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Khadijah bint Khuwaylid: Difference between revisions
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==Marriage to Muhammad== | ==Marriage to Muhammad== | ||
Khadijah sent as her intermediary Nafisa bint Umayya, a freedwoman from Abu Hala’s tribe.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:10, 172. She is sometimes known matrilinearly as Nafisa bint Munya, suggesting that she was illegitimate.</ref> Nafisa approached Muhammad at the bazaar and asked why he had never married. He replied that he could not afford to support a family. “But if money were no obstacle,” Nafisa persisted, “would you be willing to marry a lady of wealth, rank and beauty?” Muhammad asked which lady of that description would be willing to take him, and Nafisa named Khadijah. Muhammad instantly expressed his willingness.<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 35.1/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:35:1].</ref> When Khadijah next sent for Muhammad, it was to make a formal proposal. She spoke of how his noble ancestry, good reputation and personal honesty rendered him eligible, and offered herself as his wife.<ref>{{Tabari|6|p. 48}}.</ref> | Khadijah sent as her intermediary Nafisa bint Umayya, a freedwoman from Abu Hala’s tribe.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:10, 172. She is sometimes known matrilinearly as Nafisa bint Munya, suggesting that she was illegitimate.</ref> Nafisa approached Muhammad at the bazaar and asked why he had never married. He replied that he could not afford to support a family. “But if money were no obstacle,” Nafisa persisted, “would you be willing to marry a lady of wealth, rank and beauty?” Muhammad asked which lady of that description would be willing to take him, and Nafisa named Khadijah. Muhammad instantly expressed his willingness.<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 35.1/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:35:1].</ref> When Khadijah next sent for Muhammad, it was to make a formal proposal. She spoke of how his noble ancestry, good reputation and personal honesty rendered him eligible, and offered herself as his wife.<ref>{{Tabari|6|p. 48}}.</ref> | ||
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Her regular childbearing and fidelity to Muhammad and numerous other accounts of his quickness to “draw close to her” for comfort,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 106</ref> are described in the traditions. There even seems to have been a manner in which Khadija employed sex to distract him from his troubles.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 107; {{Tabari|6|p. 73}}.</ref> All this would appear to suggest that their marriage was a functional one, and there is little reason to believe that Muhammad would have had to have some sort of exceptional virtue to have been successful within it. | Her regular childbearing and fidelity to Muhammad and numerous other accounts of his quickness to “draw close to her” for comfort,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 106</ref> are described in the traditions. There even seems to have been a manner in which Khadija employed sex to distract him from his troubles.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 107; {{Tabari|6|p. 73}}.</ref> All this would appear to suggest that their marriage was a functional one, and there is little reason to believe that Muhammad would have had to have some sort of exceptional virtue to have been successful within it. | ||
==Controversial wedding== | |||
Khadijah asked for a dower of 20 camels.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 82; Ibn Hisham note 918.</ref> Twenty camels would have been worth about £8,000,<ref>Numerous ''ahadith'' such as {{Bukhari|2|24|528}} and {{Muslim|10|3893}} indicate that a camel cost about 80 ''dirhams'', although this varied with the age and health of the camel. Hence 20 camels would be worth 1,600 ''dirhams''. {{Bukhari|5|59|357}} indicates that an annual income of 5,000 ''dirhams'' was a comfortable living, so Khadijah’s dower was equivalent to four months’ (middle-class) income. However, it seems that a frugal person could survive on a ''dirham'' a day ([http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Life4/chap25.htm/ Muir (1861) vol. 4 p. 156]), so the same sum came to over four years’ wages for a labourer. While it is almost impossible to calculate equivalent prices for such a different culture, the ''dirham'', a silver coin, was the price of a wooden bowl or a ground-sheet ({{Abudawud|9|1637}}) or a cheap necklace ({{Abudawud|14|2704}}), so we might, very roughly, think of a ''dirham'' as £5. A ''dinar'', a gold coin worth 10 ''dirhams'', was the price of a sheep.</ref> which was four times the dower that Muhammad gave to any of his subsequent wives.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 189}}. See also Ibn Hisham note 918. The same 400 ''dirhams'' (£2,000) was also the ransom for a war-captive ({{Abudawud|14|2685}}) or the starting price for a slave ({{Tabari|39|p. 6}}).</ref> This is said to suggest that Khadijah was “worth four women” to him, i.e. that it was part of their marriage contract that he would not take another wife in her lifetime. An un-wealthy man like Muhammad would have had some trouble amassing such a hefty gift, even if he returned all the beasts that Khadijah had given him (she had paid his commissions in camels).<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 34.1/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:34:2.]</ref> His good fortune in attracting the wealthiest woman in Mecca likely delighted the investment-seeking Abu Talib, and it can plausibly be assumed that the family combined resources to raise the dower. | |||
