Maria bint Shamʿūn, better known as Maria al-Qibtiyya, Maria Qubtiyya, or Maria the Copt, was an Egyptian who, along with her sister Sirin, were sent to the Islamic prophetMuhammad in 628 as a gift by Muqawqis, a Christian governor of Alexandria, Egypt during the territory's Persian occupation. She and her sister were slaves. She spent the rest of her life in Medina where she embraced Islam and lived with the Prophet Muhammad when she bore a son, Ibrahim. The son would die as an infant and then she died almost five years later.
Biography
In the Islamic year 6 AH, Muhammad is said to have had letters written to the great rulers of the Middle East, proclaiming the continuation of the monotheistic faith with its final messages and inviting the rulers to join. The purported texts of some of the letters are found in Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings. Tabari writes that a deputation was sent to an Egyptian governor named as al-Muqawqis. Tabari recounts the story of Maria's arrival from Egypt: The death of Ibrahim caused Muhammad to weep.
Status as a Concubine or Wife
Like Rayhana bint Zayd, there is some debate between historians and scholars as to whether she officially became Muhammad's wife, or was just a concubine. Though generally well-known in the Islamic tradition as a concubine of the Prophet, she has recently been raised to the status of a wife of the Prophet by certain modern-day scholars. A fact proving she was a concubine however, is that when she bore her son to the Prophet, she was sent free. Had she been a wife, it would have been out of place. There is also strong evidence that there was no living quarter for her in the proximity of the Prophet's Mosque. Only the wives of the Prophet had their quarters adjacent to one another in the proximity of his mosque at Medina. On the opposed, Maria was made to reside permanently in an orchard, some three kilometers from the mosque.The most direct evidence suggests she was a concubine as a narrated report shows by ‘Umar : However the majority of muslim scholars regard a different Asbāb al-nuzūl for the above mentioned Surah 66:1-5, namely the "honey-incident", which is narrated in the canonical HadithSahih al-Bukhari by Muhammed's wife Aisha: In another report from Ibn ‘Abbas and ‘Urwah b. al-Zubair in the same context, the Messenger of Allah said to Hafsa:
'I make you witness that I my concubine is now forbidden unto me.
On the other hand several early biographers and classical hadith-scholars such as Al-Tabari, Al-Hakim Nishapuri & Abd Allah ibn Abbas do narrate that Mohammad married Maria al-Qibtiya. Among those is Ibn Abbas, the cousin of Mohammad, who, according to Khaled Abou El Fadl, narrates the following: Similar to Ibn Abbas, al-Tabari in his historical annals 'Tarih Tabari' & Ibn Kathīr in his biography about the wives of Mohammad, state that Maria was Mohammads wife: Additionally, the hadith-literature contains several narrations that identifies Maria as the wife of Mohammad. Among those is the canonic and authentic hadith by al-Muslim & Al-Mustadrak:
Status as a Slave
Maria bint Shamun was a slave owned by Egypt’s Christian governor, who offered her and her sister Sirin, among other presents, as a gift of good will to the Prophet in reply to his envoys inviting him to Islam.
