Qurayba al-Sughra bint Abi Umayya

Qurayba al-Sughra bint Abi Umayya ibn al-Mughira al-Qurashiyya al-Makhzumiyya, sister of the Mother of the Believers Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayya, counted among the most beautiful women of Quraysh at Medina, and mother of Abd Allah, Umm Hakim and Hafsa by Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr ¹.

Ibn Sa'd records that she was Qurayba the Younger, her mother being Atika bint Utba ibn Rabi'a; al-Baladhuri reports that Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan married her when he embraced Islam, after which Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr married her and she bore him Abd Allah, Umm Hakim and Hafsa ¹. Ibn Hajar transmits with a sound chain from Ibn Abi Mulayka that Abd al-Rahman married Qurayba, Umm Salama's sister, and that his temper was harsh: one day she told him, "By God, I warned you"; he replied, "Your affair is in your hand"; she said, "I choose no one over the son of al-Siddiq," so he kept her ¹.

Qurayba was renowned for her beauty. Ibn Shabba's Kitab Makka relates, from Yahya ibn Abd Allah ibn Abi al-Harith al-Zam'i, that when the Messenger of God ﷺ entered Mecca on the day of the conquest, and Sa'd ibn Ubada said they had seen no women of Quraysh of such beauty, the Prophet asked: "Have you seen the daughters of Abi Umayya ibn al-Mughira? Have you seen Qurayba? Have you seen Hind? Have you seen them after being bereaved of their fathers and sons?" ¹. In Umm Salama's own report, Qurayba bint Abi Umayya seconded her in that affair; and it is said that her son Salama gave her in marriage to the Messenger of God ².

Ibn Hajar writes in her entry: "I have not seen an explicit statement of her Islam; but if she lived until the conquest she is counted among the female Companions," noting that he found at the end of al-Jahiz's Kitab al-Bayan that her name was Layla ¹.

Qurayba was the sister of Umm Salama, the Prophet's wife, and was so famed for beauty that the Prophet himself asked about her on the day Mecca was conquered. Married to Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr, she spoke her well-known words: "I choose no one over the son of al-Siddiq."

• Text from the Dar al-Jil facsimile (vol. 2, women's section), p. 1946; her mother's name is reported from Ibn Sa'd within the same entry.
• Her Islam is not explicitly stated in what Ibn Hajar read; her classification as a Companion is conditional on her living to the conquest, as the Hafiz himself observed.