Sunday, February 28, 2010
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid
Posted by Unknown | Sunday, February 28, 2010 | Category:
Wives of Muhammed ( PBUH )
|
Khadījah bint Khuwaylid (Arabic: خديجة بنت خويلد) or Khadījah al-Kubra (555 CE – 619 CE) was the first wife of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Khadijah was the daughter of Khuwaylid ibn Asadand Fatimah bint Za'idah and belonged to the clan of Banu Hashim.
Khadijah's father, Khuwaylid ibn Asad, who died around 585, was a merchant, a successful businessman whose vast wealth and business talents were inherited by Khadijah, who successfully managed her father's business interests and preserved the family's fortune. It is said that whenQuraysh's trade caravans gathered to embark upon their lengthy and arduous journey either to Syriaduring the summer or to Yemen during the winter, Khadijah's caravan equaled the caravans of all other traders of Quraish put together. Fatimah bint Za'idah – Khadijah's mother – died around 575, a member of the Banu `Amir ibn Luayy ibn Ghalib tribe and a distant relative of Muhammad.
Khadijah earned two titles: Ameerat-Quraish (Princess of Quraish) and al-Tahira (the Pure One), and Khadija Al-Kubra (Khadija the great) and was said to have had an impeccable character. She used to feed and clothe the poor, assist her relatives financially, and provide for the marriage of those of her kin who could not otherwise have had the means to marry. Another aspect of her character, unusual for her times and unlike the practices of her people Khadijah was said to have neither believed in nor worshipped idols.
By 585, Khadijah , even though she was sought for marriage by many honorable and highly respected men of the Arabian Peninsula, throughout which she was quite famous, due to her business dealings.
Khadijah did not travel with her trade caravans, she relied on someone else to act as her agent to trade on her behalf in return for an agreed upon commission. In 595, Khadijah needed an agent to trade in her merchandise going to Syria, and it was then that a number of agents whom she knew before and trusted, as well as some of her own relatives, particularly Abu Talib ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, suggested to her to employ her distant cousin Muhammad ibn Abdullah who, by then, had earned the honorifics of Al-Sadiq (the truthful) and Al-Amin (the trustworthy).
Muhammad, did not have any official business experience, but he had twice accompanied his uncle Abu Talib on his trade trips and keenly observed how he traded, bartered, bought and sold, and conducted business. It was not uncommon to hire an agent who did not have prior experience; so, Khadijah decided to give Muhammad a chance. He was only 25 years old. Khadijah sent Muhammad word through Khazimah ibn Hakim, one of her relatives, offering him twice as much commission as she usually offered her agents to trade on her behalf. She sent him one of her servants, Maysarah to assist him and be his bookkeeper. She also trusted Maysarah's account regarding her new employee's conduct, an account that was most striking, indeed one that encouraged her to abandon her decision never to marry again.
The profits Khadijah reaped from that trip were twice as much as she had anticipated. Maysarah was more fascinated by Muhammad than by anything related to the trip. The trip's measure of success encouraged Khadijah to employ Muhammad again on the winter trip to Yemen
The age of Khadijah is not well documented. This is because Arab people were more concerned with the month they were born in than the year. Therefore, her age has been narrated as anywhere from 25 to 40 years.
Correlation of her age with that of her daughter Fatimah does not support the view that she was as much as fifteen years older than Muhammad.
With the passage of time, her admiration for Muhammad developed into a deeper affection. Khadijah was by then convinced that she had finally found a man who was worthy of her, so much so that she initiated the marriage proposal herself. Muhammad detailed all the business transactions in which he would be involved on her behalf, but Khadijah was thinking to leave the financial matters to her distant cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal.
By the time Muhammad was gone, Khadijah sought the advice of a friend named Nufaysa bint Umayyah. The latter offered to approach him on her behalf and, if possible, arrange a marriage between them.
Khadijah and Muhammad agreed that he should speak to his uncles and she would speak to her uncle, `Amr ibn Asad, since her father had died. It was Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, despite being relatively young, whom the Hashemites delegated to represent them on this marriage occasion, since he was most closely related to them through the clan of Asad; his sister Safiyyah bint ‘Abd al-Muttalib had just married Khadijah's brotherAwwam ibn Khuwaylid.
It was Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle, who delivered the marriage sermon saying,
All praise is due to Allah Who has made us the progeny of Ibrahim and Who made us the custodians of His House and the servants of its sacred precincts, making for us a House sought for pilgrimage and a shrine of security, and He also gave us authority over the people. This nephew of mine Muhammad cannot be compared with any other man: if you compare his wealth with that of others, you will not find him a man of wealth, for wealth is a vanishing shadow and a fickle thing. Muhammad is a man whose lineage you all know, and he has sought Khadijah bint Khuwaylid for marriage, offering her such-and-such of the dower of my own wealth.
When her husband received his first revelation from the Archangel Gabriel, she was the first person (besides Muhammad) — among both male and females — to convert to Islam. According to some sources, it was Khadijah's parental cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who informed Muhammad of his prophethood soon after his vision of the angel.
Khadijah did not hesitate to embrace Islam at all, trusting to her husband's teachings.
R. V. C. Bodley in his book The Messenger, the Life of Mohammed, 1946
"God is my protection, Oh Abul Kasim!" said Khadija, "Rejoice and be of good cheer. He in Whose hands stands the life of Khadija, is my Witness that thou wilt be the Messenger of His people!" Then she added, "Hast thou not been loving to thy kinsfolk, kind to thy neighbors, charitable to the poor, hospitable to the stranger, faithful to thy word, and ever a defender of the truth?"
