Khadijah bint Khuwaylid: Difference between revisions

After three years and some fifty converts,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 115-117.</ref> it was known throughout Mecca that Muhammad considered himself a prophet. Nobody really cared<ref>{{Tabari|6|p. 93}}.</ref> until the day when he gathered his relatives together for a dinner-party and invited them to forsake their idols and submit to Allah. But no mass-conversions followed;<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 117-119.</ref> the Meccans doubted, questioned and ignored him. Discouraged, Muhammad confided his troubles to Khadija,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 191.</ref> who was quick to console him. The citizens of Mecca accused him of outright lying, and Khadija continued to reassure him that he was a prophet.<ref>Ibn Hanbal, ''Musnad'' volume 6 p. 117-118.</ref> Debates led to angry arguments and mockery, and Khadija disparaged their folly. Notwithstanding this concise summary of Khadija’s attitude, surprisingly few specifics are recorded. The exact words of her counter-mockery do not survive, and nor is it precisely described how she “helped him in his work.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 117.</ref> There are very few ''ahadith'' about her everyday life with Muhammad or her involvement in community affairs, although there must have been multiple witnesses to both.  

Muhammad kept preaching, and the public arguments led to fights in the streets. It was a Muslim who struck the first blow,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 118.</ref> but when Muhammad continued to mock the idols in the Ka’aba, the pagans began a systematic campaign of punishing Muslim slaves and teenagers.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 143-145.</ref> One of the worst offenders was Khadija’s brother Nawfal, whom the Muslims called “a satan of the Quraysh.” He once tied Abu Bakr to his kinsman Talha ibn Ubaydullah and left them helplessly roped together.<ref>Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 127-128.</ref> His attitude raises interesting questions about Khadija’s relationship with her brother – especially as Nawfal’s own son was an early convert to Islam.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 147.</ref> However, while his spiteful prank no doubt caused Abu Bakr and Talha some inconvenience, if this was deemed the action of a “satan”, then the general harassment of freeborn adults was far from life-threatening. The majority of these converts fled to Abyssinia, where the Christian King extended his unqualified protection. Muhammad and Khadija, being under the protection of Muhammad’s uncle Abu Talib, persevered in Mecca.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 146ff.</ref>

Muhammad warned his opponents of Hellfire, graphically describing how sinners would be “thrown headlong”<ref>{{Quran|26|94}}.</ref> into “a fierce blast of fire and boiling water, shades of black smoke,”<ref>{{Quran-range|56|42|43}}.</ref> to drink “a boiling fluid, and a fluid dark, murky, intensely cold,”<ref>{{Quran-range|38|56|64}}</ref> allowing nothing to survive and nothing to escape, “darkening and changing the colour of man.”<ref>{{Quran-range|74|26|29}}. See also {{Quran|92|14}}. {{Quran-range|89|23|26}}. {{Quran|102|6}}. {{Quran-range|85|4|6}}. {{Quran|85|10}}. {{Quran-range|101|8|11}}. {{Quran-range|90|19|20}}. {{Quran|54|48}}. {{Quran-range|7|36|41}}. {{Quran|7|50}}. {{Quran|7|179}}. {{Quran|72|15}}. {{Quran|36|63}}. {{Quran-range|25|65|69}}. {{Quran-range|35|6|7}}. {{Quran-range|35|36|37}}. {{Quran|19|86}}. {{Quran|20|74}}. {{Quran-range|56|93|94}}. {{Quran-range|28|41|42}}.</ref> Khadija had to take her share of the warning.

Muhammad’s conclusion is interesting in the light of the fact that ''all'' the children in question had died before Islam. He did not explain why Khadija’s subsequent conversion was retrospectively effective to save some of her children but not all of them.

After the conversions of two famously violent citizens, Hamza ibn Abdulmuttalib<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 131-132.</ref> and Umar ibn Al-Khattab,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 155-159.</ref> the ruling clans of Mecca declared a boycott against Muhammad’s clan, including its non-Muslims. Thenceforth no Meccan might trade, socialise or intermarry with the Hashimites.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 159-160.</ref> The clan inferred that they had been condemned to outlaw status and would not be protected against theft or violence. Fearing worse hostility to follow, in September 616 Abu Talib evacuated the Hashimites from Mecca proper. They camped out in a mountain gorge “formed by one of the defiles, or indentations of the mountain, where the projecting rocks of [Mount] Abu Cobeis pressed upon the eastern outskirts of Mecca. It was entered on the city side by a low gateway, through which a camel passed with difficulty. On all other sides it was detached from the town by cliffs and buildings.”<ref>[http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Life2/chap5.htm/ Muir (1861) vol. 2 pp. 176-178.]</ref> Such a narrow entrance could be constantly guarded, leaving the Hashimites safe but effectively trapped.

