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Zaynab bint Jahsh

Zaynab bint Jahsh was the Prophet Muhammad’s seventh wife.^[1]

Her original name had been Barrah (“virtuous”) but Muhammad disliked this name because “It makes her sound as if she is claiming to be virtuous.”^[2] At the time of their marriage he renamed her Zaynab,^[3] which literally means “father’s ornament”, but is also the name of a flower.

Background

Zaynab’s grandfather was Riyab ibn Yaamur, a Bedouin from the tribe of Asad ibn Khuzayma.^[4] He immigrated to Mecca and requested an alliance with the Quraysh, apparently because he desired their assistance in a quarrel with the Khuza’a tribe. Khadijah’s grandfather, Asad ibn Abduluzza, responded “and he gladly joined them as hali [ally on equal terms].” But the Meccans later told him that Asad’s family were “a wretched branch of the Quraysh.” Riyab then broke this alliance and formed one with the Umayya, who were the most powerful clan in Mecca.^[5] Thereafter Riyab’s children and grandchildren were regarded as honorary Umayyads.^[6]

Riyab’s son Jahsh married Umama (or Umayma) bint Abdulmuttalib, who was Muhammad’s aunt;^[7] hence their six children were Muhammad’s first cousins. Zaynab was born c. 590;^[8] her sisters were Habibah (or Umm Habib) and Hamnah, but their birth-order is unknown. Some early sources claimed that Zaynab had only one sister, i.e., that “Umm Habib” was the kunya of Hamnah; but Ibn Ishaq makes it clear that they were indeed two people,^[9] and Ibn Saad presents their separate biographies.^[10] Her eldest brother, Abd, was always known as an adult by his kunya Abu Ahmad.^[11] He was born blind but “he used to go all round Mecca from top to bottom without anyone to lead him. He was a poet.”^[12] The second brother was Abdullah and the third was Ubaydullah.^[13]

It is possible that Zaynab remembered Muhammad’s wedding to Khadijah, which took place when she was about five years old.^[14] As an honorary Umayyad, she would have socialised with the Meccan aristocracy. She was about fifteen when the Ka'aba was damaged by floods and had to be repaired. This re-housing of the idols seems to have made a deep impression on her brother Ubaydullah, for he then decided that the Black Stone was useless “for it can neither see nor hear nor hurt nor help.” He declared that he believed in only one God and set out on a quest to discover the true religion.^[15] He came under the influence of the monotheist Zayd ibn Amr, whose outspoken opinions on the Arabian gods made him so unpopular in Mecca that his family drove him out of the town proper into the mountains. Zayd journeyed to Syria and Mesopotamia, questioning monks and rabbis about the religion of Abraham. On his return to Mecca, before he could enter the city, he was attacked and murdered by some unknown persons.^[16] Ubaydullah was not discouraged but “went on searching until Islam came.”^[17]

First Marriage

Zaynab’s eldest brother married Abu Sufyan’s daughter Al-Faraa,^[18] and Ubaydullah married his daughter Ramlah.^[19] As far as we know, Abu Sufyan did not arrange a marriage for the middle brother Abdullah.

Zaynab was also married in Mecca. It seems likely that her bridegroom was approved, or even chosen, by Abu Sufyan. However, almost nothing is known about this man. Zaynab once reminded Muhammad that her husband had been a Quraysh in order to emphasise his high social status.^[20] If he had been from the leading clans of Umayya, Makhzum or even Hashim, she would certainly have mentioned it; since she did not, he must have been from a humbler clan. But every Quraysh was deemed of higher social status than every other person in Mecca.^[21]

