Banu Hashim

Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (c. 566-653 CE) was the Prophet Muhammad's uncle who protected him from within Mecca, facilitated the conquest, and became the ancestor of the Abbasid dynasty that ruled the Islamic world for five centuries.

Chief of the Quraysh and custodian of Zamzam. Born at Yathrib as Shayba, he redug the lost well, ransomed his son Abdullah with a hundred camels after a vow of sacrifice, faced Abraha before the Year of the Elephant, and raised his orphaned grandson Muhammad.

The father of Prophet Muhammad and the youngest, best-loved son of Abd al-Muttalib. When his father's vow of sacrifice fell on him by lot he was ransomed with a hundred camels, raising the blood-price among the Arabs. He married Amina bint Wahb and died at Medina aged about twenty-five.

Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith, born al-Mughira, was a first cousin of Prophet Muhammad who opposed him in verse and in battle for two decades before converting on the eve of the conquest of Mecca, and who was one of the very few men who stood their ground beside the Prophet at Hunayn.

A paternal aunt of Prophet Muhammad and full sister of his father Abdullah. The sira names her among the daughters who elegised Abd al-Muttalib, as mother of Zuhayr ibn Abi Umayya, whose kinship to Banu Hashim helped break the Meccan boycott, and as the woman whose vision preceded Badr.

Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib (d. 625 CE), paternal uncle and foster-brother of Prophet Muhammad, was among the strongest defenders of the early Muslim community in Mecca and was killed at the Battle of Uhud. His killer's own account of the day is preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari.

Qutham ibn Abbas was a son of the Prophet's uncle al-Abbas and served as governor of Mecca under Ali ibn Abi Talib. Little else about him is firmly established. The Shah-i-Zinda shrine at Samarkand grew around a tomb attributed to him, on the basis of a tradition scholarship treats as legendary.

Safiyya bint Abd al-Muttalib, paternal aunt of Prophet Muhammad and mother of Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, killed an armed intruder at the fortress sheltering Medina's women during the Battle of Khandaq, and met the mutilation of her brother Hamza at Uhud with open grief and firm patience.