“The Quraysh blocked food-grain and other necessaries.”<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 53.1/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:53:1].</ref> For supplies the Hashimites had to depend on smuggler-friends who were willing and able to bypass the Meccans.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 160.</ref> For example, Hisham ibn Amr “used to bring a camel laden with food by night, and then when he had got it to the mouth of the alley, he took off its halter, gave it a whack on the side, and sent it into the alley to them. He would do the same thing another time, bringing clothes for them.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 118.</ref> As the Hashimites had no way of earning money to pay for this food, they had to expend their savings. Over the next three years, Khadija exhausted all her wealth to support the community.<ref>Ibn Hanbal, ''Musnad'' vol. 6 pp. 117-118.</ref> Whether everyone else’s money also ran out, or whether the Quraysh became more efficient at intercepting the smugglers, “the severity of the blockade became so intense that the screams of their children could be heard from behind the mountain pass. Some of the Quraysh were happy at this, while others felt sorry. [The Hashimites] remained in the mountain pass for three years.”<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 53.1/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:53:1].</ref>

Muslims speak with pride of how Muhammad was faithful to Khadija. Typical remarks are:

In one sense this is true. For example, when the Quraysh chiefs wanted to end the boycott, they offered Muhammad “as many wives as he wanted in marriage,” together with wealth, political power and a competent exorcist, if only he would stop reviling their gods. Muhammad scorned this bribe.<ref>{{Tabari|6|pp. 106-107}}. See also Guillaume/Ishaq 132-133.</ref> In this case, however, his loyalty to Khadija can scarcely be disentangled from his loyalty to his own prophetic office. He responded to Khadija’s support with a nepotistic revelation that the Virgin Mary had been the best woman of her generation while Khadija was the best woman of the present generation.<ref>[http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=55&translator=1&start=91&number=633/ Bukhari|4|55|642]. {{Bukhari|5|58|163}}. {{Muslim|31|5965}}.</ref> He claimed that although there were many perfect men, there had only ever been only three perfect women: Asiya “wife of Pharaoh,” who had rescued the infant Moses; Mary the virgin mother of the Prophet Jesus; and Khadija. He later allowed that their daughter Fatima was also one of the four “best among the women of Paradise.”<ref>[http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1298&Itemid=122/ Ibn Kathir, ''Tafsir''] on {{Quran|66|11}}. See also {{Muslim|31|5966}}. He never called any of his other wives or daughters “perfect”, not even his fourth divine spouse, Kulthum the sister of Moses.</ref> How his three elder daughters reacted to such open favouritism is not recorded. When Khadija once brought Muhammad a bowl of soup, she was granted a personal message from Jibreel (of which Aisha was later intensely jealous): “Give her Allah’s greeting and the good news that in Paradise she will have a palace built of a hollow pearl, where there will be no noise or fatigue.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 111. Ibn Hisham note 148. {{Bukhari|3|27|19}}. {{Bukhari|5|58|167}}. {{Bukhari|5|58|168}}. {{Bukhari|9|93|588}}. {{Muslim|31|5967}}. {{Muslim|31|5968}}. {{Muslim|31|5970}}.</ref>

Yet despite this outward loyalty to Khadija, it was exactly at this period when Muhammad frankly admitted that he was thinking about other women. It was only after 614 that he introduced to his descriptions of Paradise the “modest ''houris''” (virgins) with “lustrous eyes” and “swelling breasts” who reclined “like pearls or rubies” on “green cushions”.<ref>{{Quran|38|52}}. {{Quran-range|56|22|23}}. {{Quran-range|37|48|49}}. {{Quran|44|54}}. {{Quran|52|20}}. {{Quran|78|33}}.</ref> According to Muir, all of the Qur’anic descriptions of ''houris'' date to the last few years of Khadija’s life; after Muhammad moved to Medina, remarried to a younger woman, there were only two brief and tame references<ref>{{Quran|2|25}}. {{Quran|4|57}}.</ref> to “companions pure”.<ref>[http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Life2/chap4.htm/ Muir (1861) 2:141-144]. See also [http://www.muhammadanism.org/Canon_Sell/Quran/p024.htm/ Sell, E. (1923). ''The Historical Development of the Qur'an'', 4th Ed, pp. 25-26. London: People International.]</ref> Muir might have miscalculated, as the most detailed reference to the divine virgins<ref>{{Quran-range|55|56|58}} {{Quran-range|55|70|76}}.</ref> is sometimes dated to the Medina period,<ref>[http://www.wikiislam.net/wiki/Chronological_Order_of_the_Qur'an]</ref> although the German historian Nöldeke assigned even this one to Khadija’s lifetime.<ref>[http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Watt/Chapter7.html/ Bell, R. (1953). Introduction to the Qur’an. Revised by Montgomery Watt (1970). Chapter 7: “The Chronology of the Qur’an.” Edinburgh University Press.]</ref> Regardless of the exact date when Muhammad eventually shifted his focus, it is certain that the ageing Khadija knew about the ''houris''.