Her husband’s anonymity is curious. All the previous husbands of Muhammad’s other wives are carefully listed in their biographies. The lists include some men who were Muslim heroes, others who were considered enemies of Islam, and others again who were of no great importance.^[22] The historians were very obviously not excluding information that was somehow “embarrassing,” so this cannot be the reason why Zaynab’s first husband is missing from the list. It is more likely to be a simple case of the information’s having been lost by the time the ahadith were committed to writing. It is easy enough to imagine reasons why Zaynab might not have talked very much about her husband. Perhaps she loved him so much or hated him so much that she could not bear to speak about him; perhaps the marriage was so short-lived, or he spent so much of it travelling away from home, or his personality was so quiet or so bland that he made very little impression on her. But Zaynab is not the only silent person here. Other Muslims must have known her first husband: her siblings, their numerous Hashimite cousins, their honorary Umayyad kin, any number of their friends from Mecca. Yet none of them passed on any tradition about him, and his name is forgotten.

We can take two educated guesses about Zaynab’s married life. Firstly, she was a skilled craftswoman. She knew how to tan leather,^[23] dye cloth^[24] and sew textiles and leather to make clothes and sew other household items.^[25] There is no indication that any other member of the Jahsh family had these skills, and she certainly did not grow up with the economic need to learn a trade. So it is reasonable to infer that Zaynab’s first husband was from one of Mecca’s many leather-working families^[26] and that she learned her skills from them. Since she continued with this work all her life, whether there was an economic need for it or not,^[27] she must have enjoyed it. This suggests that the everyday-labour aspect of her first marriage was happy.

Secondly, it appears that she had a child. She was occasionally known as Umm al-Hakam,^[28] which literally means “Mother of the Judge”. There is nothing in her biography that indicates she had any kind of legal expertise or even that she was consulted for her general wisdom. It is therefore most likely that Umm al-Hakam was not a by-name but a literal kunya and that Zaynab gave birth to an actual child named Al-Hakam. This child is never otherwise mentioned, so he probably died in infancy. It is unlikely that Zaynab had any further children; she certainly had none who survived and none by her subsequent husbands.^[29] This secondary infertility was possibly due to a hereditary condition, for her sister Habibah was also childless.^[30]

Islam

Conversion

Zaynab was about twenty years old when her cousin Muhammad declared himself a prophet.^[31] Another cousin, Abu Salama ibn Abdulasad, was among the earliest converts to Islam.^[32] Her brothers Abu Ahmad and Abdullah came under the influence of Abu Bakr and were converted slightly later, perhaps in 612. No other family member is on the list of “those who accepted Islam at Abu Bakr’s invitation,”^[33] so some other missionary – perhaps Abu Ahmad or Abdullah – must have been responsible for the conversions of Jahsh ibn Riyab and his other children.^[34] Zaynab’s mother, Umama, did not become a Muslim.^[35] While the convert-lists specifically mention those men whose widows later married Muhammad,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content there is no such notice about Zaynab, so her husband probably remained a pagan.

Zaynab’s single siblings soon married into the small Muslim community. Abdullah married the Hilal widow Zaynab bint Khuzayma, “Mother of the Poor,” although this marriage ended in divorce.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Habibah married the newly divorcedCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Abdulrahman ibn Awf,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content a wealthy merchantCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content who was related to Muhammad’s mother.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Hamnah married Masood ibn Umayr,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content a blue-eyedCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content rich boyCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content from the Abduldar clan.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Abu Sufyan’s daughters, the wives of Abu Ahmad and Ubaydullah, also became Muslims.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content

The Persecution

After 613 the Quraysh began a campaign of persecuting vulnerable Muslims.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Zaynab’s family was under the protection of Abu Sufyan and therefore the worst that could be done to them was that their businesses were boycotted, though apparently not very systematically.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content In 615 Abdullah, Ubaydullah and their two brothers-in-law joined the emigration to Abyssinia.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Zaynab’s father Jahsh also left Mecca, although apparently not as part of the general exile to Abyssinia. As it happened, Jahsh never returned home. He travelled eastwards to preach Islam to whoever would listen.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content It is even claimed that he reached Cambodia and that the present-day Muslims of the XXX tribe are descended from his converts.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content

Ubaydullah took his wife to Abyssinia with him,^[36] but Zaynab’s two sisters were left behind. This was apparently because the journey to Abyssinia was deemed a great sacrifice and hardship,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content and women were not subjected to it if they would be safe in Mecca.^[37] It is not entirely clear who was protecting Zaynab and her sisters; but no harm befell them, so perhaps the Quraysh assumed that men were the real problem and did not target women. After most of the persecuted slaves recanted their faith,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content the Quraysh declared a trade boycott on Muhammad’s clan;Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content they showed no interest in the handful of women whose husbands were respectable polytheists or absent.

