Editing Fatima (section)

==Birth==
[[File:Creations reason.jpg|thumbnail|The Reason of Creation by Iranian artist, Hassan Rouholamin. It points out to Prophet Muhammad's hadith about Fatima’s birth. ]]
Her conception and birth were miraculous. Her origin was in a fruit from paradise, often identified as an apple or a date, that Muhammad had eaten during one of his ascensions and that had become “the water of his loins”. <ref>Forat, pp. 75-76; Ibn Babuya, 1385/1966, pp. 183-84.</ref> According to one tradition, this fruit had previously been touched by the sweat and a plume from the wing of the angel Gabriel. <ref>Forat, pp. 321-22.</ref> It was for this reason that the Prophet always said that Fatima was a celestial being in human form (huraʾ ensiya), that she emitted the perfume of paradise, and that she had a name in heaven (usually Mansura). Fatima spoke with her mother while still in the womb. All the most pious women recognized from pre-Islamic religions were present at her birth, namely, Sarah, Asia, Sephora (Safuraʾ), and especially Mary the mother of Jesus. <ref>Ibn Rostam, p. 9; Hussain, pp. 48 ff.</ref> These names are often linked with that of Fatima, and parallels with Mary are particularly frequent, parallels emphasized by Massignon in all his works on Fatima. <ref>cf. Ayoub, 1976, pp. 165 ff.; idem, 1978, s.v.; McAuliffe, 1981.</ref> Yet Fatima’s superiority to other women is always underscored. She is given the epithet “the Great Lady/the Best of Free Women”. <ref>sayyedat/khiarat al-nesaʾ/al-haraʾer; cf. the epithet of the mother of the qaʾem “the Great Lady/the Best of Slave Women [al-emaʾ]; No’mani, pp. 331 ff.; Ibn Quluya, pp. 54, 78, 123-24.</ref> At her birth Fatima pronounced sacred formulas and announced future events; the world was bathed in light. <ref>Ibn Shahrashub, pp. 119 ff.</ref>