A doubt about the marriage of the Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace, to Zainab bint Jahsh and the response to it

 Praise be to God and prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of God. Now then: My beloved in God, God Almighty willed, and there is no turning back from His will, that Zaid bin Haritha divorce his wife when it became impossible for the marital life between them to continue in the desired manner. God’s law has continued in His creation that what is rooted in souls by custom is not easy to get rid of. The custom of adoption was still present in people’s souls, and it is not easy to overcome its consequences . One of the most important of these consequences is that a father does not marry a woman he has adopted after his death or divorce from his wife. So God Almighty chose for this task the bearer of the message, may God bless him and grant him peace , and commanded him to marry Zainab bint Jahsh after her divorce from Zaid. After the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) married Zaynab ( may Allah be pleased with her), this marriage sparked many slanderous and backbiting hadiths and many sayings by the polytheists and hypocrites. They said: Muhammad married the wife of his son Zayd after he divorced her. The Orientalists and those who follow them in the present era also have hadiths on this subject, so they took this incident as a pretext to attack the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). What I want to talk about today is the response to these Orientalists who took this issue as an entry point to attack the Prophet of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) . They also discussed his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him ) marriages with this number, making it a means to attack him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) , and described him with things that the pen would not mention. Since this matter is very serious because it relates to the most honorable of God’s creations - and everyone who speaks freely about this matter says: We are not innovating anything, here are the books of interpretation and the books of biographies that tell of that - therefore I will now present those narrations that they relied upon , narration by narration, following each narration with a statement of the criticism directed at its chains of transmission, then following that with a criticism of all of them in terms of their texts, and the position of the verified imams regarding these narrations. God Almighty says {And when you said to him upon whom God has bestowed favor and you have bestowed favor , “Keep your wife to yourself and fear God,” and you concealed within yourself that which God is to reveal, and you feared the people, while God has more right that you should fear Him. So when Zaid had no longer any need for her, We married her to you for Me. There is no blame upon the believers concerning the wives of their adopted sons when they have no longer any need for them. And the command of God is to be done.} [Al-Ahzab: 37]. The reason for Zaid’s divorce of Zainab and then the Prophet’s marriage to her is ; It was the disagreements between Zaid and Zainab , and that there was no harmony between them that could be hoped for to maintain marital life between them, so he divorced her by his own choice and desire, and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace,

And he (peace be upon him ) forbade him from doing that. Allah the Almighty had informed His Prophet (peace be upon him ) that Zayd would divorce Zaynab , and that she would be his wife. He (peace be upon him ) was hiding this and fearing what people would say, that he had married a divorced woman from the one he was called to, so his Lord rebuked him for that. See: Jami’ al-Bayan by al-Tabari (22/11) and Tafsir al-Qur’an al-‘Azim by Ibn Kathir (3/489), and see al-Bukhari (no. 4787). The gist of what came in the books of interpretation, which the Orientalists used as evidence, is that there was another reason for the divorce of Zainab , which is that the Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace, suddenly saw Zainab in her home clothes and he liked her, and love for her fell in his heart, so he spoke words from which that could be understood, and when Zaid heard him, he hastened to divorce her in fulfillment of the desire of the Messenger of God , may God bless him and grant him peace, and that Zaid consulted him about divorcing her, and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, forbade him from doing so, but in his heart there was the opposite, and that he wanted Zaid to divorce her in order to marry her, and on top of that, God approved of his Messenger for what he did, and even rebuked him for hiding this when God would reveal it. Despite the heinousness of what came in these narrations, and this understanding of the noble verse that talks about Zaid’s divorce of Zainab and the Prophet’s marriage to her, it was permissible for virtuous imams, so they interpreted the noble verse with it, and they confirmed that explicitly in their books and interpretations . Among these imams: Ibn Jarir al-Tabari in his book Jami’ al-Bayan (22/12), when interpreting the verse, and he did not mention anyone else. Among them: al-Razi in his interpretation (13/184), where he mentioned something similar to what Ibn Jarir said. Among them: Ibn al-Qayyim in his book al-Jawab al-Kafi (p. 247), where he mentioned it in the context of his presentation of stories about the love of the noble predecessors and the great imams. Among them: al-Zamakhshari in his interpretation (3/262). The best excuse for these imams and their followers who interpreted the verse in this way is that they considered this from him, may God bless him and grant him peace, to be one of the accidents of humanity, such as anger and forgetfulness, but they did not consider the enormity of this interpretation of the verse, and attributing it to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and they did not scrutinize the narrations that reached them in terms of their chains of transmission and texts as others did, and we ask God to reward them for their efforts and to forgive them. Now to the critique of the narrations..




















The first narration: It was mentioned by Ibn Saad in his Tabaqat (8/101) and from his path Ibn Jarir included it in his History (3/161): He said: Muhammad ibn Umar told us, he said: Abdullah ibn Amir al-Aslami told me, on the authority of Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Habban, he said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, came to the house of Zayd ibn Haritha looking for him, and Zayd was only called: Zayd ibn Muhammad, so the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, might miss him at one moment and say: Where is Zayd? So he came to his house looking for him, but he did not find him, and Zaynab would stand up to him.

