Fatima al-Zahra.
The Prophet's daughter, and the only one of his children whose line continued. She died within six months of him, estranged from the first caliph over an estate at Fadak she said was hers. Shia mourn her annually; what exactly happened at her door is among the rawest of all sectarian wounds.
Fatima is central to Shia devotion in a way that has no exact Sunni parallel, and the reason is that the succession dispute ran directly through her household. Shia sources hold that in the days after the Prophet's death her house was raided to force Ali's allegiance, that she was injured, that she miscarried, and that she died within months, refusing to speak to Abu Bakr and asking to be buried at night with no attendance from the caliph. Sunni sources record the estrangement over Fadak and the night burial and reject the violence. Her grave's location is unknown, which Shia read as her final protest. She is called the mother of her father, umm abiha, and Twelver mourning for her — the Fatimiyya days — has grown notably more prominent in the last few decades. The claim that every sayyid descends from her is genealogically enormous: it makes millions of people the Prophet's family.
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