Editorial status: draft awaiting review by qualified scholars. Report corrections through the contact page.
Khadija bint Khuwaylid سلام اللہ علیہا was the first wife of the Prophet ﷺ, the first to believe in his mission and the mother of Sayyida Fatima سلام اللہ علیہا. She placed her wealth at the service of Islam in its hardest years in Mecca, and the Prophet took no other wife while she lived.
Lineage and marriage
Khadija was the daughter of Khuwaylid ibn Asad of Quraysh and a respected merchant of Mecca who traded through agents. After the young Muhammad ﷺ led one of her caravans to Syria and she heard of his honesty from her servant Maysara, she proposed marriage to him, about fifteen years before the mission. Al-Tabrisi records that the Prophet took no other wife until her death.
The first to believe
The reports agree that Khadija believed in the Prophet ﷺ as soon as he received the first revelation, and al-Tabari preserves the account of a visitor to Mecca who saw the Prophet, Khadija and the young Ali عليه السلام praying together when no one else yet did. Through the years of persecution, and the boycott of Banu Hashim in the valley of Abu Talib, she spent her wealth on the Muslims; the Prophet is reported to have said that no wealth had ever benefited him as hers had.
Her place in the Prophet’s household
Khadija bore all of the Prophet’s children except Ibrahim. In a narration recorded by al-Tirmidhi, the Prophet ﷺ named her, with Maryam the daughter of Imran, Asiya the wife of Pharaoh and Fatima سلام اللہ علیہا, as the women who suffice the world as examples. She died in Mecca in Ramadan of the tenth year of the mission, the same year as Abu Talib, and was buried at al-Hajun; Muslims remember that year as the Year of Sorrow.
Differing reports
- Her age at marriage: most sources give forty; others give twenty-eight or twenty-five, and some scholars think the lower figures more likely.
- Earlier marriages: Sunni historians name two earlier husbands; Shia scholars such as al-Sharif al-Murtada and al-Tusi, as reported by Ibn Shahrashub, held that she had not been married before.
- Her daughters: al-Kulayni and al-Tabrisi count Zaynab, Ruqayya and Umm Kulthum as daughters of the Prophet and Khadija; some Shia scholars hold that they were daughters of her sister Hala, raised in the Prophet’s house.
Sources
- I‘lam al-Wara bi-A‘lam al-Huda — al-Tabrisi, al-Fadl ibn al-Hasan (d. 548 AH / 1153 CE). chapter on his wives and children
- al-Sira al-Nabawiyya — Ibn Hisham, Abd al-Malik (d. 218 AH / 833 CE)
- Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk — al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir (d. 310 AH / 923 CE). years before the Hijra
- al-Jami‘ (Sunan al-Tirmidhi) — al-Tirmidhi, Muhammad ibn ‘Isa (d. 279 AH / 892 CE). Abwab al-Manaqib
- Manaqib Al Abi Talib — Ibn Shahrashub, Muhammad ibn Ali (d. 588 AH / 1192 CE)
- Bihar al-Anwar — al-Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir (d. 1110 AH / 1699 CE)
- al-Kafi — al-Kulayni, Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub (d. 329 AH / 941 CE). Kitab al-Hujja, Bab mawlid al-Nabi wa wafatihi