Khadijah bint Khuwaylid

“ Not long afterwards, Khadijah, the prophet's wife died. She had wielded a strong, healthy influence over her husband, and had cheered him on in times of discouragement and failure. Islam owes not a little to her life and influence, and were it more widely recognised, might possibly lead to an improvement of the position of the poor unfortunate daughters of the system, who are enslaved and degraded to a saddening degree. After Khadijah's death, Mohammed took full advantage of the polygamous sanctions of Paganism, and even abused the privilege when it conflicted with his own inclinations. ”

“ Many tpaditions are recorded of the sympathetic attachment of Mohammed and Khadijah, the one for the other, and all point to the deference Mohammed always paid to her and how he in- variably sought her advice and encouragement. At that great crisis of his life when he believed that he had received his first message from God by the mouth of the angel Gabriel, trembling and agitated, he tottered to Khadijah and told her of his vision and agony of mind. "Fear not", exclaimed Khadijah, "for joyful tidings dost thou bring. I will henceforth regard thee as the prophet of our nation. ”

“ Her intelligence was quick to grasp another's thought, if she did not originate thought within herself. She was a woman fitted to be the helper and guide of such a man as Mahomet, eager, impulsive, prone to swiftly alternating extremes of depression and elation. A subtle mental attraction drew them together, and Khadijah divined intuitively the power lying within the mind of this youth and also his need of her, both mentally and materially, to enable him to realise his whole self. ”

“ He noticed that she spoke in the same way as his dead wife, and was so stirred that, overcome by jealousy, I could not help showing temper and I exclaimed: 'What meanest thou by continually conjuring up the remembrance of these old Quraish females, with their toothless, red gums and faces betraying the ravages of age? Hath not Allah given thee better women in their stead?'"
But despite these scenes, despite the beauty and intelligence of Ayishah and his other wives, the Prophet always preferred Khadijah. He included her among the four most perfect women that ever came on earth. ”

“ The Prophet assured Khadîjah, on her death-bed, that she, with the Virgin Mary, Potiphar's wife, and 'Kulthum, Moses' sister,' should be with him in Paradise.
When men recover quickly from a loss, unworthy souls are all too quick to say that they don't feel it. And yet one cannot {59} suppress an exclamation of surprise and shame when we find that within two or three months of the death of the noble Khadîjah, the wife, friend, and adviser of Mohammed, he was married to another widow, by name Saudah, and had betrothed himself also to Ayesha, the seven-year-old child of Abu Bakr. ”

“ After that Khadijah took him to Waraqah bin Nawfal bin 'Amm Khadijah and said to him, "O my nephew, listen to the son of thy brother." Then Waraqah said to him, "O my nephew, what is the matter? " Then the Apostle of God informed him of what he had seen. Waraqah said, "This is the ndmus which God sent down upon Moses. Would to God that I were young in its time! Would to God that I were living when thy people will turn thee out." Then the Apostle of God said, "Will they turn me out?" He replied, " Yes. No man ever came with what thou hast brought, but he was held in enmity. ”

“ It has been frequently said that Muhammad, in his virtuous days, was content with one wife at Mecca, but in his vicious days at Madinah he had ten wives and two concubines. As a matter of fact, after Khadijah's death Muhammad's marriages were in most cases more or less a matter of business. By them he allied himself to Abu Bakr, Omar, Abu Sofyan, Khalid bin Walid, and other important persons. ”

“ Surely never did man's life gather such pleasures as were mine these four days' time, whenas I companied with Al-Maamun by day and Khadijah by night; and, by Allah, never saw I among men the like of Al-Maamun nor among women have I ever set eyes on the like of Khadijah ”

“ Seven months after his arrival in Medinah, during the time of poverty, the marriage with Ayesha was celebrated, the child of nine being united to the man of fifty-three! a marriage defended on the ground of political expediency, whereby the devotion of Abu Bakr, the child's father was strengthened. She seems to have been second only to Khadijah in the prophet's affections, and exercised a petty tyranny over him, which was submitted to even when it affected his revelations. She excited the envy of the other wives because of her privileges, and in spite of intrigue, was able to hold her own. ”

