A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 9/46

1.&mdash;Asma-bint Marwán.

[Sidenote: 46. Asma-bint Marwán.]

"The first victim was a woman," writes Major Osborn, "Asma, daughter of Marwan; she had composed some satirical verses on the Prophet and his followers; and Muhammad, moved to anger, said publicly: 'Who will rid me of this woman?' Omeir, a blind man, but an ardent Moslem, heard the speech, and at dead of night crept into the apartment where Asma lay asleep surrounded by her little ones; he felt about in the darkness till his hand rested on the sleeping woman, and then, the next instance his sword was plunged into her breast."

The story of Asma's murder has been variously related by the Arabian writers, and the testimonies on which it rests are contradictory and conflicting in themselves. Wákidi, Ibn Sád, and Ibn Hishám relate a very strange thing about it, that she was killed by Omeir the blind at the dead of night. A blind person commits murder in a stranger's house during nocturnal quietness, and is not arrested by any one! Doctor Weil writes, that Omeir was a former husband of Asma, and the origin of the murder may be traced to a long-brooding and private malice. Ibn Asákar in his history (vide Seerat Shámee) relates that Asma was a fruit-seller; some person of her tribe asked her if she had better fruits. She said 'yes,' and entered her house followed by that man. She stooped down to take something up, the person turned right and left, and seeing that nobody was near, gave a violent blow on her head, and thus dispatched her.