Marriage required the consent of the bride’s guardian, and Khadijah’s father Khuwaylid had refused her previous suitors. Given his poverty relative to Khadijah's previous suitors, it was clear that Muhammad would not be acceptable to her father. It is recorded that she therefore plotted to secure his permission through trickery. She plied her father with wine until he was drunk. Then she slaughtered a cow, covered his shoulders with a new striped robe and sprinkled him with perfume, whereupon Muhammad and his uncles entered the house. Khadijah extracted the legally binding words from her father while he was too inebriated to know what he was saying. As the day wore on and the wedding party was in full swing, Khuwaylid recovered his sobriety enough to ask, “What is this meat, this robe and this perfume?” Khadijah replied, “You have given me in marriage to Muhammad ibn Abdullah.” Khuwaylid was as furious as his daughter had expected, protesting that he had never consented to any such thing and even unsheathing his sword. Muhammad’s kin also brandished weapons, and bloodshed was avoided. Muhammad was now Khadijah’s husband.<ref>{{Tabari|6|p. 49}}. [http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 35.4/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:35:4, 5.] See also Guillaume/Ishaq 83 and Ibn Hisham note 918.</ref> | |||
Although the Muslim historian Waqidi rejected this story (even while reporting it), the British historian Muir points out that nobody had any reason to fabricate it. The tradition is from two independent sources, both of whom were biased in Muhammad’s favor and neither of whom had any reason to disparage Khadijah’s father or his clan. Two further independent sources, without mentioning the drunken party, state that it was Khuwaylid who married Khadijah to Muhammad. Although Waqidi claims that it was Khadijah’s uncle who gave her away because her father had died before the Sacrilegious War (591-594), his pupil Ibn Saad names Khuwaylid as a commander in that war. Muir therefore concludes that the tradition of Khuwaylid’s death “has been invented, to throw discredit on the story of his drunkenness.”<ref>[http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Life2/chap2.htm/ Muir (1861) vol. 2 p. 24f]. See also {{Tabari|6|pp. 48-50}}; Ibn Hisham note 918.</ref> | |||
This story highlights the Arab practice of marriage as a contract between bridegroom and father-in-law in which they transferred the guardianship of a woman. It was somewhat similar to buying a camel: the purchase required the consent of the vendor. Muhammad largely preserved this practice of marriage. To the end of his life, he was particular about meeting the legal requirement to contract with a guardian;<ref>E.g., see Bewley/Saad 8:63, 65; {{Tabari|39|pp. 178-179}}; Bewley/Saad 8:105.</ref> and explicitly endorsed the transactional nature of the [[Mahr (Marital Price)|mahr]] as being a sort of payment for unlimited sexual access to a woman, [[Rape in Islamic Law|even against her will]], so long as she consented once in the form of agreeing to marry. | |||
The story also foreshadows some types of consent Muhammad would go on to consider as legally binding. At various points in his life, he was to extract consent at sword-point,<ref>E.g., Guillaume/Ishaq 547.</ref> under duress,<ref>E.g., Guillaume/Ishaq 314-315. Bewley/Saad 8:87-88.</ref> from an immature or unsound mind,<ref>E.g., Bewley/Saad 8:43.</ref> by withholding essential information,<ref>E.g., Guillaume/Ishaq 463-464. {{Tabari|39|p. 165}}.</ref> by offering a choice between two bad alternatives,<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:40. Guillaume/Ishaq 493.</ref> by exploiting spiritual beliefs,<ref>[http://altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=33&tAyahNo=36&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0/ Jalalayn, ''Tafsir'' Q33:36]. See also {{Quran|33|36}}. {{Bukhari|3|43|648}}, {{Muslim|4|3511}}.</ref> through bribery<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 438; 594-597.</ref> or by making promises that he intended to break.<ref>E.g., Guillaume/Ishaq 504, 509. Bewley/Saad 8:181-182.</ref> In light of this component to Muhammad's legacy, it is perhaps somewhat unclear why Waqidi felt the need to scrub the story of Khadijah's trickery from the record. | |||
==Children== | ==Children== | ||