“ There was another, too, besides Khadîjah who from the first followed Mohammed's fortunes with unwavering faith, a man who is truly said to have saved Islam twice. He was a personal friend of {40} Mohammed's, a popular but unimportant fellow-citizen of Mecca, by name Abu Bakr. Through these early trying years he was the propagandist of the new creed, and won to his friend's side the first little circle of Islam's converts. ”

“ And be it observed that Al-Islam (the faith, not the practice) popularly decided to debase the social state of womankind, exalts it by holding up to view no fewer than two examples of perfection in the Prophet�s household. Khadijah, his first wife, was a minor saint, and the Lady Fatimah is supposed to have been spiritually unspotted by sin, and materially ever a virgin, even after giving birth to Hasan and to Hosayn. [FN#23] There is no objection to intermarriage between equal clans, but the higher will not give their daughters to the lower in dignity. ”

“ Khadijah was Mohammad's first wife. She never had a rival in her husband's heart, and, until the day of her death, she was his sole, beloved spouse. She gave him seven children; three sons: al-Qasim, at-Tahir and at-Taiyib; and four daughters: Ruqaiyah, Fatimah, Zainab and Ummu Kulsum. ”

“ There would be no more need for writing, since she was within a few miles of Alighur where, God willing, he meant to meet her so soon as he had seen that all things were in order for her reception at Agra.
Never was there such a fussy host as he showed himself.
"Truly, nephew Babar," snorted Khadîjah, his chief paternal aunt, when he cavilled at some domestic arrangement in Mahâm's private apartment, "I am woman and I ought to know. If men, and especially Kings, were to do their own work and leave such things to those who understand, 'twould be better." ”

“ The visitations occurred several times, and each time they were accompanied by violent physical effects upon Mohammed. 'He was angry if anyone looked upon him: his face was covered with foam, his eyes were closed and sometimes he roared like a camel.'
Even the faithful Khadîjah began to have her fears. Demon possession is a common idea in the East. 'Could it be that her exemplary husband was the victim of the wrath of some genius of evil?' She consulted her cousin, Warakah, {37} the sage and savant. ”

“ Within the year they were married with Arab ceremony by Khadîjah's aged cousin, Warakah, who blessed the union in homely Bedouin language, declaring that Mohammed was 'a camel whose nose would not be struck.'
With Mohammed's marriage to Khadîjah, his opportunity, if he were looking for one, would seem to have come. Free from his uncle's patronage, freed, too, from the carping cares of straitened circumstances, or the necessity of working long hours at some small task to earn his daily bread, he had passed to a position of {26} ease and affluence. ”

“ This being found to be the case, it was decided that the league was at an end, and the Hâshimites returned to their homes. But other misfortunes were in store for Mohammed. The good Abu Tâlib soon died, and, not long after, Khadîjah. His protector gone, what could Mohammed do? He left the city, and went with only Zeid for a companion on a mission to Tâyif, sixty or seventy miles east of Mecca, in hopes of converting the inhabitants. Who can think of the prophet, in this lonely journey, without sympathy? He was going to preach the doctrine of One God to idolaters. ”

“ For the ransom of her husband, Zainab sent from Makkah a sum of money and a necklace, a wedding-gift from her mother Khadijah. The Prophet, recognising this piece of jewellery which he had ofttimes seen round the neck of his beloved and regretted Khadijah, was unable to repress his emotion and put this question to his disciples: 'If ye do not oppose me, I will send her husband back to Zainab, and renounce all claims to ransom.' No objection being raised, Mohammad told his prisoner that he was free. ”

“ Khadijah then engaged him as the manager of her business; and he served her well and faithfully. She thought a great deal of him, and he was much attracted to her, and soon they came to love one another and were married. ”

