The Radiant One
In the Bohra tradition and across the breadth of Islam, she is known by many names — each one a window into a different dimension of her extraordinary being:
- al-Zahrāʾ — The Radiant, the Luminous
- al-Batūl — The Pure, the Inviolate
- al-Muḥaddatha — She to Whom the Angels Spoke
- Umm Abīhā — The Mother of Her Father (she cared for the Prophet so tenderly that he called her this)
- Sayyidat Nisāʾ al-ʿĀlamīn — The Chief of all Women of All Worlds
- Maulatona — Our Lady (the title used in Bohra prayer and discourse)
She is Fatema bint Muhammad — the daughter of the Prophet of Allah (SAW), the wife of Imam Ali (AS), and the mother from whom every one of the eleven remaining Imams descends. Without her, there is no Imamat. Without her, there is no Ahl al-Bayt as we know it.
Her Birth
Sayyida Fatema (AS) was born on 20 Jamad al-Akhir — a date the Bohra community celebrates each year as her milad (birth commemoration). She was the daughter of the Prophet (SAW) and his first wife Sayyida Khadija (AS), and was the only child of that union to survive into adulthood.
She was born in Mecca, and her childhood was spent in the earliest and most difficult years of Islam — the years of persecution, of secret faith, of the Sha’b Abi Talib (the boycott valley where the family was confined for three years), and of loss. She lost her mother Khadija (AS) and then her grandfather Abu Talib in the same year — the ʿĀm al-Ḥuzn, the Year of Grief.
Through all of this, she remained beside her father. When the Prophet (SAW) was pelted with garbage by the Quraysh, it was Fatema who cleaned him. When he needed consolation, she was his consoler. This tenderness was mutual: the Prophet described her as:
“Fatima is a part of me (bidʿatun minnī). Whoever angers her angers me, and whoever pleases her pleases me.” (Sahih al-Bukhari)
Her Marriage to Imam Ali (AS)
In the second year of Hijra (migration to Medina), Sayyida Fatema (AS) married Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS) — the Prophet’s cousin and the one the Prophet called his wasi (successor), the gate of his knowledge, and the standard of truth.
The wedding was famously simple: the Prophet himself arranged it, Ali sold his shield for the mahr (dowry), and the wedding feast was modest. The simplicity was not poverty but teaching — a demonstration that the most blessed of marriages need not be the most extravagant.
Together they had four children:
- Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS) — 2nd Imam
- Imam Husain (AS) — 3rd Imam, Master of Martyrs
- Sayyida Zainab (AS) — the voice of Karbala, the preserver of the Imam’s sacrifice
- Umm Kulthum (AS) — whose dignity alongside Zainab in Damascus moved the court
From Imam Hasan’s and Imam Husain’s lines descended the entire chain of Imams down to the present day, including the 21 Imams who went into the period of seclusion (dawr al-satr) and whose nur (light) guides the Bohra community through the Dai al-Mutlaq.
Her Spiritual Station
In the Fatimid ta’wil tradition — the esoteric interpretation that is the inheritance of the Bohra community from the Fatimid Imams — Sayyida Fatema (AS) holds a station of cosmic significance.
She is understood as the ḥujjah (divine proof) of the Prophet in the same way that Imam Ali is his wasi. She is the bāb (gate) through whom the divine mercy reaches the community in its most intimate form — as mother, as nurturing presence, as the one who weeps for the Imam and whose weeping is itself a form of divine sorrow.
The night prayer (tahajjud) of Sayyida Fatema (AS) was so sustained that her feet would swell. When the Prophet found her in prayer and asked if she wished for anything, she replied: “Yā Rasūlallāh, I ask only for Your pleasure and the pleasure of Allah.”
This response — refusing worldly ease when offered it by the Prophet himself — is the model of zuhd (spiritual detachment) that the community aspires to.
The Grief of Fatema
Sayyida Fatema (AS) outlived her father by a very short time — some narrations say 75 days, others 95 days, some up to six months. The exact period is not universally agreed upon, but what all agree upon is this: she never recovered from the death of the Prophet (SAW).
