Khadijah bint Khuwaylid: The First Believer

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (d. 619 CE) was the first wife of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the first person to believe in his prophethood. She was a woman of independent wealth in the caravan trade of Mecca, and she had employed Muhammad before their marriage.

Her place in the history of Islam rests on a specific and well documented moment. When the Prophet returned from the cave of Hira after the first revelation, frightened and uncertain, it was Khadijah who reassured him, and it was Khadijah who took him to a man capable of identifying what had happened. Both episodes are preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari in the opening chapter of the collection, and they are among the best attested reports in the entire biography of the Prophet.

Family and Background

Khadijah belonged to the clan of Asad, part of the tribe of Quraysh. Her father was Khuwaylid ibn Asad. She was therefore born into the leading tribe of Mecca, the custodians of the Kaaba, whose position gave them standing in the commerce and the religious life of the city.

The early sources record nothing substantial about her childhood or her education, and nothing is supplied here. Accounts describing her upbringing, her schooling in commerce, or her early character are later elaborations without support in the early material.

Earlier marriages

Khadijah was married twice before her marriage to the Prophet, and was widowed both times. Her husbands are named in the biographical literature as Abu Hala al-Tamimi and Atiq ibn A'idh al-Makhzumi. She had children from these marriages; her son Hind ibn Abi Halah appears in the biographical literature as a Companion.

The order of these two marriages differs between sources and is not established. Her children by the Prophet, and the reports concerning her earlier children, are set out in the article on the children of Prophet Muhammad.

Wealth and the Caravan Trade

Khadijah was a woman of substantial independent means who participated in the long-distance caravan trade on which Meccan prosperity depended. This is firmly established, and it is the reason she was in a position to employ agents to conduct trading ventures on her behalf.

The extent of her operations is not documented in the early sources. Descriptions of the routes she controlled, the goods her caravans carried, or the number of agents she employed are reconstructions from general accounts of Meccan commerce rather than evidence about her, and they are not given here.

The employment of Muhammad

The sirah literature records that Khadijah engaged Muhammad ibn Abdullah to take goods on her behalf to Syria, and that she offered him terms more favourable than she gave others, his reputation for trustworthiness being known in Mecca. A servant of hers named Maysarah accompanied him.

The venture was successful, and Maysarah reported favourably on Muhammad's conduct. Some accounts add further detail about events on the journey; those additions are not uniformly attested and are not carried here.

Marriage to the Prophet

The marriage was arranged through an intermediary, Nufaysah bint Munya, who approached Muhammad on Khadijah's behalf — an approach the sources present as coming from Khadijah's side. Abu Talib, the Prophet's uncle and guardian, acted for him in the contract.

The marriage took place approximately fifteen years before the beginning of the revelation. The sources give Khadijah as the older of the two, and the figure commonly reported for her age is about forty, though reports differ; no age is asserted here.

Two facts about the marriage are not in dispute and are of real historical weight. It lasted approximately twenty-five years, until Khadijah's death, and throughout that period the Prophet took no other wife. And every one of his children except Ibrahim was born to her: al-Qasim, Abdullah, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum and Fatimah.

The First Revelation

Her response at Hira

The principal report is in Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Bad' al-Wahy, transmitted from Aisha, and is graded sahih. It is the opening narrative of the collection.

According to that report, the Prophet returned from the cave of Hira in a state of severe distress and asked to be covered. When the fear had left him, he described what had happened and said that he feared for himself.

Khadijah's reply is preserved in the report:

"Never! By God, God will never disgrace you. You keep good relations with your kin, you help the poor and the destitute, you serve your guests generously, and you assist those afflicted by calamity."

The reply is worth reading closely, because it does not appeal to a sign or a miracle. It reasons from his conduct: a man who behaves in these ways will not be abandoned by God. That is the ground on which the first believer believed.

Waraqah ibn Nawfal

The same body of reports in Sahih al-Bukhari records that Khadijah then took the Prophet to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a Christian who had knowledge of the earlier scriptures. Waraqah listened to the account and identified what had come to the Prophet as the same that had come to Moses. He added that the Prophet would be called a liar and driven out by his people, and expressed the wish that he might live to support him when that happened. Waraqah died not long afterwards.

Khadijah's action here is the practical counterpart to her reassurance. She did not only comfort her husband; she took him to the one person available in Mecca with the learning to place the experience within a known prophetic tradition.

The first to believe

Khadijah was the first person to accept the Prophet's message. This is established across the sources and is not contested. She believed on the strength of her knowledge of his character and of what he told her, before the community existed and before any public preaching had begun.

The article on the Meccan period treats the years that followed.

The Meccan Years

Khadijah lived through the first decade of the Prophet's mission, the years of ridicule, pressure and open hostility toward the small community of believers in Mecca. Her wealth and her standing within Quraysh supported the household during that period.

From about 616 CE the Quraysh imposed a boycott on the clan of Banu Hashim, prohibiting trade and marriage with them and confining them to a valley outside the city. The boycott lasted roughly three years. Khadijah endured it with the Prophet's clan.

The sources do not preserve a detailed record of her activities during these years. Accounts of her freeing enslaved Muslims, organising relief, smuggling supplies into the valley, or campaigning among the women of Mecca are not attested in the early material and are not given here.

