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Khadijah, may Allah be pleased with her, came from a noble
family. Her father Khuwaylid had been one of the most honored leaders of
their tribe until he was killed in battle. Her husband had also died,
leaving her a very wealthy woman. When Muhammad (peace be upon him) was
still a young man, she entrusted him with some of her wealth, asking him to
trade with it in Syria on her behalf. He was already well known for his
honesty, truthfulness and trustworthiness. He returned from Syria after
having made a large profit for Khadijah.
After hearing his account of the journey, she decided that he would make the
best of the husbands, even though many of the most important nobles of the
Quraish had already proposed to her and had been refused, and in due course
she proposed to him. After the Prophet's uncle, Abu Talib, had given the
proposed marriage his blessing, Muhammad and Khadijah were married. At the
time of the marriage, the Prophet was twenty-five years old, while Khadijah
was forty years old.
For the next fifteen years they lived happily together, and Khadijah bore
several children. Their first child, a son whom they named Qasim, died when
he was only two years old. Two more sons, called Tayyib and Tahir, were also
born, but they too died in their infancy. However, Muhammad and Khadijah
also had four daughters who survived: Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum and
Fatimah.
No one except Allah of course, knows more about a man than his wife, both
his good and his bad qualities, his strengths and his weaknesses. The more
Khadijah came to know about her husband, the more she loved and respected
him. Everyone in Makka called him 'al-Amin', which means 'the trustworthy
one', and she, more than anyone else, knew how fitting this name was. It
became Muhammad's custom each year to spend the month of Ramadan in
seclusion and reflection in a cave on the mountain of Hira, which is on the
outskirts of Makka. Khadijah would always make sure that he was provided
with food and drink during his retreat. Towards the end of one Ramadan, when
he was forty and Khadijah fifty-five, Muhammad suddenly appeared at their
house in the middle of the night, trembling with fear and saying, "Cover me
up, cover me up!"
Khadijah was very alarmed to see him in such a state. Quickly she wrapped a
blanket around his shoulders and, when he had calmed down, she asked him to
describe exactly what had happened. He told her how a being whom he had
never seen before - in fact it was the angel Jibril - had suddenly appeared
to him while he was asleep and had said, "Read!"
"But I cannot read," he had replied, for he was unlettered and could neither
read or write. "Read!" the angel had repeated, clasping Muhammad close to
his chest. "I cannot read," he had repeated. "Read!" the angel had repeated,
firmly embracing him yet again. "What shall I read?" he had asked in
desperation, and the angel had replied:
Read, in the Name of your Lord who created, created man from a clot, Read,
and your Lord is the Most Gracious, Who taught with the pen, taught man what
he did not know. (Quran 96:1-5)
Although Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not fully
realize it at the time, this was the beginning of the revelation of the
Qur'an; but in that first encounter with the angel Jibril, Muhammad was very
frightened, for he did not know who the angel Jibril was or what was
happening. He woke up and ran out of the cave only to find Jibril still in
front of him, and whenever he turned away from him, there Jibril was in
front of him yet again, filling the horizon with his mighty yet beautiful
form.
"Oh Muhammad," said Jibril eventually, "you are the Messenger of Allah and I
am Jibril," and with these words he disappeared from Muhammad's sight.
After the angel had disappeared Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him) had clambered down the mountain as fast as he could run, not
knowing if he was going mad and imagining things, or if he had been
possessed by one of the jinn.
As she listened to Muhammad's words, Khadijah did not share any of these
fears. She realized that something tremendous and awe-inspiring had happened
to her husband, and she was certain, knowing him as she did, that he was
neither mad nor possessed. "Do not worry," she said, "for by Him who has
dominion over Khadijah's soul, I hope that you are the Prophet of this
nation. Allah would never humiliate you, for you are good to your relatives,
you are true to your word, you help those who are in need, you support the
weak, you feed the guest and you answer the call of those who are in
distress."
When Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as a little more
relaxed, Khadijah took him to see her cousin, Waraqa ibn Nawfal, for he was
a man of knowledge, and she was sure that he would be able to explain the
meaning of what had just happened to her beloved husband. Waraqa had studied
the books of both the Jews and the Christians very closely and he had
learned a great deal from many of their wisest people. He knew that the
coming of another Prophet had been foretold by both Moses and Jesus, peace
be on them, and he knew many of the signs that would confirm the identity of
this Prophet when he appeared.
After listening closely to his story, Waraqa, who was both old and blind,
exclaimed, "This is the same being who brought the revelations of Allah to
Moses. I wish I was young and could be alive why our people will drive you
out."
"Will they drive me out?" asked Muhammad.
"Yes," replied Waraqa. "No one has come with what you have been given
without being treated with enmity; and if I were to live until the day when
you are turned out, then I would support you with all my might. Let me just
feel your back." So, saying, Waraqa felt between the Prophet's
shoulder-blades and found what he was feeling for: a small round, slightly
raised irregularity in the skin, about the size of a pigeon's egg. This was
yet another of the many signs that Waraqa already knew would indicate the
identity of the next Prophet after Jesus, (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him).
"This is the Seal of the Prophethood!" he exclaimed. "Now I am certain that
you are indeed the Prophet whose coming was foretold in the Torah that was
revealed to Moses and in the Injil that was revealed to Jesus, (pbut) You
are indeed the Messenger of Allah, and the being who appeared to you on the
mountain was indeed the angel Jibril!"
