Zaynab bint Muhammad

Zaynab bint Muhammad was a daughter of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and Khadijah bint Khuwaylid. Her life spans the Meccan period and the first eight years in Medina, and it is defined by a situation none of her sisters faced in the same form: for years she was a Muslim married to a man who was not, in a city where hostility to her father's message was concentrated on her own family.

Her position among the daughters is not established by the early sources, which give differing arrangements of the four births. This article therefore does not state her seniority or her age at any point in her life, since every such figure depends on an order the evidence does not fix.

Family

Zaynab was born in Mecca before the beginning of the revelation, in a household of settled prosperity: Khadijah was a merchant of independent means and the family held a respected position within the Quraysh. Ibn Sa'd's notice places her birth when her father was around thirty years of age.

Her sisters were Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum and Fatimah. Two brothers, al-Qasim and Abdullah, died in childhood. The family as a whole is treated in the article on the children of the Prophet.

Marriage to Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi

Zaynab married Abu al-As ibn al-Rabi of the Quraysh. He was her maternal cousin: his mother, Hala bint Khuwaylid, was Khadijah's sister. The marriage was arranged before the revelation, as an alliance between close kin.

Abu al-As was a merchant of standing, and the sources are consistent in their regard for his personal conduct. That regard rests on a specific episode.

The refusal to divorce her

When the revelation came, Zaynab accepted Islam, as her mother and sisters did. Her husband did not. The sources do not present this as a rupture in the marriage; they present it as a division that persisted for years.

As pressure on the Prophet's family mounted, leading men of the Quraysh approached Abu al-As and pressed him to divorce Zaynab. He refused. Ibn Hisham and Ibn Sa'd both preserve the substance of this, and it is the basis of the standing the sources accord him.

The contrast with her sisters is instructive. Marriage arrangements binding Ruqayyah and Umm Kulthum to sons of Abu Lahab were ended at Abu Lahab's insistence when the Qur'an denounced him. Zaynab's marriage held, because her husband would not break it.

Separation and Reunion

Remaining in Mecca

When the Muslims migrated to Medina, Zaynab did not go. Her sisters made the Hijra; she remained in Mecca in her husband's house. The sources do not record her reasoning, and none is supplied here. For a period of years after the community had established itself in Medina, a daughter of the Prophet was still in the city that had driven him out, married into a family that had not accepted his message.

Badr and the journey to Medina

At the Battle of Badr in Ramadan 2 AH, Abu al-As fought on the Meccan side and was taken prisoner. He was among the captives held in Medina pending ransom, and was subsequently ransomed and returned to Mecca.

Zaynab travelled to Medina and rejoined her father's household. Her husband remained in Mecca and outside Islam.

The restoration of the marriage

Some years later, before the conquest of Mecca, Abu al-As accepted Islam and came to Medina. Zaynab returned to him as his wife.

Abu al-As died in 12 AH, during the caliphate of Abu Bakr.

Children

Zaynab and Abu al-As had two children.

Ali ibn Abi al-As died in childhood.

Umamah bint Abi al-As survived into the later community and appears in a well attested hadith. A report in Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Salah, records that the Prophet led the congregational prayer while carrying a young granddaughter, setting her down when he prostrated and lifting her again when he stood. The child is identified in the transmission as Umamah, daughter of Zaynab. The report is graded sahih and is cited in the legal literature on carrying a child during prayer, and more broadly as an illustration of the Prophet's manner with children.

Death

Zaynab died in Medina in 8 AH, during her father's lifetime.

Assessment

Zaynab's significance rests on a situation rather than an achievement. She was a Muslim woman married to a man of the hostile faction, in a small city where that hostility was directed at her own family, and she held that position for years. The sources record no complaint from her and no accusation against her from either side. Her husband's refusal to divorce her under pressure from the Quraysh, and his eventual acceptance of Islam, are what made the marriage historically consequential.

What the sources do not preserve is her interior life: her reasoning during the years in Mecca, her feelings on separation from her father, or her own words. No statement is reliably transmitted from her. Accounts that supply such material are later additions, and this article does not carry them.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Salah (Book of Prayer) — the Prophet praying while carrying Umamah, daughter of Zaynab; graded sahih
• Qur'an, Surah al-Masad 111 — the denunciation of Abu Lahab, whose consequences fell on Zaynab's sisters rather than on her marriage
• Qur'an, Surah al-Ahzab 33:59 — addressed in part to the Prophet's daughters
• Qur'an, Surah al-Mumtahanah 60:10 — on the status of marriages divided by belief, the general framework within which Zaynab's marriage is discussed in the legal literature

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 notice on Zaynab
• 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 Quraysh approach to Abu al-As
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1995. [Compiled c. 1449 CE] — entries on Zaynab, Abu al-As and Umamah
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari. Cairo: al-Matba'ah al-Salafiyyah — the commentary on the report concerning Umamah
• Al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din. Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risalah, 1981–1988. [Compiled c. 1348 CE]
• Ibn Kathir, Ismail. Al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1994. [Compiled c. 1373 CE]

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953.
• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. — on Badr and the ransoming of captives
• Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Robinson, Chase F. Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition. Leiden: Brill — entry on Zaynab bint Muhammad
• Schoeler, Gregor. The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity. Translated by Uwe Vagelpohl. London: Routledge, 2011.

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.