Sayyidah Umm Kulthum was a daughter of Sayyiduna ʿAli ibn Abi Talib and Sayyidah Fatimah al-Zahra (RA), and therefore a granddaughter of Nabi Muhammad ﷺ and a…
Sayyidah Umm Kulthum was a daughter of Sayyiduna ʿAli ibn Abi Talib and Sayyidah Fatimah al-Zahra (RA), and therefore a granddaughter of Nabi Muhammad ﷺ and a sister of Imam al-Hasan and Imam al-Husayn (RA). Later traditions associate her with the journey of the Ahl al-Bayt after Karbala and remember her for her courage, eloquence and patience during their captivity in Kufa and Damascus. Some historical traditions also refer to her as Zaynab al-Sughra, although the identities of the women carrying these names differ between sources. A domed shrine within the historic Bāb al-Ṣaghīr Graveyard is traditionally attributed to her and has long been visited as one of the Damascene sites associated with the Ahl al-Bayt. However, the attribution is not historically certain: some early accounts state that Umm Kulthum bint ʿAli died in Madinah and was buried in Jannat al-Baqiʿ, while medieval travellers described another shrine associated with an Umm Kulthum or Zaynab al-Sughra in the village of Rawiyah outside Damascus.