Khadijah as both overjoyed and awed to find that her understanding of what
had happened on the mountain had been confirmed. Not long after this
incident, Muhammad was commanded in a subsequent revelation from Allah,
through the angel Jibril, to call people to worship Allah only, and it was
at this point that Khadijah did not hesitate in expressing in public what
she had now known for certain in secret for some time: " I bear witness that
there is no god except Allah," she said, "and I bear witness that Muhammad
is the Messenger of Allah."
In the years that followed, difficult years in which the leaders of the
Quraish did everything in their power to stop the Prophet spreading his
message, Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her) was a constant source of
help and comfort to Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the difficulties which
he had to face. All her wealth was spent in the way of Allah, helping to
spread the message of her husband, helping to free slaves who had embraced
Islam, and helping to feed and shelter the community of Muslims that slowly
but surely began to grow in numbers and strength.
The Quraish were infuriated by the Prophet's success and did everything in
their power to discourage both him and his followers, often inflicting awful
tortures on them, but without success. The situation became so bad that the
Prophet told some of his followers to go to Abyssinia, where their ruler,
the Negus, who was a sincere Christian gave them shelter and protection.
Eventually there came a time when, as Waraqa had foretold, Muhammad and his
followers -along with all the members of his tribe, the Banu Hashim were
driven out of the city of Mecca and forced to camp out in a small ravine in
the mountains nearby. This happened long after Waraqa had died, and about
seven years after that extraordinary night of power in which Muhammad (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him) had received the first revelation of
Quran through the angel Jibril. There, while their homes lay empty in Mecca,
the Muslims were exposed to the bitterly cold nights of winter and the fiery
hot days of summer, with very little food and shelter. No one would buy and
sell with the Muslims, or allow their sons and daughters to marry any of
them. Fortunately those who secretly sympathized with the Muslims would send
what food they could to them whenever the chance arose, sometimes by loading
provisions onto a camel or a horse and then sending it off at a gallop in
the direction of the camp, hoping that the animal would not stop or get lost
before it reached its intended destination.
For three years the small Muslim community lived a life of hardship and
deprivation, but although they suffered from hunger and thirst, and from
exposure to heat and cold, this was a time in which the hearts of the first
Muslims were both purified and also filled with the light of knowledge and
wisdom. The Muslims knew that they were following the truth, and so nothing
else mattered. They did not care what the Quraish did to them or said about
them. Allah and His Messenger were enough for them!
It was during this period that the Muslims who had sought shelter in
Abyssinia returned, only to find the situation even worse than when they had
left it. Not long after, many of them returned to Abyssinia, their numbers
swelled by those whom the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
had told to accompany them. Finally the boycott was lifted and the Muslims
were allowed to re enter the city; but the three years of hardship had taken
their toll. First of all the Prophet's uncle, Abu Talib, who was by then
more than eighty years old, died; and then a few months later, during the
month of Ramadan, Khadijah also died, at the age of sixty-five, may Allah be
pleased with her. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him) mourned her deeply. They had shared twenty-five years of marriage
together and she had given birth to five of his children. Only one of the
Prophet's future wives, Mariyyah the Copt, would give him another child,
Ibrahim, and he, like Qasim, was destined to die when he was still very
young, at the age of eighteen months.
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.'
In private his dearest wife was no longer present to share his life; and in
public the insults that he received from the Quraish multiplied, now that he
had no longer had the protection of his dead uncle. Even when he journeyed
to Ta'if, a small city up in the mountains outside Mecca, to call its people
to worship Allah, he was rejected and stoned by them. It has been related by
Aisha that on his way back to Mecca, Jibril appeared to the Prophet (peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said, "Allah, may He be exalted and
glorified, has heard what the people have said to you and how they have
responded to your invitation, and he has sent the angel in charge of the
mountains so that you can tell him what you want him to with them." Then the
angel in charge of the mountains called out to him and greeted him and said,
"O Muhammad, Allah has listened to what your people have said to you. I am
the angel in charge of the mountains, and your Lord has sent me so that you
can order me to do whatever you want. If you wish, I can bring the mountain
of the outskirts of Mecca together so that they are crushed between them."
But the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said
to him, "Rather I hope that Allah will make their descendants a people who
will worship Allah alone, without ascribing any partners to him."
It was a while after this that the following Surah was revealed:
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
By the morning hours, and by the night when it is stillest, Your Lord has
not forsake you nor does He hate you, And truly what comes after will be
better for you than what has come before, And truly your Lord will give to
you so that you will be content. Did he not find you an orphan and protect
you? Did he not find you wandering and guide you? Did he not find you
destitute and enrich you? So do not oppress the orphan, And do not drive the
beggar away, And speak about the blessings of Your Lord. (Quran 93:1-11)
And so it happened. After three years of constant struggle, a relative of
his, called Khawla, went to him and pointed out that his house was sadly
neglected and that his daughters needed a mother to look after them. "But
who can take the place of Khadijah?" he asked. "Aisha, the daughter of Abu
Bakr, the dearest of people to you," she answered. Abu Bakr (may Allah be
pleased with him) had been the first man to accept Islam and he was the
Prophet's closest companion. Like Khadijah, he had done all that he could do
to help the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and had
spent all his wealth in the way of Allah. However, while the Prophet
Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was now fifty-three
years old, Aisha as only a little girl of seven. She was hardly in a
position to look after either the Prophet's household or children. "She is
very young." Replied the Prophet. Khawla had a solution for everything. She
suggested that he marry at the same time a lady called Sawdah, the widow of
Al-Sakran ibn 'Amr.
Source > > http://www.a2youth.com |
