.

D. Pinault, The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community, London, 1992.

E. Šakurzāda, ʿAqāyed wa rosūm-e ʿāmma-ye mardom-e Ḵorāsān, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967.

A. Šarīʿatī, Fāṭema, Fāṭema ast, Tehran, 1356 Š./1977; tr. L. Bakhtiar, Tehran, 1981.

A. Schimmel, Islamic Names, Edinburgh, 1989.

W. Schmucker, “Mubāhala,” in EI2 VII, pp. 276-77.

L. Veccia Vaglieri, “Fadak,” EI2 II, pp. 725-27.

Idem, “Fāṭima,” in EI2 II, pp. 841-50.

Ḥosayn Wāʿeẓ Kāšefī, Rawżat al-šohadāʾ, ed. M. Ramażānī, Tehran, 1341 Š./1962.

A. J. Wensinck, A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition, Leiden, 1927.

Idem, Concordances et indices de la tradition musulmane, 8 vols., Leiden, 1933-65.

Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīḵ II, pp. 19, 35, 42, 91, 128-29, 141-42.

Taʿzīa literature. V. Cremonesi, tr., Uzurpazione di Fadak, Morte di Fatima, ʿUmar e Abu Bakr chiedono scusa, Naples, 1964 (three Cerulli MSS.).

Ḡaṣb-e bāḡ-e Fadak, ed. Z. Eqbāl and M. J. Maḥjūb as Jong-e šehādat, Tehran, 1355 Š./1976 (ed. of MS. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, pers. 993), tr. A. Chodźko as “Le jardin de Fathema,” in Le théâtre persan, Paris, 1878.

W. Litten, Das Drama in Persien, Berlin and Leipzig, 1929, no. 9 (Fāṭema’s marriage).

L. Pelly, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain, 2 vols., London, 1879 (Vol. I, Scene vi, “The Seizure of the Khalifate by Abu Bakr”; Scene vii, “The Death of Fatimah” in English tr. only).

E. Rossi and A. Bombaci, Elenco di drammi religiosi persiani (fondo MSS. Vaticano Cerulli), Vatican City, 1961 (see esp. pp. 351-52, with index of themes connected with Fadak, ʿarūsī-e Qorayš, Karbalāʾ, death, etc., in the Cerulli, Chodźko, Pelly, and Moscow collections of taʿzīa plays).

Untitled MSS., Moscow, Kryzenski collection (see Rossi and Bombaci, pp. xvi, xxi, nos. 1 and 2, Death of Fāṭema).

Untitled MSS., Tehran, Ketāb-ḵāna-ye Malek (three plays on the death of Fāṭema). Wafāt-e Ḥażrat-e Fāṭema, MS. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, pers. 993, Chodźko no. 4.

Specific prayers to Fāṭema. A. Monzawī, Fehrest nosḵahā-ye ḵaṭṭī-e Ketāb-ḵāna-ye Ganjbaḵš IV, p. 2364 no. 6702.

ʿA. Qomī, Mafātīḥ al-jenān, ed. M.–Ḥ. ʿElmī, Tehran, 1340 Š./1961 (doʿās to Fāṭema in Arabic with Persian translations, pp. 113, 601-2, 632-33, 660).

(JEAN CALMARD)

(Jean Calmard)

Originally Published: December 15, 1999

Last Updated: January 24, 2012

This article is available in print.
Vol. IX, Fasc. 4, pp. 400-404