Fakhita bint Abi Talib, better known as Umm Haniʾ, was the Prophet’s cousin ﷺ and the sister of ʿAli. On the day of the conquest of Mecca he prayed eight rakʿas in her house (al-Bukhari 1176) and, as she had granted protection to a man, he told her: “We protect the one you have protected, Umm Haniʾ” (al-Bukhari 357).
Fakhita is the Arabic name of the collared dove (plural fawakhit), a bird with a gentle song, familiar to the poets. Ibn al-Jawaliqi connects the word with fakht, which the dictionaries explain as moonlight, and a woman was said to “walk like the fakhita” in praise of her graceful gait. Rare today, the name is borne mainly in memory of Umm Haniʾ, the Prophet’s cousin ﷺ, whose real name it was according to the most widespread view.
In Arabic
فَاخِتَةفاختة
Transliteration
Fākhita
Root
ف خ ت
Gender
Girl
Origin
Arabic
Is Fakhita in the Quran?
No: neither the name Fakhita nor its root appears in the Quran. A name can be beautiful and permissible without coming from the Quran.
In the hadiths
AuthenticMuttafaq ‘alayh (Bukhari and Muslim)Sahih al-Bukhari 357
