Sawdah bint Zam'ah
Sawda bint Zam'a was the second wife of Muhammad and regarded as "Umm-ul-Mu'mineen", "Mother of the Believers".
Early life
Sawdah was born and raised in Mecca in Pre-Islamic Arabia. There is a disagreement as to when she was born. According to one source, when she was married to Muhammad, her age was around 50, other sources claim her age during the marriage to be around 40 to 65 years old, which would only narrow her birthday to around 556-580 CE. Her father, Zam'ah ibn Qays, was from the Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy clan of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Her mother, Al-Shumus bint Qays, was from the Najjar clan of the Khazraj tribe in Madina.First husband and first Hijra
She married As-Sakran ibn Amr, who was one of the early converts to Islam. They had five children, Abdur Rahman ibn as-Sakran and Abd ibn as-Sakran, who much later died in the Battle of Jalula in 637 against the Sassanids.Migration to Abyssinia
Sawdah and Sakran emigrated to Abyssinia when Muhammad ordered many of the Muslims to perform Hijra in order to avoid persecution by the Quraysh. Sakran left for Abyssinia by sea with Waqqas. Sawdah was one of the first women to immigrate to Abyssinia in the way of Allah. A few years later they returned to Mecca, where As-Sakran died, and she became a widow for the first time in her life.Marriage to Muhammad
Soon after Khadija's death, Muhammad married Sawdah in the same month of Ramadan of the 10th year after the start of his prophethood. Sawdah was hesitant to accept at first, as she already had six children and feared that they would disturb Muhammad. But Muhammad convinced her by saying, “The best women ever to have ridden the backs of camels are the virtuous women of the Quraysh, who are the most affectionate toward small children and the most excellent in doing good to their husbands when they are wealthy.”When Sawdah became old, some time after Muhammad's marriage to Umm Salama, and Qur’an 4:128–9 was revealed. Other traditions, on the other hand, hold that Muhammad did not truly repudiate herbut that she was afraid he would, and it was not repudiation that was being considered in the verse revelation but rather some kind of compromise on the divorce so long as she could remain his wife in name, as in Nikah Misyar marriages.