Atiqa bint Zayd

Atika bint Zayd al-Adawiyya (عاتكة بنت زيد) was an Islamic scholar and poet. She was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She was a wife of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph. She was a poet who is notable for having married Muslim men who died as shaheed. She was the daughter of Zayd ibn Amr, a member of the Adi clan of the Quraysh in Mecca, and of Umm Kurz Safiya bint al-Hadrami. Sa'id ibn Zayd was her brother. Their father was murdered in 605. Atika was probably still a child when Muhammad declared himself to be a prophet in 610. Sa'id was among the early converts, and Atika became a Muslim too. Atika married several times in her lifetime. Her first husband was her cousin, Zayd ibn al-Khattab, who was at least twenty years older than herself. He was also a Muslim, and it was presumably in his company that Atika joined the general emigration to Medina in 622. This marriage apparently ended in divorce, for Atika had already remarried by the time of Zayd's death at the Battle of Yamama in December 632. Her second husband was Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr. It was said that Abdullah deferred to Atika's judgment and that he spent so much time with her that he was too busy to fight in the Islamic army. Abu Bakr punished his son by ordering him to divorce her. However, Al-Baladhuri says that the reason Abu Bakr ordered the divorce was because Atika was barren. Abdullah did as he was told but was grief-stricken. He wrote poetry for her: I have never known a man like me divorce a woman like her, nor any woman like her divorced for no fault of her own. In the end Abdullah was allowed to take Atika back before her waiting period was completed. When Muhammad died in 632, Atika composed an elegy for him. His camels have been lonely since evening; he used to ride them and he was their adornment. I have been weeping for the Chief since evening, and tears are flowing in succession.