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===First Marriage=== | ===First Marriage=== | ||
Zaynab was married in Mecca, but almost nothing is known about her husband.<ref>Her words, "I am a widow," spoken in 624 or 625, do not even prove ''how many'' husbands she had had. While it is parsimonious to assume that it was only one, we note here that it is in theory possible that Zaynab was married more than once in Mecca.</ref> He appears to have been a Quraysh of respectable status. He was probably not from the leading clans of Umayya, Makhzum or even Hashim, since Zaynab's statement that he was a Quraysh<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 180}}: "I am the widow of the Quraysh."</ref> was deliberately asserted to emphasise his social rank, so if he had belonged to these families, she would have certainly said so. But every Quraysh was deemed of higher social status than every other person in Mecca. | |||
This | We can take some educated guesses about Zaynab's married life. First, she was occasionally known as ''Umm al-Hakam'',<ref>[http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-1/zainab-bint-djahsh-SIM_6058/ Vacca, V. (2013). "Zainab bint Djahsh" in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam. First Edition (1913-1936)''. Brill Online, 2013. Retrieved 7 March 2013.]: "her ''kunya'' was Umm al-Hakam and her name had been Barra."</ref> which literally means "Mother of the Judge". There is nothing in her biography that indicates she had any kind of legal expertise or even that she was consulted for her general wisdom. It is therefore most likely that ''Umm al-Hakam'' was a literal ''kunya'' and that Zaynab gave birth to an actual child named Al-Hakam. This child is never otherwise mentioned, so he probably died in infancy. Zaynab probably had no further children; she certainly had none who survived and none at all by her subsequent husbands.<ref></ref> | ||
Second, Zaynab was a skilled craftswoman. She knew how to tan leather,<ref></ref> dye cloth,<ref></ref> pierce pearls<ref></ref> and make clothes and other household items from cloth and leather.<ref></ref> There is no indication that any other member of her family had these skills, and she certainly did not grow up with the economic need to learn a trade. So it is reasonable to infer that Zaynab's first husband was from a leather-working family and that she learned her skills from them. Since she continued with this work all her life, whether there was an economic need for it or not,<ref></ref> it is safe to say that she enjoyed it. So the everyday-labour aspect of her first marriage must have been happy. | |||
Thirdly, however, Zaynab's first husband does not seem to have made a deep impression on her. All the previous husbands of Muhammad's other wives are carefully listed in their biographies. They include some men who were Muslim heroes, others who were considered enemies of Islam, and others again who were of no great importance. The historians were very obviously not excluding information that was somehow "embarrassing", so this cannot be the reason why the name of Zaynab's first husband is missing. It must have been because, by the time the ''ahadith'' were committed to writing, nobody remembered it. Not only did Zaynab apparently not talk about him very much, but nor did anyone else who had known him: her siblings, their numerous Hashimite cousins, their honorary Umayya kin ... all are silent of both the good and the bad. Perhaps the marriage did not last very long, or perhaps the man had a forgettable personality. | |||
Zaynab was a widow by the time she emigrated to Medina under the protection of her brother Abdullah. This was in late 620 or 621, when she was about 30. | ===Islam=== | ||
Zaynab's brother-in-law, Abdulrahman ibn Awf,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 115.</ref> and her cousin, Abdullah (later Abu Salama) ibn Abdulasad,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 116</ref> were among the earliest converts to Islam. Her brothers Abu Ahmad and Abdullah came under the influence of Abu Bakr and were converted slightly later, perhaps in 612.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 116.</ref> The other four siblings and their father Riyab are not included in the list of "those who accepted Islam at Abu Bakr's invitation," but they were nevertheless all Muslims by 615. This suggests that Zaynab, in her early twenties at the time, was converted<ref>Tabari 39:180.</ref> under the influence of her brothers. The lists of early converts include all her siblings' spouses but nobody who could have plausibly been Zaynab's husband. So he probably remained a pagan. Her mother Umama also remained a pagan.<ref></ref> | |||
Zaynab was a widow by the time she emigrated to Medina under the protection of her brother Abdullah. This was in late 620 or 621, when she was about 30.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 215.</ref> | |||
===Second Marriage=== | ===Second Marriage=== | ||