There are two famous maqams attributed to Sayyida Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with them. One in Cairo and one in Damascus. The confusion, says the great scholar shaykh Muhammad Zaki Ibrahim, is because it was the custom of the Ahlul Bayt, may Allah be pleased with them, to repeat the same names in the same household many times, especially the names of the sons and daughters of the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam. So you find in the same house, among the sons of Imam al-Husayn: Ali the Middle (the one known as Zayn al-Abidin), as well as Ali the Eldest and Ali the Youngest who were both martyred in Karbalaa. You find Imam al-Hasan, and his son Al-Hasan al-Muthanna (The Second), and his son al-Hasan al-Muthallath (The Third). You find Imam Zaid has two sons called ‘Awn: ‘Awn the Eldest and ‘Awn the Youngest. And you find for example in the same household: Zaynab the Eldest, Zaynab the Middle, and Zaynab the Youngest, and you find Fatima the Eldest, Fatima the Middle, and Fatima the Youngest.

And this was the case with the household of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him and his family. His two eldest sons as everyone knows are al-Hasan and al-Husayn (which means “Little Hasan”), hence his nickname Abu’l Hasanayn (Father of the Two Hasans). The imam also had more than one Zaynab, which is why later historians were confused by the presence of more than one maqam for “Zaynab bint Ali.” The confusion is removed by a scholar from the Ahlul Bayt who died in Mecca in the year 277 AH. He wrote a treatise called “Akhbaar az-Zaynabaat” (The News of the Zaynabs), in which he mentioned all the women who were named Zaynab from among the Ahlul Bayt as well as other famous ones from outside the Ahlul Bayt. This scholar was al-Hasan bin Yahya bin Ja’far “Al-Hujja” bin ‘Awn Allah al-’Araj bin al-Husayn Al-Asghar (The Youngest) bin Ali Zayn al-Abidin bin al-Husayn bin Ali ibn Abi Talib, and was known as “Al-Ubaydali.”

According to al-’Ubaydali, sayyidna Ali ibn Abli Talib, may Allah be pleased with him and ennoble his face, had three daughters called Zaynab.

Zaynab al-Kubraa

The first is the famous Zaynab al-Kubraa (The Eldest), whose mother was sayyida Fatima al-Zahraa bint Rasool Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam.

Al-’Ubaydali, who was a genealogist writing in the 3rd century, said that sayyida Zaynab al-Kubra was taken to Damascus after Karbalaa, and then to al-Madina al-Munawwara. In Madina, there was a fitna between her and its governor ‘Amr bin Sa’eed, causing the Caliph Yazid to command that she be moved out of it. So she went to Egypt, whose governor was Maslama bin Makhlad. She entered Egypt in the beginning of Sha’ban of the year 61 AH, and lived there for 11 months and around ten days, dying on Sunday evening, the 14th of Rajab of the year 62 AH. He also said that she was buried in a place known as “Al-Hamraa’ al-Quswaa” where the “Zuhri Gardens” are.

The historian al-Maqrizi defined in his book the area known as “Al-Hamraa’ al-Quswaa” and it is where her tomb is now. There is also a road in the area, now known as the Sayyida Zaynab neighborhood, which is called “The Zuhri Gardens street”.

This is definite proof that the sayyida Zaynab is in the tomb attributed to her in Cairo.

Zaynab al-Wustaa (The Middle)

She was born in the 9th year of Hijra, and was given the name of her maternal aunt Zaynab, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam. However, she was nicknamed Umm Kulthum, after her other maternal aunt.

She is the Umm Kulthum bint Ali that married sayyidna Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him. He married her when she was less than 10 years old, and she gave him Zayd the Eldest and Ruqayya. When Umar was martyred she married her cousin ‘Awn bin Ja’far and when he was martyred she married his brother Muhammad bin Ja’far, who died in the battle of Siffin. Then she and her son Zayd died at the same time, and Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab led the prayers over them. They were buried together in al-Baqi’.

** Note on her marriage to Amir al-Mu’mineen Umar ibn al-Khattab:

Shaykh Saleh al-Ja’fari said:

The Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa Alihi wa sallam said: “All lines of descendants and in-laws will be cut off on the Day of Rising except my descendants and in-laws.” Narrated by Ahmad. Our shaykh (the great hadith scholar Muhammad Habib Allah)  al-Shinqiti may Allah have mercy on him said: When  sayyidna Umar, radi Allahu anhu, heard of this hadith, he asked the hand of sayyida Umm Kulthum from (her father) sayyidna Ali, radi Allahu anhu wa karrama wajhah, so she became his wife, may Allah be pleased with him and with her.

