The marriages of Umm Habiba and Zaynab bint Jahch

This is the chapter of the marriage of the Prophet with Umm Habiba. Al-Bayhaqi mentions, after the encounter of the Trench, through al-Kalbi, from Abu Salih, from Ibn Abbas, at the word of the Most High ’perhaps Allah will bring about love between you and those of them who were hostile to you’ [al-Mumtahina: 7]: he said: it is the marriage of the Prophet with Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan, who became Mother of the Believers, and Mu’awiya became the maternal uncle of the Believers. Then al-Bayhaqi said: Abu Abdallah the hafiz informed us: Ali ibn Isa narrated to us: Ahmad ibn Najda narrated to us: Yahya ibn Abd al-Hamid informed us: Ibn al-Mubarak informed us, from Ma’mar, from az-Zuhri, from Urwa, from Umm Habiba, that she was with Ubaydallah ibn Jahch, who had emigrated to the Negus and died, and that the Messenger of Allah married Umm Habiba while she was in the land of Abyssinia, and the Negus married her to him, her dower being four thousand dirhams,

and he sent her with Shurahbil ibn Hassana and equipped her from his own; and the Messenger of Allah sent her nothing. He said: the dowers of the wives of the Prophet were four hundred. I say: the sound account is that the dowers of the wives of the Prophet were twelve uqiyya and a nash, the uqiyya forty dirhams and the nash a half, equaling five hundred dirhams. Then al-Bayhaqi reported, through Ibn Lahi’a, from Abu l-Aswad, from Urwa, that Ubaydallah ibn Jahch died in Abyssinia a Christian, and the Messenger of Allah succeeded him upon his wife Umm Habiba, Uthman ibn Affan marrying her to him. I say: as for the apostasy of Ubaydallah ibn Jahch, its exposition has preceded: he emigrated with the Muslims to the land of Abyssinia, the devil led him astray and embellished for him the religion of the Christians, and he went to it until he died upon it: may Allah curse him; and he would meet the Muslims and say to them:

we have seen clearly and you have seen askew; and its exposition has preceded in the emigration to Abyssinia. As for Urwa’s word that Uthman married her to him, it is strange, for Uthman had already returned to Mecca before that, then emigrated to Medina with his wife Ruqayya, as preceded; and Allah knows best. The sound is what Yunus mentioned, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq: it has reached me that the one who took charge of her marriage was her cousin Khalid ibn Sa’id ibn al-As. I say: and the proxy of the Messenger of Allah in accepting the contract was Ashama the Negus, king of Abyssinia, as Yunus says, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq: Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn related to me: the Messenger of Allah sent Amr ibn Umayya ad-Damri to the Negus, who married Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan to him, citing of him four hundred dinars. Az-Zubayr ibn Bakkar said: Muhammad ibn Hasan related to me, from his father, from Abdallah ibn Amr ibn Zuhayr, from Isma’il ibn Amr, that Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan said:

while I was in the land of Abyssinia I felt only that the servant of the Negus called Abraha, who kept his garments and oil, came, asking leave of me; I permitted her and she said: the king says to you: the Messenger of Allah has written me that I marry you to him. I said: may Allah give you good tidings. And she said: the king says to you: appoint whomever marries you. She said: I sent for Khalid ibn Sa’id ibn al-As and appointed him, and gave Abraha two silver bracelets and two silver anklets I wore and silver rings on every toe of my feet, rejoicing in what she had given me glad tidings of. When evening came the Negus ordered Ja’far ibn Abi Talib and the Muslims there to attend, and the Negus preached and said: praise to Allah, the King, the Holy, the Peace, the Faithful, the Dominant, the Mighty, the Compeller; and I testify there is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger, and that he is he whom Jesus son of Mary announced.

As for what follows: the Messenger of Allah wrote me that I marry Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan to him, and I answered what the Messenger of Allah invited to, and I dowered her four hundred dinars. Then he poured the dinars before the people, and Khalid ibn Sa’id spoke and said: praise to Allah; I praise Him and ask His forgiveness, and I testify there is no deity but Allah and I testify Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger; He sent him with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religion though the idolaters hate it. As for what follows: I answered what the Messenger of Allah invited to and married Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan to him; may Allah bless for the Messenger of Allah. And the Negus gave the dinars to Khalid ibn Sa’id, who received them; then they wished to rise and he said: sit, for of the sunna of the prophets when they marry is that food be eaten upon the marriage; and he called for food and they ate and dispersed.

