Hind

Hind was born on December 23, 1201, in a farming village on the Nile Delta under Ayyubid rule. Her father, Hasan, rented a small plot on shares and took day work when it appeared; tax collectors came through, and what remained was never much. Her mother, Zahra, kept the household moving with grinding and baking, hauling water, and spinning flax into thread in the dim part of the room where the spindle stayed clean.

Their first child, Yusuf, had been born in 1190. At eleven he was already sent out with errands, to watch a bundle of fodder, to carry a small sack to a neighbor’s yard. He watched quietly when Zahra washed the newborn and rubbed her with oil. Hasan spoke the call to prayer into Hind’s ear and chose her name. Zahra repeated short du‘a over her and kept her wrapped tight against the winter chill.

Through winter and into spring, Hind nursed and slept and gained weight. Zahra carried her in a cloth sling while working, setting her down only to grind grain or tend the fire. By early summer she had begun to reach for things and make sounds back when spoken to.

Word had come that spring of people coughing and children marked with rash in villages upriver. In July the sickness reached their lane. Zahra kept Hind close and fed her often, then sent Yusuf to the neighbor Umm Khalil for help and for water that had been boiled. Hasan went to Shaykh Salim for recitation and returned with words to speak over the child.

Hind died on August 12, 1202. Hasan washed her small body and wrapped her in a white cloth. Zahra held her one more time before Hasan carried her to the burial ground outside the village. A few neighbors came. The prayer was brief—for infants there is no full janaza—and she was laid into the earth facing Mecca.