The boycott against the Hashim clan was lifted “in the tenth year” (between August 619 and August 620), and Muhammad’s clan returned to their houses in Mecca.<ref>[http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 53.3/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 1:53:3].</ref> By this time, Khadija was dying.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:12.</ref> Muhammad comforted her in her final illness with the reminder that she was going to her jewelled palace in Paradise – so she must convey his best wishes to her co-wives. When Khadija expressed surprise at the news that Muhammad already had deceased wives, he explained that Allah had wedded him in Paradise to Queen Asiya, to “Kulthum the sister of Moses” and to the Virgin Mary. The theme of having four wives appears to have been on his mind even in his last moments with Khadija. She responded with the conventional congratulation to a newlywed: “May the union be blessed.”<ref>[http://www.al-islam.org/hayat-al-qulub-vol2-allamah-muhammad-baqir-al-majlisi/ Majlisi, ''Hayat al-Qulub'' 2:26.] Muhammad’s invention of the character “Kulthum” appears to be the aftermath of his embarrassing discovery that the sister of Moses was not identical with the Virgin Mary. (See {{Quran-range|19|27|28}}; {{Muslim|25|5326}}.) He must have over-corrected his error by deducing that Moses’ sister was not even named Maryam.</ref>

Khadija died on 10 Ramadan “in the tenth year of prophethood, three years before the ''Hijra'',” i.e., on 22 April 620, and was buried in Mount Hajun Cemetery near Mecca.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 191. {{Tabari|39|pp. 4, 161}}. Bewley/Saad 8:152. Yet another disputed fact about Khadija’s life is the date of her death. Ibn Saad (Bewley 8:12) also cites 20 Ramadan (2 May) of the tenth year. [https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.kister.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/khadija.pdf&embedded=true/ Kister (1993)] summarises several traditions that cite variant years: one, two, four, five or six years before the ''Hijra''. Assuming that Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Saad and Tabari are correct to prefer “three years before the ''Hijra''”, this suggests a miscalculation on the part of those modern biographers who state that Khadija died in 619.</ref>

“The Messenger of Allah was so grieved about Khadija that people feared for him.”<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:44.</ref> For the rest of his life, he spoke warmly and often of her<ref>{{Bukhari|5|58|164}}. {{Bukhari|5|58|165}}. {{Bukhari|5|58|166}}. {{Bukhari|7|62|156}}. {{Bukhari|8|73|33}}. {{Muslim|31|5971}}. {{Muslim|31|5974}}.</ref> and sometimes seemed overwhelmed by sorrow at her absence.<ref>{{Bukhari|5|58|168}}</ref> He used to say: “Khadija believed in me when they doubted me; she financed me when they tried to starve me out; and she is the mother of my children. Allah himself nurtured love for her in my heart.”<ref>Ibn Hanbal, ''Musnad'' vol. 6 pp. 117-118. {{Muslim|31|5972}}.</ref>

Islam changed direction after Khadija’s death. Within seven weeks Muhammad had become a bigamist.<ref>{{Tabari|39|pp. 170, 171}}. Bewley/Saad 8:39, 43, 152.</ref> At the same time he began negotiations for military alliances with foreign tribes,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 192-195, 197-199.</ref> although it was to be another two years before he succeeded in declaring war on Mecca.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 201-213, 324.</ref> Even the sections of the Qur’an that were composed at the end of Muhammad’s Meccan period, though narrative rather than legislative, read more like the flat prose of Medina than the poetry of Khadija’s lifetime.<ref>[http://www.muhammadanism.org/Canon_Sell/Quran/p074.htm/ Sell (1923), p. 74.] [http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Watt/Chapter7.html/ “The Chronology of the Qur’an.” In Bell, R. (1970). ''Introduction to the Quran.'' Revised by Montgomery Watt. Edinburgh University Press.]</ref> It is frequently said that “Islam arose by Ali’s sword and Khadija’s wealth.”<ref>E.g., [http://www.al-islam.org/masoom/bios/khadija.htm/ Al-Jibouri, Y. T. (1994). Khadija Daughter of Khuwaylid Wife of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)].</ref> It is clear that what Khadija contributed to the foundations of Islam was far more than money. It is doubtful that she intended or foresaw the enthusiasm with which later Muslims would resort to the sword.