“ An event occurred in the tenth year of his mission, likely to prove of serious consequence to Mohammed and his followers, and this was the demise of his kind friend and patron, Abu-Taleb, at the advanced age of four-score years: the afflicting blow was succeeded by the death of his wife Khadijah. The Koreish, free from restraint, used every effort to crush the rising sect, but the fame and pretensions of Mohammed had gained ground not only at Mecca, but Medina, where a strong impression had been created in his favour by some converts. ”

“ He gave 'divine' {132} sanction to a Mohammedan to have four wives and as many concubines as he could afford, to beat them when they displeased him, and divorce them if he wished.
We do not need to follow the horrible details of Mohammed's own life, and the story of how, breaking his own law after Khadîjah's death, he had not four wives but nine. Instinctively we turn to a wholly different picture, to the story of the Life that gave Woman for ever her charter of emancipation and her place of honour. ”

“ The pet-child of Abd el Muttalib was the orphan boy Mohammed. Until his eighth year he was under the shelter and favor of this chief man of the Koreish. He learned what it was to be lordly and to exercise power, and never forgot it. The man, his wife and his training were the determinative factors in the character of Mohammed. The ruling factor was the mind and genius of the man himself. Of attractive personal qualities, beautiful countenance, and accomplished in business, he first won the attention and then the heart of a very wealthy widow, Khadijah. ”

“ And there are many spots of minor sanctity to be visited, such as the Jannal El Maala, or Cemetery of the Saints, the mosque where the genii paid fealty to the Prophet, the house where Mohammed was born, that in which he lived with his first wife, Khadijah, and in which his daughter Fatimah and his grandsons Hasan and Hussayn saw the light, the place where the stone gave the founder of El Islam God-speed, and about a dozen others. Men, however, either neglect them or visit them cursorily, and think of little now beyond returning home. ”

“ Now the Arabs held all poetry was due to the inspiration of a jinni a sort of evil spirit and was very far removed from divine revelation indeed. However, the peculiar nature of the revelations, which seemed to come direct from God himself, and for which Mohammed felt in no way personally responsible, and the fact that they came at times when he was in a trance or fit, and that he appeared to he only a medium for receiving and delivering the messages and not the author of them, all seemed to reassure him and his wife Khadijah that he had really received a divine revelation. ”

“ Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.
Number 237: Narrated Abu Wail:
We visited Khabbaba who said, "We migrated with the Prophet for Allah's Sake, so our reward became due and sure with Allah. Some of us passed away without taking anything of their rewards (in this world) and one of them was Mus'ab bin 'Umar who was martyred on the day (of the battle) of Uhud leaving a striped woolen cloak. ”

“ At last she cried, "O Khwajah, I have sworn an oath and thou hast sworn an oath, and we shall never agree except thou favour me by accompanying me to my house so thou mayest receive the value of the stuff, when neither of us will have been forsworn: therefore lock up thy shop lest anything be lost in thine absence." Accordingly I bolted my door and went with her, O our lord the Sultan, and we ceased not walking, conversing the while we walked, I and she, until we neared her abode when she pulled out a kerchief from her girdle and said, "'Tis my desire to bind this over thine eyes." ”

“ Khazneh, with arms folded and chin upon his breast, remained in an attitude of deep meditation.
Suddenly he asked in a low, hoarse tone, first glancing round to assure himself that he was not overheard,—
“And in such case, what sayest thou should be my reward?”
“Thou wilt gain wealth and power,” the Khalifa answered. “Think, what art thou now? A mere harem slave of thy Sultan. If thou renderest me the assistance I have suggested, thou canst rise to be first in the land.” ”

“ Khadija looked astonished at the unexpected change of subject.
“Nay, O my lady, is it not the duty of a servant to do her master’s will?”
“You are not in the position of an ordinary servant to Fath-ud-Din—you are more of an adviser and helper. Why did you make it easy for him to poison a man who had done you no wrong?”
“I hate the English,” responded the old woman, sullenly. “They came and burnt my village because our men had raided into Khemistan, and my husband and my elder son were killed.” ”