Asma bint Abi Bakr

Asma was approximately twenty-seven years old at the time of the Hijrah. She played a crucial role in the Prophet's migration — she prepared the provisions for the journey and would climb the rocky path to the Cave of Thawr at night to bring food and news to the Prophet and her father Abu Bakr. She tore her nitaq (belt/waistband) into two pieces to tie the mouth of the water skin and the food bag, earning the title 'Dhat an-Nitaqayn' (She of the Two Belts). The Prophet told her that she would have two belts in Paradise in place of them. When Abu Jahl came to her house demanding to know where her father had gone, she refused to tell him. He slapped her so hard that her earring flew off, but she did not waver. Her grandfather Abu Quhafah (Abu Bakr's father, who was blind and had not yet accepted Islam) came to her worried that Abu Bakr had left and taken all his money, leaving the family destitute. Asma gathered pebbles and placed them in the niche where Abu Bakr kept his money, covering them with cloth. She took her grandfather's hand and placed it on the pebbles, saying: 'He has left us plenty.' She did this to calm the elderly man, though in reality Abu Bakr had taken all his wealth — about 5,000 or 6,000 dirhams — for the Prophet's journey. She was the mother of Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr and lived to be approximately one hundred years old, never losing her teeth or her memory.