Maria al-Qibtiyya

Māriyya bint Shamʿūn al Qibtiyyah, better known as Māriyyah al-Qibṭiyyah or al-Qubṭiyya, or Maria the Copt, died 637, was a Coptic Egyptian woman who, along with her sister Sirin bint Shamun, was given as a slave to the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a gift in 628 by Al-Muqawqis, a Christian governor of Alexandria, during the territory's Sasanian occupation. It is a subject of speculation whether she married Muhammad or continued to be a concubine. She spent the rest of her life in Medina, and had a son, Ibrahim, with Muhammad. The son died in his infancy, aged 2, and she died almost five years…