I say: perhaps Amr ibn al-As, when he saw Amr ibn Umayya coming out from the Negus after the Trench, was in the affair of Umm Habiba; and Allah knows best. But the hafiz al-Bayhaqi said: Abu Abdallah Ibn Mandah mentioned that his marriage to Umm Habiba was in the year six and his marriage to Umm Salama in the year four. I say: thus said Khalifa and Abu Ubayda Ma’mar ibn al-Muthanna and Ibn al-Barqi: the marriage of Umm Habiba was in the year six; and some said the year seven. Al-Bayhaqi said: Ibn Ishaq held he married Umm Habiba before Umm Salama; and al-Bayhaqi said: that is more apparent. I say: his marriage to Umm Salama has preceded at the end of the year four; as for Umm Habiba, it is possible it was before that and possible after, and its being after the Trench is more apparent, for what preceded of the mention of Amr ibn al-As seeing Amr ibn Umayya at the Negus: he is in her affair; and Allah knows best. The hafiz Ibn al-Athir related in al-Ghaba,

from Qatada, that Umm Habiba, when she emigrated from Abyssinia to Medina, the Messenger of Allah asked her hand and married her; and he relates from some that he married her after his father’s Islam after the conquest, this speaker arguing by what Muslim reported, through Ikrima ibn Ammar al-Yamami, from Abu Zumayl Simak ibn al-Walid, from Ibn Abbas, that Abu Sufyan said: O Messenger of Allah, three things give me. He said: ’yes’. He said: appoint me to fight the disbelievers as I used to fight the Muslims. He said: ’yes’. He said: and Mu’awiya your scribe. He said: ’yes’. He said: and I have the fairest of the Arabs and prettiest, Umm Habiba bint Abi Sufyan; marry her to me: the hadith entire. Ibn al-Athir said: this hadith is of what Muslim was blamed for, for Abu Sufyan, when he came to renew the contract before the conquest, entered upon his daughter Umm Habiba, and she folded from him the bed of the Prophet, and he said:

by Allah I know not whether you have turned from me to him or from him to me. She said: rather this is the bed of the Messenger of Allah and you are a polytheist man. He said: by Allah, an evil has befallen you after me, O daughter. Ibn Hazm said: Ikrima ibn Ammar forged this hadith, and this word of his is not followed. Others said: he wished to renew the contract for the censure upon him without his permission; and some said: because he believed the marriage of his daughter dissolved by his Islam; and all this is weak, and the fairest in this is that he wished to marry to the Prophet his other daughter Azza, for what he saw of honor in that, and relied upon her sister Umm Habiba, as in the two Sahihs, and the reporter merely erred in naming Umm Habiba; and we have devoted to that a separate chapter. Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam said: Umm Habiba died in the year forty-four; and Abu Bakr ibn Abi Khaythama said: she died a year before Mu’awiya, whose death was in Rajab of the year sixty.

His marriage to Zaynab bint Jahch ibn Ri’ab ibn Ya’mar ibn Sabira ibn Murra ibn Kabir ibn Ghanm ibn Doudan ibn Asad ibn Khuzayma al-Asadiyya, Mother of the Believers, and she is the daughter of Umayma bint Abd al-Muttalib, the aunt of the Messenger of Allah, and she was before him with his freedman Zayd ibn Haritha. Qatada and al-Waqidi, and some of the people of Medina, said: he married her in the year five, some adding in Dhu l-Qi’da. The hafiz al-Bayhaqi said: he married her after the Banu Qurayza; and Khalifa ibn Khayyat and Abu Ubayda Ma’mar ibn al-Muthanna and Ibn Mandah said: he married her in the year three; and the first is more famous, and it is what Ibn Jarir and more than one of the people of History followed. More than one of the exegetes and jurists and people of History mentioned in the cause of his marriage to her a hadith which Ahmad ibn Hanbal mentioned in his Musnad; we left off citing it deliberately, lest some who do not understand place it outside its place.

