Commentators are not agreed as to the derivation of this word, the following are the three most common derivations of it:—
(1) From Umm, “mother,” i.e. one just as he came from his mother’s womb.
(2) From Ummah, “people,” i.e. a gentile, one who was ignorant; alluding to the time of Muḥammad’s ignorance.
(3) From Ummu ʾl-qurā, “the mother of villages,” a name given to Makkah; i.e. a native of Makkah.
Muḥammad appears to have wished to be thought ignorant and illiterate, in order to raise the elegance of the Qurʾān into a miracle.
UMMU ḤABĪBAH (ام حبيبة). One of Muḥammad’s wives. She was the daughter of Abū Ṣufyān, and the widow of ʿUbaidu ʾllāh, one of the “Four Inquirers,” who, after emigrating as a Muslim to Abyssinia, embraced Christianity there, and died in profession of that faith.
UMMU KULS̤ŪM (ام كلثوم). The youngest daughter of Muḥammad by his wife K͟hadījah. She had been married to her cousin ʿUtaibah, son of Abū Lahab, but separated from him and became, after the death of her sister Ruqaiyah, the second wife of ʿUs̤mān, the later K͟halīfah. She died a year or two before Muḥammad, who used, after her death, to say he so dearly loved ʿUs̤mān, that had there been a third daughter, he would have given her also in marriage to him.
UMMU ʾL-KITĀB (ام الكتاب). Lit. “The Mother of the Book.”
(1) A title given in the Ḥadīs̤ to the first Sūrah of the Qurʾān.
(2) In the Sūratu Ahli ʿImrān [(iii.) 5], it is used for the Qurʾān itself.