She is known as al-Mabkiyya — She Who Weeps. The Imams narrated that she wept continuously after the Prophet’s death, and that Allah’s mercy descends upon those who weep for the Prophet and for the Ahl al-Bayt in her memory.
The grief of Fatema (AS) is not a biographical detail. In the ta’wil tradition, it is a cosmic state — the grief of the divine feminine principle for the apparent absence of the Prophet in the world, a grief that continues until the return of the Imam. The tears of the believer in majlis, in mourning, in remembrance — they join the tears of Fatema (AS), and through her tears they reach the Prophet (SAW).
Her Passing and Her Grave
Sayyida Fatema (AS) passed away in Medina, approximately six months after the Prophet (SAW), in 11 AH. She was in her late teens or early twenties — a life that was short in years but eternal in consequence.
She requested that she be buried quietly, without the crowds that would gather at a public burial. Her grave is in Jannat al-Baqi in Medina — the cemetery adjacent to the Prophet’s mosque. For centuries, her grave (along with those of the Imams and other family members buried there) was marked and visited. In 1806 and again in 1925, the markers and domes at Baqi were demolished. The graves remain, unmarked.
Bohra pilgrims visiting Medina perform the ziyarat at Jannat al-Baqi, reciting her salaam:
السَّلَامُ عَلَيكِ يَا سَيِّدَةَ نِسَاءِ الْعَالَمِينَ السَّلَامُ عَلَيكِ يَا أُمَّ الأَئِمَّةِ الطَّاهِرِين
Peace be upon you, O Chieftess of the women of all worlds. Peace be upon you, O Mother of the Pure Imams.
Her Birthday Celebration (Milad)
The 20th of Jamad al-Akhir is celebrated in the Bohra community as the birthday milad of Maulatona Fatema al-Zahra (AS). It is a day of joy — of remembering the birth of the one who made the Imamat possible, the mother of all the Imams.
In Bohra homes and masajid, the milad is observed with:
- Recitation of salawat
- Distribution of niyaz (food offered for her blessing)
- Gathering and dua
- Remembrance of her virtues and her life
The Dai al-Mutlaq (the present spiritual leader) often issues a risala (letter) or guidance for the occasion, directing the community in how to observe her milad.
What She Left Behind
Sayyida Fatema al-Zahra (AS) left no material legacy — no land, no wealth, no recorded book of hadith under her name. What she left was infinitely greater:
- Her children — from whom all Imams descend, the chain of divine guidance unbroken
- Her example — of worship, simplicity, service, and dignity under the most profound grief
- Her words — particularly her Khutba al-Fadakiyya, her remarkable sermon after the Prophet’s death, in which she asserted the rights of the Ahl al-Bayt with legal argument and divine quotation
- Her tears — which the Bohra tradition treats as a living spiritual reality, a channel of connection to the divine mercy
The Prophet (SAW) said: “The best women among the people of Paradise are Khadija bint Khuwaylid, Fatima bint Muhammad, Maryam bint Imran, and Asiya bint Muzahim.” (Musnad Ahmad)
And she is first among them in Bohra devotion — not only as the Prophet’s daughter, but as the one through whom the divine light passes to the Imams, and through the Imams, to us.
In the Heart of the Bohra Community
Every day in Bohra prayer, the salawat invokes her family:
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ
“O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad.”
She is included in “the family” (āl) — and she is its center. Every Imam is her grandson. Every Bohra mumin traces their spiritual lineage through the chain of Dais back through the Imams to her, and through her to the Prophet.
When we say Maulatona Fatema al-Zahra — Our Lady Fatema the Radiant — we are saying something profound: she is ours. She belongs to this community. Her light guides us. Her grief has made our devotion possible. Her children are our Imams.
اللَّهُمَّ ارزُقنَا مَحَبَّتَهَا وَشَفَاعَتَهَا يَومَ الْقِيَامَة O Allah, grant us her love and her intercession on the Day of Resurrection.