Husayn's Wife as a Historical Figure: Shahrbång

Abstract

There is limited and conflicting information in the sources about one of Husayn's wives who is generally referred to as Shahrbang. There is different information about her identity and life, primarily about her name. The fact that Sunni and Shiite authors look at Shahrbang from different perspectives is one factor that diversifies the information and make it suspucious. So much so that although there is almost an agreement in the sources that she is Husayn's wife and Zayn al-cabidin's mother, there is no clear information about the rest of her life and death. The most controversial debate about her concerns her ancestry. While the scholars of the first period presented her as an enslaved person brought mostly from Sindh or Sistan, it is seen that the later scholars presented her as the daughter of Yazdegerd III, the last king of the Sasanian Empire. She has a privileged position, especially among the Shiites. Therefore, the efforts of Shiite scholars to attribute Shahrbang to a noble lineage are too obvious to be overlooked. As a result of this effort, Shahrbang was associated with a noble lineage from both sides by being tied to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from her father's side and to the Sasanian royal family by her mother. On the one hand, Shahrbang was associated with such a noble lineage, on the other hand, she was introduced as an ordinary enslaved person. There-fore, the character of Shahrbang has taken her place in the pages of history as a controversial figure stuck between Sunni and Shiite traditions.