Death

Khadijah died in 619 CE, in the tenth year of the Prophet's mission. Abu Talib, his uncle and protector, died in the same year, and the year is consequently known in the tradition as Am al-Huzn, the Year of Sorrow. The two deaths together removed both the Prophet's domestic support and his clan protection, and the period that followed was among the most difficult of the Meccan years.

The sources do not record the cause of her death or the circumstances of her final days. Descriptions of her health declining as a result of the boycott, or of scenes at her deathbed, are later additions and are not carried here.

She died before the Hijra, and before the obligation of the five daily prayers in the form later established, a point the classical commentators note when discussing her.

The Prophet's Regard for Her After Her Death

Several sound reports record that the Prophet continued to speak of Khadijah for the remainder of his life.

A report in Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Fada'il al-Sahabah, transmitted from Aisha, records Aisha saying that she was never jealous of any of the Prophet's wives as she was of Khadijah, though she had never met her, because of how often he mentioned her. The report is graded sahih. Its value is partly that it comes from a later wife: the testimony to his remembrance of Khadijah is given by someone with no interest in exaggerating it.

A further statement attributed to the Prophet, transmitted in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, records him saying of Khadijah that she believed in him when people disbelieved him, that she affirmed his truthfulness when people called him a liar, and that she supported him with her wealth when people withheld from him.

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim both preserve a report that the angel Jibril conveyed greetings of peace to Khadijah and gave her tidings of a house in Paradise. The report is graded sahih.

Khadijah is also named in reports listing the foremost women of faith. A report transmitted in Sahih al-Bukhari records the Prophet naming her among the best of the women of her time.

Legacy

Descent

The Prophet's surviving line of descent runs through his daughter Fatimah, Khadijah's daughter. Through Fatimah's marriage to Ali ibn Abi Talib and their sons Hasan and Husayn, Khadijah is the ancestor of the families claiming descent from the Prophet across the Muslim world.

Standing in the tradition

Khadijah is counted among the Mothers of the Believers, the designation of the Prophet's wives established by Surah al-Ahzab 33:6, which places them in the position of mothers to the believers.

Her standing in Islamic tradition rests on the sequence set out above: she was the first to believe; she reassured the Prophet at the moment of greatest uncertainty in his life; she took him to Waraqah; she supported him through the Meccan years; and she bore all but one of his children. These are matters of record rather than of praise.

What the sources do not establish

A great deal written about Khadijah does not derive from the early material. Her childhood and education, the scale and detail of her commercial operations, her reputation among merchants abroad, her reasoning in choosing to marry, her activities during the boycott, the manner of her death, and her influence on the later development of Islamic law concerning women are all subjects on which the early sources are silent or nearly so.

This article omits them. The attested record is narrower than the popular account, and it is also, on the points that matter most, unusually strong: the reports of her response at Hira and of the consultation with Waraqah are graded sahih and stand at the opening of the most rigorously assembled collection in Sunni Islam.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab 33:6 — "The Prophet is more worthy of the believers than themselves, and his wives are in the position of their mothers"
• Qur'an, Surah al-Duha 93:6–8 — addressed to the Prophet concerning his circumstances in the Meccan period
• Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Bad' al-Wahy (Book of the Beginning of Revelation) — the report from Aisha on the first revelation, Khadijah's reassurance, and the consultation with Waraqah ibn Nawfal; graded sahih
• Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Fada'il al-Sahabah (Book of the Merits of the Companions) — Aisha's report of her jealousy over Khadijah, and the report naming Khadijah among the best women of her time; graded sahih
• Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim — the report of Jibril conveying greetings to Khadijah and tidings of a house in Paradise; graded sahih
• Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal — the statement attributed to the Prophet that Khadijah believed in him when people disbelieved him

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Sa'd, Muhammad. Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. Vol. 8, the women. Edited by Eduard Sachau. Leiden: Brill, 1904–1940. [Compiled c. 845 CE] — the principal early biography
• Ibn Hisham. Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah, recension of the Sirah of Ibn Ishaq. Edited by Mustafa al-Saqqa et al. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1955. — the employment of Muhammad, the marriage negotiation through Nufaysah bint Munya, and the boycott of Banu Hashim
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari. Cairo: al-Matba'ah al-Salafiyyah — the commentary on the reports of the first revelation
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1995. [Compiled c. 1449 CE]
• Al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risalah, 1981–1988. [Compiled c. 1348 CE]
• Ibn Abd al-Barr, Yusuf. Al-Isti'ab fi Ma'rifat al-Ashab. Cairo: Nahdat Misr, 1960. [Compiled c. 1070 CE]

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. — the Meccan period, the boycott of Banu Hashim, and the commercial context
• Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. — on the character and limits of the evidence for Meccan commerce
• Robinson, Chase F. Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Schoeler, Gregor. The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity. Translated by Uwe Vagelpohl. London: Routledge, 2011. — on the transmission of the reports of the first revelation
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition. Leiden: Brill — entry on Khadija bint Khuwaylid

Further Reading

• Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1983.
• Ibn Kathir, Ismail. Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya. Translated by Trevor Le Gassick as The Life of the Prophet Muhammad. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 1998–2000.
• Bewley, Aisha, trans. The Women of Madina (from Ibn Sa'd's Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra). London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1995.