**

Zaynab  as-Sughraa

As for Zaynab the Youngest, she is the one that is buried in Damascus, according to al-’Ubaydali, who adds that her mother was an Umm Walad (meaning a slave girl that, because of giving birth to a child of her owner, can no longer be sold, and is automatically freed upon the owner’s death). Thus the tomb in Damascus does belong to a sayyida Zaynab bint Ali, but not the one whose mother is sayyida Fatima az-Zahraa. This youngest of the Zaynabs of imam Ali married her cousin Muhammad bin ‘Aqil, and their sons were called al-Qasim, Abdullah, and Abd ar-Rahman. From among her sons, only Abdullah had surviving progeny.

- Source (which contains more proof by many early historians):

- Shaykh Muhammad Zaki Ibrahim, Maraaqid Ahl al-Bayt fil Qaahira.

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Related Gems:

From an article for the 21st issue of the annual “at-Tariqa” magazine of the Ja’fariyya tariqa, by Dr. An-Naser Abd Allah Abu Kroq of the African International University, Khartoum.

* A karama was mentioned by shaykh Muhammad Mahmoud Abd al-’Aleem in his book  Sayyidna al-Imaam al-Husayn, Radi Allahu ‘anhu, pg 140. He mentioned that when Sayyida Zaynab, may Allah be pleased with her, chose Egypt as her place of exile, the governor of Madina asked her: “And why Egypt?”

She said: “So that I, in my Barzakh, many years from now, will have the honor to receive the head of al-Husayn, with whose innocent and pure blood you blackened your history.”

* One year after her passing, the scholars and notables of Egypt celebrated her coming to Egypt, and ever since the Zaynabi Mawlid became a yearly tradition.

I (Nuruddin Zangi) say: If this report is true, then it shows that the mawlid celebrations were practiced in the age of the Tab’ieen in the presence of the great scholars of Egypt, among them the Tab’ieen from among the Ahlul Bayt.

* “I heard from a man that I had not seen before, who had on him the signs of  ’ilm  and righteousness, and i think him to be among the righteous scholars, who was either at the maqam of sayyidna al-Husayn or the sayyida Zaynab, may Allah be pleased with them, that when Sayyida Zaynab came to Egypt, she said to those who received her: ‘May Allah protect you and take you in, oh people of Egypt, as you took us in and protected us.’”

* “In the seventies of the previous century, a fitna erupted in Egypt, and there appeared people who wrote in the newspapers and said that the Ahlul Bayt, like sayyidna al-Husayn and sayyida Zaynab and sayyida Nafisa and the rest of the pure family are not really in the land of Egypt, and that the people are visiting imaginary graves, and this caused great upset for the lovers of the Ahlul Bayt in Egypt, who are the great majority in that country that Allah has honored by the Ahlul Bayt, protectors of the Land of the Kinaana (Egypt) and its guardians from every harm.

And in those days, I heard from sayyidi ash-shaykh (Saleh al-Ja’fari) during the Hadra, and we were with him in the Maghrebi Hall, a karama that happened to him with the sayyida. He said:

‘While I was riding a car near the grave of the sayyida, a woman in a niqab, from whom nothing could be seen, stood in front of the car.’ Then she came toward him in the back seat and said to him sharply: ‘You say that you are scholars and that you are lovers, while the Ahlul Bayt are being harmed in Egypt, and their existence is being denied?!”

So he replied to her: ‘But oh sayyida, what can we do when we do not write in the newspapers?’

So she replied: “No! You must ridicule them and respond to them strongly!’

Then the woman disappeared just as she had appeared. Then sayyidi the shaykh said: ‘I understood the command. I understood the command, and so I commanded the driver to go toward the Maqam of the Sayyida, and there I picked up the telephone, and called that person who had written that topic of fitna in the newspapers, and I spoke to him harshly and admonished him and said: “I was commanded to ridicule you.” ‘

But sayyidi did not mention if that woman that came to him was sayyida Zaynab herself, as she came to him in the waking, not in the sleep, or if it was other than that, but he left it to those for whom hints are enough.”