Halima — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ح-ل-م (ḥ-l-m), forbearance — the self-restraint of someone who could answer an offence and does not. Ḥalīma is the feminine of the intensive adjective ḥalīm: forbearing, slow to anger, gentle under provocation. It is not weakness in the Arabic sense; it is strength held back.

From the same root: ḥilm (forbearance), al-Ḥalīm — one of the names of Allah, the Forbearing — and ḥulum, both a dream and the age at which a child reaches maturity. The lexicographers keep the two senses under one root. The Qur'an calls Ibrahim ḥalīm (at-Tawba 9:114) and announces Ismail to him as ghulām ḥalīm, a forbearing boy (as-Saffat 37:101).

Who carried it: Halima as-Sadiyya, of the tribe of Banu Sad, the wet nurse who took the infant Prophet ﷺ out to the desert and raised him there in his first years, as the families of Makkah did with their newborns. He kept a regard for her all his life and is reported to have spread out his cloak for her when she came to him.

Spellings: Halima, Halimah, Halime (Turkish), Halimah (Indonesian), Halima (Urdu), Halima (Maghrebi), حليمة.

Pronunciation: ḥa-LEE-ma — the opening ḥ is the deep Arabic ḥāʾ, pushed from the throat, not the light English h.

Masculine counterpart: Halim (حليم), and the compound Abd al-Halim.