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Sukayna, daughter of Imam al-Husayn عليه السلام and al-Rabab, was at Karbala with her father and went into captivity with the women of his family. She lived on in Medina for more than half a century, remembered as a narrator of her father’s words and for her elegies on him.
Her father’s daughter
Al-Mufid names Sukayna as the daughter of al-Rabab, who was also the mother of the infant Abd Allah. Ibn Shahrashub records verses of Imam al-Husayn عليه السلام expressing his love for the house in which Sukayna and al-Rabab lived.
Karbala and captivity
On the day of Ashura her father bade her farewell and asked her to be patient. After the battle she was taken with the other women and children to Kufa and then to Damascus, and returned with them to Medina.
Later life
Sunni literary anthologies attribute to her several marriages and gatherings of poets; Shia historians reject these reports, pointing to weak narrators and to the confusion of Sukayna with another woman of the same name, and record only a marriage to her cousin Abd Allah ibn al-Hasan. She died in Medina, by most reports in 117 AH.
Differing reports
- The reports of her later marriages and literary gatherings are disputed and rejected by Shia historians.
- Place of death and burial: Medina by most reports; a grave bearing her name in Damascus and a tradition placing her in Egypt also exist.
Sources
- Kitab al-Irshad fi Ma‘rifat Hujaj Allah ‘ala al-‘Ibad — al-Mufid, Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu‘man (d. 413 AH / 1022 CE). chapter on Imam al-Husayn
- Manaqib Al Abi Talib — Ibn Shahrashub, Muhammad ibn Ali (d. 588 AH / 1192 CE)
- al-Luhuf ‘ala Qatla al-Tufuf — Ibn Tawus (d. 664 AH / 1266 CE)
- Maqatil al-Talibiyyin — Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, Ali ibn al-Husayn (d. 356 AH / 967 CE)