In the 7th Century, the prophet Mohammed united the desert nomads into a nation driven by the effectiveness of Arab warfare and ordered by the tenets of Islam. Many women’s names appear in the military history of these times.
Nusaybah Bint ka’ab Al Maziniyyah or Umm Umara has been called “the first woman warrior of Islam.” Believing that a woman had the same duty as a man to defend the new religion, she fought side by side with her husband and sons. In the battle of Uhud, when the tide was turning against the Prophet, she waded into the thick of the fighting to protect him. With her sword in one hand and her bow in the other, she imposed herself between him and the arrows aimed at him. Mohammed later said, “Wherever I turned, to the left or the right, I saw her fighting for me.”
In the battle she wore a waist wrapper, brought for the purpose of bandaging wounds. When her son was wounded, she waded through the battle to bandage him, then urged him get back into the battle to take his revenge on the one who had injured him.
Umm Umarah’s fighting was not confined to the battle of Uhud. She was also present at the treaty of ‘Aqabah, Al-Hudaybiyah, Khaybar and Hunayn. Her heroic conduct at Hunayn was no less than her heroic conduct at Uhud. At the time of Abu Bakr’s Khilafah, she was present at Al-Yamamah where she fought brilliantly and received many wounds as well as losing her hand.
-excerpted from David E Jones “Women Warriors” ISBN# 1-57488-106-X and the website of the Nuseibeh Family
