The deaths and marriages of the year four

In Joumada al-Oula of this year died Abdallah ibn Outhman ibn Affan, son of Ruqayya, daughter of the Messenger of Allah: he was six years of age. The Messenger of Allah prayed over him, and his father Outhman ibn Affan went down into his grave. That year also died Abou Salama Abdallah ibn Abd al-Asad al-Makhzoumi, son of Barra bint Abd al-Muttalib, paternal aunt of the Messenger of Allah. He had been a nursling of the Prophet: both were suckled by Thouwayba, freedwoman of Abou Lahab.

His Islam was ancient, on the same day as that of Abou Oubayda, Outhman ibn Affan and al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam. He had emigrated with his wife Oum Salama to the land of Abyssinia, where children were born to them, then returned to Mecca, then emigrated from Mecca to Medina, Oum Salama following. He witnessed Badr and Ouhoud, and died from the effects of a wound received at Ouhoud. From the Prophet he relates a unique hadith on supplication at the time of trial: the Messenger of Allah said: "No Muslim is struck by an affliction but that, if he says at the moment of it: we belong to Allah and to Him we return: O Allah, reward me in my affliction and replace it for me with better, it will be done for him."

Ahmad, the Tirmidhi and an-Nasa’i report it from Oum Salama.

In Cha’bane of this year was born Houssayn ibn Ali, of Fatima, daughter of the Messenger of Allah. In Ramadhan, the Messenger of Allah married Zaynab bint Khuzayma ibn al-Harith al-Hilaliyya, milk-sister of Maymouna according to Ibn Abd al-Barr, who found that kinship strange, having seen it nowhere else. She was called Oum al-Masakin, mother of the poor, for the abundance of her charities and her kindness to them. The Prophet dowered her with four hundred dirhams, twelve ounces, and entered upon her in Ramadhan: she had previously been the wife of Toufayl ibn al-Harith, who divorced her, then of his brother Oubayda ibn al-Harith; it is also said she had been the wife of Abdallah ibn Jahch, killed at Ouhoud. There is no disagreement that she died in the Prophet’s lifetime, after but two or three months with him.

In Shawwal of this year the Messenger of Allah married Oum Salama bint Abi Oumayya, widow of Abou Salama. He had been wounded at Ouhoud, treated his wound a month until it healed, then went out on an expedition from which he brought back camels and fine spoons, dwelt seventeen days after, and his wound reopened: he died on the third of the remaining nights of Joumada al-Oula of this year. When her waiting period ended in Shawwal, the Messenger of Allah sought her for himself, and sent Oumar ibn al-Khattab to her repeatedly. She replied that she was a woman of intense jealousy, and that she had children depending on her who would occupy her, needing provision: he said: "As for the children, they belong to Allah and to His messenger, it is not you who shall provide for them; as for the jealousy, I shall pray to Allah and He will take it away."

She consented, and said to Oumar: rise, then, and marry the Prophet to me! Some scholars imagined she spoke to her son Oumar ibn Abi Salama, who was then too young to contract such a marriage: the correct view is that the one sent was Oumar the caliph, and that the one who contracted for her was her son Salama ibn Abi Salama, her eldest. This is admissible: for Salama’s father was his mother’s cousin, and a son may contract his mother’s marriage apart from mere filiation, by consensus; and likewise if he be a former master or a judge. As for filiation alone, ach-Chafi’i rejects it, against Abou Hanifa, Malik and Ahmad. We have devoted to this question a separate volume, and it will be treated in the book of marriage of the great ordinances.

Oum Salama relates: Abou Salama came to me one day from the Messenger of Allah and said: I heard from the Messenger of Allah a word which gladdened me: no Muslim is struck by an affliction but that, if he says at the moment of it: O Allah, reward me in my affliction and replace it for me with better, it is done for him. I memorised that from him. When Abou Salama died I said the supplication, then retraced my thought: whence would better than Abou Salama come to me? When my waiting period ended, the Messenger of Allah sought my hand while I was tanning a skin of mine: I washed my hands of the tan, gave him leave, and set for him a leather cushion stuffed with palm fibre, on which he sat.

He sought me for himself; when he had finished speaking I said: O Messenger of Allah, it is not that I have no wish for you; but I am a woman of intense jealousy, and I fear you would see in me what Allah would punish me for; and I am a woman advanced in years, and I have children. He said: "As for the jealousy you mention, Allah will take it away from you; as for the age you mention, the like of what you have mentioned has befallen me; and as for the children, your children are my children." She said: so I gave myself to the Messenger of Allah. And she said: Allah has given me in exchange for Abou Salama one better than he: the Messenger of Allah!

After Badr al-Mou’ad the Messenger of Allah returned to Medina and remained there until Dhoul-Hijja passed, and he presided over that pilgrimage.