Home > Sira > The marriage of Prophet Muhammad to Khadija bint Khuwaylid
How Prophet Muhammad married Khadija bint Khuwaylid: the trade journey to Syria, Maysara and the monk, Khadija’s proposal, the dowry of twenty she-camels, the couple’s ages and their children, from Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham and al-Bayhaqi.
Updated on 07 September 2026 at 11:07 PM
Ibn Ishaq said: Khadija bint Khuwaylid was a merchant woman of nobility and wealth who used to hire men to trade with her capital. When news reached her of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), his truthfulness in speech, the greatness of his trustworthiness and the nobility of his character, she invited him to travel in trade for her to Syria. She offered him a reward greater than what she gave other merchants, along with her servant Maysara. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) accepted and set out with her capital, accompanied by Maysara.
When he arrived in Syria, he sat in the shade of a tree near the monastery of a monk. The monk asked Maysara: “Who is this man sitting under the tree?” Maysara replied: “He is a man of Quraysh, from the people of the Sanctuary.” The monk said: “None sits under this tree except a prophet.”
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sold his merchandise and bought what he wished, then returned toward Mecca with Maysara. In the hours when the heat pressed down, Maysara would see, as it is related, two angels shading the Prophet as he rode his mount.
Back in Mecca, Khadija’s capital was sold with a doubled profit, or close to it. Maysara told Khadija the monk’s words and what he had seen of the two angels. Khadija, a resolute, noble and discerning woman whom Allah willed to honor, sent for him and said, as it is related: “O son of my uncle, I desire you for your kinship, your standing among your people, your trustworthiness, your fine character and the truthfulness of your speech.” Then she offered herself to him in marriage.
She was the noblest by lineage among the women of Quraysh, the most honored and the wealthiest: her whole people would have wished for that marriage had they been able. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) mentioned it to his uncles. His uncle Hamza went out with him until they entered upon Khuwaylid ibn Asad, who married her to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
Ibn Hisham said: he gave her twenty young she-camels as dowry; she was the first woman he married, and he married no other until her death. Ibn Ishaq said: she bore the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) all of his children except Ibrahim: al-Qasim, after whom he was named (kunya), then at-Tayyib, at-Tahir, Zaynab, Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum and Fatima.
Ibn Hisham said: the eldest was al-Qasim, then at-Tayyib then at-Tahir; the eldest of the daughters was Ruqayya, then Zaynab, then Umm Kulthum, then Fatima. al-Bayhaqi relates, from al-Hakim, that Mus’ab ibn Abdallah az-Zubayri used to say: the eldest was al-Qasim, then Zaynab, then Abdallah, then Umm Kulthum, then Fatima, then Ruqayya; the first of his children to die were al-Qasim, then Abdallah.
Khadija reached sixty-five years according to some, fifty according to others, and this is sounder. It was related that al-Qasim had reached the age of riding mounts before dying after the beginning of the prophethood, while others said he died in infancy; the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) then said: “He will have a nurse in Paradise who will complete his weaning.” The well-known case on this point concerns Ibrahim.
Younous ibn Bukayr reported, from Ibrahim ibn Uthman, from al-Hakam, from Miqsam, from Ibn Abbas: Khadija bore the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) two boys and four girls: al-Qasim and Abdallah, then Fatima, Umm Kulthum, Zaynab and Ruqayya. az-Zubayr ibn Bakkar said: Abdallah is at-Tayyib and he is at-Tahir, so named because he was born after the prophethood; they died before the mission, while the girls reached the mission, entered Islam and emigrated with him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), as Ibn Hisham related.
As for Ibrahim, his mother was Mariya the Copt, given to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) by the Muqawqis, master of Alexandria, from a village in the district of Ansina. We will speak of his wives and children in a chapter devoted to them at the end of the sira, Allah willing: in Him is trust.
Ibn Hisham said: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was twenty-five years old when he married Khadija, as more than one scholar related, among them Abu Amr al-Madani. Ya’qoub ibn Soufyan wrote, from Ibrahim ibn al-Mundhir, that more than one transmitter related that Amr ibn Asad married Khadija to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) when he was twenty-five, and Quraysh was building the Kaaba.
al-Bayhaqi likewise relates, from al-Hakim, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was twenty-five when he married Khadija, and that Khadija was then thirty-five; others said twenty-eight.
al-Bayhaqi devoted a chapter to what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) occupied himself with before marrying Khadija. In it he relates, from Abu Hurayra:
“Allah sent no prophet who did not shepherd sheep.” His Companions asked: “And you, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied: “Yes, I shepherded the sheep of the people of Mecca for a few qirats.”
Related by al-Bukhari, from Abu Hurayra
al-Bayhaqi then related, through the chain of ar-Rabii ibn Badr, a chain he judged weak, from Abu az-Zubayr, from Jabir: “I hired myself out to Khadija for two journeys, for sandals.” He also related, through the chain of Hammad ibn Salama, from Ali ibn Zayd, from Ammar ibn Abi Ammar, from Ibn Abbas, an account in which Khadija’s father marries her to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) while he is drunk.
al-Bayhaqi related through a long chain the account of Ammar ibn Yasar: whenever he heard people multiply talk of the Prophet’s (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) marriage to Khadija, he would say: “I am the most knowledgeable of men of his marriage to her: I was his companion at archery, his close friend and his intimate.” He went out one day with the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him); arriving at al-Hazwara, they passed by Khadija’s sister, seated on a hide she was selling. She called me, I stopped by her, and the Prophet waited.
She asked: “Does your companion have no wish to marry Khadija?” Ammar continued: I conveyed her words to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), who said: “Yes, by my life.” I brought back his answer, and she said: “Come see us tomorrow morning.” We went: they had slaughtered a cow, dressed their father in fine clothing and dyed his beard with saffron.
His sister spoke to her brother, and the brother to their father, who had been given wine to drink: they mentioned to him the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his standing, and he asked that he be married to Khadija, which was done. The cow was cooked and we ate of it, then their father fell asleep and woke sober. He exclaimed: “What is this garment, this saffron and this meal?”
His daughter answered: “This is a garment that Muhammad ibn Abdallah, your ally, gave you, and a cow he gave you that we slaughtered when he married Khadija.” He denied having married her and went out crying until he reached the space of the Hijr. The Banu Hashim went out with the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and came to him. He asked: “Where is your companion whom you claim I married to Khadija?” The Prophet came forward: the man looked at him and said: “If I married her, all the better; if not, it is now done: I marry her to you.”
az-Zuhri mentioned in his sira that her father married her to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) while he was drunk, and as-Suhayli related an account of the same kind. But the scholars’ consensus is about her uncle Amr ibn Asad: it is he who married her to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and this is what as-Suhayli retained, relating it from Ibn Abbas. Aisha also said that Khuwaylid died before the war of al-Fijar.
It was in that war that Khuwaylid had stood against Tubba, when the latter wanted to take the Black Stone away to Yemen: he rose against it with a group of Quraysh, until Tubba saw in a dream what frightened him, gave up and left the Black Stone in its place. Ibn Ishaq finally mentioned, at the end of the sira, that it was Khadija’s brother, Amr ibn Khuwaylid, who married her to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): Allah is most knowing.