The Prophet's granddaughter
Zaynab (a), the elder daughter of Ali (a) and Fatima (a), was born in Madinah on 5 Jumada al-Ula in the fifth (or sixth) year after the Hijrah. The Prophet (s) named her — the name means an adornment of her father — and is reported to have said that she resembled Khadija, charging his community to honour her. She married her cousin Abd Allah b. Ja'far and was known in Madinah for her learning, so that she was called the scholar who was never taught.
The heroine of Karbala
She went with her brother Husayn (a) to Karbala with her two sons, who were martyred there. After Ashura it was Zaynab who protected the sick Imam Zayn al-Abidin (a) and the women, and whose sermons in the market of Kufa and the court of Yazid told the world what had been done to the family of the Prophet (s). Her losses — grandfather, mother, father, two brothers, sons and kin — earned her the title Umm al-Masa'ib, the mother of sorrows.
Observance
Her birthday is one of the celebrated days of the Ahl al-Bayt (a); in Iran it is Nurses' Day, in honour of her care for the survivors of Karbala. She died in 62 AH, and her shrines in Damascus and Cairo are among the most visited in the Shia world.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed under Research & books; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.