The most striking image of Hind bint ‘Utba (d. 636) in early Islamic history is perhaps the infamous role she played in the Battle of Uhud, where she urged on Meccans who were fighting against Muslims and viciously mutilated her opponents’ corpses. Less emphasized is her eventual conversion to Islam and her role as the powerful mother of Mu‘awiyya, the fifth caliph and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. Yet exploring how Mu‘awiyya’s ties to his mother are portrayed in historical chronicles and biographical dictionaries written between the eighth and tenth centuries can help to complicate our understanding of lineage and motherhood in early Islam. For example, despite the prevailing idea that early Islam was relentlessly patriarchal and patrilineal, texts often ascribe Mu‘awiyya to his mother rather than to his father, calling him Ibn Hind (“Son of Hind”) or, more pejoratively, Ibn ākilat al-akbād (“Son of the Liver-Eater”) in a reference to the Battle of Uhud. Though this ascription is sometimes uncomplimentary, it nevertheless elucidates the importance of matrilineal ties in Islam’s first centuries and the uses to which they could be put, both positive and negative. In this paper, I explore several instances in poetry and prose in which Mu‘awiyya was ascribed to his mother, and analyze the purposes this ascription served. I also compare these examples to others in which matrilineal ascription was downplayed or denied, including one involving Mu‘awiyya’s own daughter, Ramla. Finally, I draw comparisons between depictions of Hind as mother and those of a far more idealized mother whose children were also sometimes ascribed to her in early Islamic texts -- Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. In undertaking this study, I build on previous research demonstrating that maternal ascription was not unusual in early Islam, as well as emphasizing the frequent ambiguity of such ascription; and consider its implications for the status of women in these societies. Ultimately, I aim to show that recognition of matrilineal descent, both positive and negative, imputed a certain power to women in early Islam that belies the stereotypical view of them as mere vessels.