Washington Irving in his book Life of Mohammed:
After the first encounter with Gabriel, Mohammed came trembling and agitated to Khadija. She saw everything with the eye of faith. "Joyful tidings dost thou bring," exclaimed she, by Him, in Whose hand is the soul of Khadija, I will henceforth regard thee as the Prophet of our nation. Rejoice," added she, "Allah will not suffer thee to fall to shame. Hast thou not been loving to thy kinsfolk, kind to thy neighbours, charitable to the poor, hospitable to the stranger, faithful to thy word, and ever a defender of the truth?"
Yahya ibn `Afeef is quoted saying that he once came, during the period of Jahiliyyah (before the advent of Islam), to Mecca to be hosted by‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, one of Muhammad's uncles mentioned above. "When the sun started rising," he said, "I saw a man who came out of a place not far from us, faced the Kaaba and started performing his prayers. He hardly started before being joined by a young boy who stood on his right side, then by a woman who stood behind them. When he bowed down, the young boy and the woman bowed, and when he stood up straight, they, too, did likewise. When he prostrated, they, too, prostrated." He expressed his amazement at that, saying to al-Abbas: "This is quite strange, O Abbas!". "Is it, really?" retorted al-Abbas. "Do you know who he is?" al-Abbas asked his guest who answered in the negative. "He is Muhammad ibn Abdullah, my nephew. Do you know who the young boy is?" asked he again. "No, indeed," answered the guest. "He is Ali son of Abu Talib. Do you know who the woman is?" The answer came again in the negative, to which al-Abbas said, "She is Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, my nephew's wife." This incident is included in the books of both Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Al-Tirmidhi, each detailing it in his ownSahih.
She bore patiently in the face of persecution to which her revered husband and his small band of believers were exposed at the hands of thepolytheists and aristocrats of the Quraish, sacrificing her vast wealth to promote Islam, seeking God's rewards.
She remained at his side and supported him throughout his mission to spread Islam.
Khadijah from "Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum "
Muhammad is reported to have taken no other wife until after her death because of his love for her.
Edward Gibbon in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
During the 24-years of their marriage, Khadija's youthful husband abstained from the right of polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, the Prophet placed her in the rank of four perfect women, with the sister (sic) of Moses, the mother ofJesus, and Fatima.
Kazi Ejaz and Ibne Abdul Bir in their book Al-Estiab
Once the Prophet mentioned Khadija near Aisha,
Aisha responded:
"She was not but a such and such of an old lady, and Allah replaced her with a better one for you."
He replied:
"Indeed Allah did not grant me better than her; she accepted me when people rejected me, she believed in me when people doubted me, she shared her wealth with me when people deprived me, and Allah granted me children only through her."
The year of her death is known as the Year of Sorrow, because of the devastation that it caused him and it was also the same year in which his uncle and guardian Abu Talib died. She was either 64 or 68 years old (having been born in AD 555). Her grave can be found in Jannatul Mualla cemetery, in Mecca , Saudi Arabia.Many scholars place the events of the Year of Sorrow in 619, prior to hijra, and use these events as part of the reason for Muhammad's emigration.
Ibn Kathir, the famous Islamic scholar and commentator on the Qur'an writes in his book Wives of the Prophet Muhammad
Khadijah had been the first to publicly accept Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as the Messenger of Allah, and she had never stopped doing all she could to help him. Love and mercy had grown between them, increasing in quality and depth as the years passed by, and not even death could take this love away. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) never stopped loving Khadijah, and although he married several more wives in later years and loved them all, it is clear that Khadijah always had a special place in his heart. Indeed whenever 'Aisha, his third wife, heard the Prophet speak of Khadijah, or saw him sending food to Khadijah's old friends and relatives, she could not help feeling jealous of her, because of the love that the Prophet still had for her.
Once Aisha asked him if Khadijah had been the only woman worthy of his love. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) replied: "She believed in me when no one else did; she accepted Islam when people rejected me; and she helped and comforted me when there was no one else to lend me a helping hand." It had been related by Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) that on one occasion, when Khadijah was still alive, Jibril came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said, "O Messenger of Allah, Khadijah is just coming with a bowl of soup (or food or drink) for you. When she comes to you, give her greetings of peace from her Lord and from me, and give her the good news of a palace of jewels in the Garden, where there will be neither any noise nor any tiredness." After the Prophet's uncle, Abu Talib, and his first wife, Khadijah, had both died in the same year, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his small community of believers endured a time of great hardship and persecution at the hands of the Quraish. Indeed the Prophet, who was now fifty years old, name this year 'the Year of Sorrow.'
Sons:
§ Qasim ibn Muhammad, died in 605 CE, before his second birthday
§ Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad, died in childhood in 615 CE
According to some Shia sources she only had one daughter, Fatimah. The others either belonged to her sister or were orphaned girls raised by her. Possibly, all of them were Khadijah's but only Fatimah was born to Muhammad. Sunni Muslims however do not contest the parentage of her daughters. They affirm what the Qur'an states: "O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers...".]
The famous Sunni scholar Yusuf ibn abd al-Barr says: "His children born of Khadīja are four daughters; there is no difference of opinion about that".
Daughters: The daughters attributed to Muhammad are;
1. Zainab bint Muhammad, married to her maternal cousin Abu al-Aas ibn al-Rabee before al-Hijra
2. Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, was married to Uthman ibn Affan
3. Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad, also married to Uthman ibn Affan after the death of her sister Ruqayyah
4. Fatimah, the youngest was married to Ali ('Ali bin Abi Talib)
Sister:
§ Halah bint Khuwailid
Cousins:
§ Abdullah ibn Umm Maktum
§ Waraqah ibn Nawfal
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Currently have 0 comments: