Zaynab bint Jahsh
| Part of a series on Islam: The Wives of Muhammad |
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Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayya Zaynab bint Jahsh Rayhana bint Amr ibn Khunafa** *succession disputed ** status as wife or concubine is disputed |
Zaynab bint Jahsh (Arabic: زينب بنت جحش born c. 593) was a wife of Muhammad and therefore a Mother of the Believers.[1]
Early life
Her brother, Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh, went to the Migration to Abyssinia and there left Islam for Christianity. His wife, Ramlah bint Abu Sufyan, then remarried Muhammad.
She had a sister named Hammanah bint Jahsh.
Marriages
Zaynab was Muhammad's cousin, being the daughter of one of his father's sisters.[2] At the time of the Hijra she was likely a widow, and probably emigrated with her brothers who were also Muslims. Upon arriving in Medina, she was forced by Muhammad, against her will, to marry his adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah.[3]
Some sources relate that Muhammad went to visit Zayd's house in 626 to talk to him. Zayd was not there, and Muhammad saw Zaynab scantily clad and fell in love with her.[4] Muhammad did not enter and left, saying to himself "Praise be to God, praise to the manager of hearts!" Zaynab told Zayd about this, and Zayd at once offered to divorce Zaynab, but Muhammad told him to keep her.[5] Watt notes that these details are not included in the earliest narrative. He states that this part of the story "contains room for doubt."[6]
After these events, life with Zaynab became unbearable for Zayd and he divorced her. When her waiting period was complete, Muhammad married her. Muhammad's contemporaries criticized him for this marriage because of its incestuous character.[7] It was considered incest for a man to marry a woman who had once been married to his son, and an adopted son was counted the same as a biological son.[8] However, this marriage was justified by verse 33:37 of the Qur'an,[9] which implies that there was something objectionable about treating adopted sons as real sons, and that it was desirable that there should be a complete break with the past in this respect.[10]
See also
References
- ^ Rosalind Ward Gwynne (2004). Logic, Rhetoric, and Legal Reasoning in the Qur'an: God's Arguments. Routledge, 45. ISBN 0415324769.
- ^ Montgomery Watt, Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman. Oxford University Press 1961, page 156.
- ^ Watt, page 156-158.
- ^ Watt, page 156.
- ^ Watt, pages 156-157.
- ^ Watt (1964) p. 158
- ^ Watt, page 158.
- ^ Watt, page 158.
- ^ Watt, page 157.
- ^ Watt, page 159.
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