Qatam bt. Shajna: Difference between revisions

'''Qaṭām bt. Shajna b. 'Adī''' (Arabic: قطام بنت شجنة بن عدی) was a woman from [[Kufa]] who played a role in motivating [[ibn Muljam]] to [[martyrdom|martyr]] [[Imam 'Ali (a)]]. Since her brother and father were killed in the [[Battle of Nahrawan]], she conditioned her [[marriage]] with ibn Muljam upon the murder of 'Ali (a). Qatam was famously very beautiful, and her condition for marriage motivated ibn Muljam to murder Imam 'Ali (a). Some contemporary scholars take this story to be fictional.

Qatam bt. Shajna b. 'Adi b. 'Amir b. 'Uf b. Tha'laba b. Sa'd b. Dhuhl b. Taym al-Rubab was a woman from Kufa. There is a disagreement about the name of her father. [[Al-Baladhuri]] referred to her father as 'Alqama in one case, and as Shajna in another. Other sources have referred to her father as Akhdar. Thus, Shajna was Qatam’s grandfather, and not her father.

Qatam’s hostility to Imam 'Ali (a) was because she was one of [[Khawarij]] who held that Imam 'Ali (a) was an unbeliever. Moreover, her father, Shajna b. 'Adi and her brother, Akhdar b. Shajna, were among the Khawarij who were killed in the [[Battle of Nahrawan]].

Ibn Muljam, who had entered Kufa to kill Imam 'Ali (a), met Qatam and proposed for marriage. Qatam said that she would marry him only if he killed Imam 'Ali (a). On another account, ibn Muljam married her and spent three nights with her. According to other accounts, ibn Muljam proposed to Qatam’s daughter, Rubab, not Qatam herself.

[[Sayyid Ja'far Shahidi]] believes that the story of Qatam’s contribution to the martyrdom of Imam 'Ali (a) was fictional because it involves many contradictions. He wrote: “it seems that the story of Qatam was fabricated and associated to the three people in order to make it more attractive”.

* Sending a person, called Wardan, to help ibn Muljam with the plan to murder Imam 'Ali (a). [[Wardan b. Mujalid al-Taymi]] was Qatam’s cousin. Wardan had repeatedly told Qatam that he would kill 'Ali (a) if someone helped him. Thus, Qatam introduced ibn Muljam and Wardan to each other.