Khadija bint Khuwaylid

The First Wife and First Believer

Khadija bint Khuwaylid was of the Quraysh clan of Banu Asad, a woman of such honour that she was called at-Tahira, “the Pure,” even in the days of ignorance. She married the Prophet ﷺ when she was about forty and he twenty-five, and she bore him all his children but one. So dear was she to him that he took no other wife while she lived. 1 Stories of the Sahabah · pp. 242 — Zakariyya Kandhlawi — Khadija, called at-Tahira; her marriage to the Prophet; she bore all his children except Ibrahim; he married no other in her lifetime.

Her Support at the First Revelation

When the first revelation came upon him in the cave of Hira and he returned home trembling, fearing for himself, it was Khadija who steadied him — the first to believe in his message. She comforted him that Allah would never disgrace one who kept the ties of kinship, spoke the truth, bore others’ burdens, and helped the poor, and declared her firm conviction that he was the Messenger of this Ummah. She then took him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a scholar of the former scriptures, who recognised in his account the very angel that had come to Musa. 2 Seerat-e-Mustafa · Vol 1 · pp. 42–43 — Idris Kandhlawi — Khadija consoles the Prophet after the first revelation, affirms his prophethood, and takes him to Waraqa ibn Nawfal.

Virtues in the Hadith

So honoured was she that Gabriel himself sent her greetings and glad tidings:

فَاقْرَأْ عَلَيْهَا السَّلاَمَ مِنْ رَبِّهَا وَمِنِّي، وَبَشِّرْهَا بِبَيْتٍ فِي الْجَنَّةِ مِنْ قَصَبٍ، لاَ صَخَبَ فِيهِ وَلاَ نَصَبَ

”Convey to her the greeting of peace from her Lord and from me, and give her the glad tidings of a house in Paradise of qasab, in which there is neither noise nor fatigue.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 3820 · Book 63 (Merits of the Ansar), Hadith 45 · USC-MSA: Vol. 5, Book 58, Hadith 168 · narrated by Abu Hurayra

Death & Legacy

Khadija died in Ramadan of the tenth year of Prophethood, aged about sixty-five — in the same season of grief that took Abu Talib, a year the Prophet ﷺ called the Year of Sorrow. There being as yet no funeral prayer, the Prophet ﷺ laid her in the grave with his own hands. 3 Stories of the Sahabah · pp. 242–243 — Zakariyya Kandhlawi — Khadija's death in Ramadan of the 10th year of Prophethood, aged about 65; the Prophet lays her in the grave himself. She remained ever after beloved to him, the mother of his children and the first heart to receive his call.