Sumayyah · a Light

The first person killed for this religion was a slave woman

Sumayyah bint Khayyat was an enslaved woman in Makkah, married to Yasir and the mother of Ammar. The family were among the earliest converts and had no clan able to protect them, which is why they were tortured in the open while men of the great families were not. The biographers record that Abu Jahl killed her with a spear. She was elderly. Muslim tradition counts her as the first person to be killed for the faith, before any battle and before the migration. The same reports preserve the Prophet ﷺ passing the family under torture and telling them to be patient, that their appointed place was Paradise. He could not stop it. He had no clan strong enough either.

Sumayyah bint Khayyat · Makkah, c. 615 CE