Allah the Most High said in His noble Book: and when you said to him whom Allah had favored and you favored: keep your wife and fear Allah, and you hid within yourself what Allah would reveal, and you feared the people while Allah has more right that you fear Him; so when Zayd had finished with her, We married her to you, that there be not upon the believers any discomfort concerning the wives of their adopted sons when they have finished with them; and the command of Allah is done: no discomfort upon the Prophet in what Allah prescribed for him; the rule of Allah among those before,

and the command of Allah is a decree determined [al-Ahzab: 37-38]. We have discussed that in the Tafsir with what suffices; the one whom Allah favored here is Zayd ibn Haritha, freedman of the Messenger of Allah: Allah favored him with Islam and the Messenger of Allah favored him with manumission, and married him to the daughter of his aunt Zaynab bint Jahch. Muqatil ibn Hayyan said: her dower was sixty dinars and sixty dirhams, and a veil, and a garment, and a coat of mail, and fifty mudds of food, and ten ammads of dates; and she stayed with him about a year or more, then divergence fell between the two, and her husband came complaining of her to the Messenger of Allah, who kept saying to him: fear Allah and keep your wife. Allah said: and you hid within yourself what Allah would reveal.

Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin and as-Suddi said: Allah had made him know she would be of his wives, and that is what was within him, peace be upon him. Many of the ancients spoke here of strange reports, some of which merit examination; we left them deliberately. Allah the Most High said: so when Zayd had finished with her, We married her to you; that is, Zayd divorced her, and when her period ended the Messenger of Allah sent to her asking her for himself, then married her, and the one who married her of him was the Lord of the worlds, as is established in the Sahih of al-Bukhari, from Anas ibn Malik, that Zaynab bint Jahch used to boast over the wives of the Prophet, saying: your families married you, and Allah married me from above seven heavens; and in a version through Issa ibn Tahman, from Anas:

Zaynab used to boast over the women of the Prophet, saying: Allah married me from heaven. In her descended the verse of the veil: O you who believe, enter not the houses of the Prophet unless leave be given you for a meal [al-Ahzab: 53]. Al-Bayhaqi reported, from the hadith of Hammad ibn Zayd, from Thabit, from Anas, who said: Zayd came complaining of Zaynab, and the Messenger of Allah kept saying: fear Allah and keep your wife. Anas said: had the Messenger of Allah concealed anything he would have concealed this; and she used to boast over the wives of the Prophet, saying: your families married you, and Allah married me from above seven heavens.

Then he said: al-Bukhari reported it, from Ahmad, from Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Muqaddami, from Hammad ibn Zayd, in abridged form. Then al-Bayhaqi reported, through Affan, from Hammad ibn Zayd, from Thabit, from Anas: Zayd came complaining to the Messenger of Allah of Zaynab bint Jahch, and the Prophet said: ’keep your wife’; and there descended: and you hid within yourself what Allah would reveal; then he said: al-Bukhari reported it, from Muhammad ibn Abd ar-Rahim, from Mu’alla ibn Mansur, from Hammad, in abridged form. Ibn Jarir said: Ibn Humayd narrated to us: Jarir narrated to us, from Mughira, from ash-Sha’bi: Zaynab used to say to the Prophet: I point you to three things none of your wives points you: that my grandfather and your grandfather are one: meaning Abd al-Muttalib, for he is the father of the Prophet’s father and the father of her mother Umayma bint Abd al-Muttalib: and that Allah married me to you from heaven,

and that the emissary is Gabriel, peace be upon him. The Imam Ahmad said: Hashim, meaning ibn al-Qasim Abu an-Nadr, narrated to us: Sulayman ibn al-Mughira narrated to us, from Thabit, from Anas, who said: when the period of Zaynab ended the Prophet said to Zayd: ’go and mention her to me’; and he went until he came to her while she kneaded her dough. He said: when I saw her she became great in my breast, so that I could not look at her that the Messenger of Allah had mentioned her, and I turned my back to her, turning on my heels, and said: O Zaynab, receive glad tidings; the Messenger of Allah sent me to mention you. She said: I shall do nothing until my Lord commands me. Then she went to her mosque, and the Quran descended, and the Messenger of Allah came and entered upon her without leave.

Anas said: I saw, when the Messenger of Allah entered upon her, he fed us upon her bread and meat; the people went out, and men remained conversing in the house after the food; and the Messenger of Allah went out and I followed him, and he began making his rounds of the cells of his wives greeting them, and they said: O Messenger of Allah, how did you find your family? I know not whether I told him the people had gone out or was told. He said: he went until he entered the house, and I went to enter with him, and he cast the screen between me and him, and the veil descended, and the people were exhorted with what they were exhorted: enter not the houses of the Prophet unless leave be given you, the verse. Muslim and an-Nasa’i reported it likewise, by routes, from Sulayman ibn al-Mughira.