Ubaydullah remained in Abyssinia until his death in 627,Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content but Abdullah returned to Mecca in 619.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content He must have married Fatima bint Abi Hubaysh soon after his return.^[38] His choice reflects a certain carelessness towards the Umayyads: Fatima was a member of the Asad clan (her father had been Khadijah’s first cousin)Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content so Abdullah was reverting to the original alliance that his grandfather had rejected forty years earlier. To emphasise the point, the couple named their son Muhammad.^[39]

The Hijra

From mid-620 Muhammad urged the Muslims to emigrate to Medina.^[40] Zaynab’s brother Abdullah was one of the first to heed this call, probably in early 621. Abu Ahmad’s wife begged to go “anywhere but Medina,” but he told her that Islam was more important than family ties and composed poetry about their argument.^[41] By this time Zaynab was a widow,^[42] although there is no information about when or how her husband had died. She was among those who accompanied Abdullah to Medina.^[43]

Although it was a large party of at least twenty-eight people, they appear to have left in something of a hurry, for Abdullah was one of only three emigrants who did not liquidise his assets before departing from Mecca.^[44] He locked up the house, leaving citizens who passed it to sigh over “its doors blowing to and fro, empty of inhabitants” and pontificate that, “Every house however long its prosperity lasts will one day be overtaken by misfortune and trouble. The house of the Jahsh clan has become tenantless.” Abu Jahl said, “Nobody will weep over that. This is the work of this man’s nephew [Muhammad]. He has divided our community, disrupted our affairs, and driven a wedge between us.”^[45] When the Meccans were certain that the Jahsh clan would not return, Abu Sufyan took possession of their house and sold it to pay off his own debts.^[46] Abdullah was angry about this, saying that his family had chosen to ally with Abu Sufyan when they had received plenty of good offers from other Quraysh families.^[47] He asked Muhammad for justice; but Muhammad, busy in Medina and powerless to act in Mecca, told him to be content that Allah would give him a better house in Paradise.^[48]. Abu Sufyan’s side of the story does not survive, but there is some evidence that he had in fact been acting within his rights. Eight years later, when Muhammad conquered Mecca and could have easily commandeered any building that he wanted, Abu Ahmed again asked him to retrieve their house, but Muhammad ignored him. Other people told him, “You lost your house in Allah’s service, so don’t ask the Apostle about it again.” This lack of sympathy for the Jahsh family’s case suggests that Abu Sufyan had only lent, leased or given them the property on the understanding that they were his allies. By abandoning the house in order to ally so openly with Muhammad, who had declared war on Mecca,^[49] Abdullah had snubbed Abu Sufyan’s forty years of friendship and forfeited his protection. It seemed that nobody, including even the Muslims, disputed Abu Sufyan’s right to repossess a house that had probably belonged to him originally. All Abu Ahmad could do about it was to write another poem, along the lines of: “I swear Abu Sufyan will regret this; may his theft stick to him like the ring of a dove…”.^[50]

The family settled in Medina. Zaynab probably lived with one of her brothers. Hamnah bore a daughter^[51] but Habibah remained childless.^[52] Muhammad did not arrive until September 622, more than a year later.^[53] He built the mosque;^[54] he debated with the Jews;^[55] and he raided the merchant-caravans of the Meccans, the raid under Abdullah’s leadership being the first in which a Muslim killed a Meccan and succeeded in stealing the merchandise.^[56]

References