On the sad occasion of the martyrdom anniversary of the daughter of the Prophet (saw), the infallible lady Fatima (sa), World Ahlul Bayt Islamic League (WABIL) extends its condolences to the Imam of our time Imam Mahdi (atfs), the Ahlul Bayt (as), all righteous scholars and all believers. 
 
Lady Fatima (sa) was the only daughter of the Prophet (saww) and one who was so dear to her father that he would stand up in honour of her whenever she entered his gatherings. This was not a mere exhibition of love of a father for a daughter, but an acknowledgement of her status as an infallible pure heavenly being who was given the unique position by Allah of being the mother of the Imams to be.
 
Despite her status as the Prophet’s daughter, there is no escaping the fact that Lady Fatima (s.a) lived a very tragic and grief-filled life. She saw her father being abused and rejected by his own people when he began preaching the message of Islam. Her mother sacrificed all her wealth for Islam and died penniless. Lady Fatima (sa) was orphaned at a tender age, but rather than being swallowed by grief, instead, even as an 8 year old she took on a motherly role to support and love her father in his difficult prophetic mission.  In fact she was given the title of ‘umm abiha’, ‘her father’s mother’ by the Prophet himself for the way in which she cared for him (al-Kafi, vol. 43, p.16). More than anything, she saw her husband, Imam Ali (as)’s right being taken from his as divinely appointed successor on the demise of her father. Such burdens at the age of 18 were too much for her to bear.
 
Lady Fatima only survived her father by a few months – according to some scholars she survived him barely by 75 days (hence we commemorate her martyrdom now) or by 90 days. During that period, she would go and cry on the beloved Prophet’s grave. However, the Muslim community complained to her husband of her crying! He therefore built her a place outside the city of Madinah where she could go and mourn her father to her heart’s content.
 
Her greatest burden however was that she was denied her inheritance of the garden of Fadak by the caliph Abu Bakr on the advice of Umar (Sahih al-Bukhari, vol 4, book 53, hadith number 325), rejecting even Ali and Hasnain (as) as witnesses, and she was injured by Umar when a group surrounded her house to extract the pledge of allegiance of Imam Ali (as) by force, for the first caliph. Lady Fatima, on protecting her family, refused them entry to her home, as a result of which her door was set on fire and broken down, crushing and injuring her in the process. The attack resulted in the death of her unborn child Mohsin, and eventually her own martyrdom from her injuries.
 
It is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari that the Prophet (saww) had said that, "Fatima is a part of me, and whoever angers her, angers me". He further said, "Fatima is a part of me, and whatever she detests, I detest and what hurts her, hurts me." Hence there is no shadow of a doubt that whoever grieved Fatima, attacked her, invoked her displeasure, in fact attacked and displeased the Prophet. She refused to see those who had injured her until her last breath, and even stated in her will that she should be buried in the night, secretly, so that the rulers of the time who had oppressed her did not attend her funeral.
 
It is a mistake to think that Lady Fatima’s displeasure and grief was personal: indeed it was because of the rejection of the divine appointment of successorship and the damage to the continuation of the pure unchanged message of Islam that motivated her grief. It is inconceivable that a healthy young 18 year old would suddenly just die. Yet the books of history of our brethren state her death just as a simple expected natural event. We urge our brothers and sisters from other schools of thought to ask themselves the question, how could a young girl die so suddenly, without their history books raising questions about this? How is it that she was injured when so heavily pregnant, and rejected so much by her own people that she cried on her father’s grave, ‘O father, such misfortune has befallen me that had it fallen on clear days they would have turned into dark nights.’
 
On these tragic days commemorating her martyrdom, we urge all Muslims to study the life of Lady Fatima (sa), to see what she meant to the Prophet, but how the Ummah treated her after his demise. We pray that we always follow her life example, by remaining loyal to the true message of Islam, of peace, and fidelity to the Prophet, his holy progeny and the Quran.
 
Sayed Mohammad Al-Musawi
World Ahlul Bayt Islamic League (WABIL)
London, UK
 
 

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