Bint Jahsh, his wife, was wearing her nightgown. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, turned away from her, and she said: He is not here, O Messenger of Allah. Come in, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , refused to come in. She only hurried to put on her clothes when she was told: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is at the door. She jumped up in haste, and the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was impressed, so he turned away, murmuring something that could hardly be understood except: Glory be to the Disposer of hearts. Then Zaid came to his house, and his wife told him that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , had come to his house. Zaid said: Why did you not tell him to come in? She said: I had told him that , but he refused. He said: Did you hear something? She said: I heard him say when he turned away that he spoke words that I did not understand, and I heard him say: Glory be to Allah, the Almighty, Glory be to the Disposer of hearts. Then Zaid came until he came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and he said: O Messenger of Allah, I have heard that you have come to my house, why did you not come in? By my father and mother, O Messenger of Allah, perhaps Zainab pleases you, so I should separate from her. The Messenger of Allah said: Keep your wife. Zaid could not find a way to her after that day, so he came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and informed him. The Messenger of Allah said: Keep your wife. The Messenger said: O Messenger of Allah, should I separate from her? The Messenger of Allah said: Keep your wife. So Zaid separated from her and separated from her, and her waiting period had ended. He said: While the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , was sitting and talking with Aisha, a fainting spell over the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, came, and he was smiling and saying: Who will go to Zainab and give her the good news that Allah has married me to her from the heaven? The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , recited: {And when you said to him whom Allah had bestowed favor and you had bestowed favor : Keep your wife to yourself...} the verse, the whole story. Aisha said: I was taken by what was near and far when we heard of her beauty, and another is the greatest and most honorable thing that Allah did for her, Allah married her from the heaven, and I said: She is boasting to us about this, Aisha said: So Salma, the servant of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, went out in a hurry to tell her about that, so she gave her beautiful silver jewelry to wear . The chain of transmission of this narration has three defects, one of which is sufficient to reject this narration: The first defect: It is mursal, as Muhammad bin Yahya bin Hibban was a follower, he narrates from the companions, and he also narrates from the followers, such as Omar bin Saleem and Al-Araj, and others, (d. 121 AH) and his age (74 years), so he did not witness the story for sure and he did not mention who told him about it. Al-Tahdheeb (9/507-508). The second defect: Abdullah bin Amir Al-Aslami, weak by consensus, rather Al-Bukhari said about him: His hadith is lost, and Abu Hatim said: He is abandoned. Al-Tahdheeb (5/275), and Mizan Al-I’tidal (2/448). The third reason:








Muhammad ibn Umar, who is al-Waqidi, is a narrator who narrated many hadiths, but his hadiths are abandoned, and a group of imams accused him of lying and fabricating hadiths. Mizan al-I'tidal (3/664).


The second narration: It was mentioned by Ibn Jarir in his Tafsir (22/13). He said: Yunus told me, he said: Ibn Wahb told us, he said: Ibn Zayd said: The Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace, had married Zayd ibn Haritha to Zaynab bint Jahsh, his paternal aunt’s daughter. One day, the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, went out to meet him, and there was a curtain of hair on the door. The wind lifted the curtain and she was revealed while she was in her room, unveiled. Her admiration fell on the Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace , and when that happened, she hated the other, so he came and said: O Messenger of God, I want to leave my companion. He said: What is the matter with you? Does anything about her make you anxious? He said: No, by God, nothing about her worried me, O Messenger of God, and I saw nothing but good. The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace , said: Keep your wife and fear God. This is what God Almighty said: {And when you said to him whom God had bestowed favor upon and you had bestowed favor, "Keep your wife to yourself and fear God," while you concealed within yourself that which God was to reveal.} You concealed within yourself that if he divorced her, you would marry her. This narration has two faults: The first fault is that it is problematic, as Ibn Zayd, who is Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, is not a companion or a follower, so two or more narrators are missing from the chain of transmission. The second reason: Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam is weak according to the consensus of the hadith scholars. In fact, some of them stated that his hadith is abandoned. Al-Bukhari and Abu Hatim said: Ali ibn al-Madini considered him very weak. Abu Hatim said: He was weak in hadith. It was narrated from al-Shafi’i that he said: It was said to Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam: Your father told you on the authority of your grandfather that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: Noah’s ark circled around the House and prayed two rak’ahs behind the Maqam. He said: Yes. For this reason, when a man mentioned a disconnected hadith to Malik, he said to him: Go to Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd and he will tell you on the authority of his father on the authority of Noah. The statements of the imams about his weakness are many. He is a righteous man in his own right, but he was busy with worship and asceticism from memorizing hadith, so he became very weak. At-Tahdheeb (6/178). Many things are narrated from him in tafsir, so whatever his opinion was on understanding the Qur’an, this should be examined. As for what he narrates with a chain of transmission, it is not acceptable, so how about if he sends the hadith?! The third narration: Ahmad mentioned it in his Musnad (3/149-150), he said: Muammil bin Ismail told us, he said: Hammad bin Zaid told us, he said: Thabit told us on the authority of Anas, he said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, came to the house of Zaid bin Haritha and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, saw his wife Zainab , and it was as if he entered it, I do not know from what Hammad said or in the hadith, so Zaid came to complain about her to him, so the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to him : Keep your wife and fear God, he said: Then the verse was revealed: {And fear God, while you conceal within yourself that which God is to reveal} until His saying: {We have married her to you} meaning Zainab .














Mu'ammil ibn Isma'il was strengthened by some imams, but most of them described him as making many mistakes and narrating strange things. Ya'qub ibn Sufyan said: His hadith does not resemble the hadith of his companions, and the people of knowledge should refrain from ignoring his hadith, because he narrates strange things from trustworthy sheikhs, and this is more serious. If these strange things were from weak people, we would have made an excuse for him. Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi said: If Mu'ammil is the only one who narrates a hadith, it is obligatory to refrain and verify it, because he had a poor memory and made many mistakes. At-Tahdheeb (10/381). This hadith of his was narrated by a group of trustworthy people from the companions of Hammad, but they did not mention the beginning of the hadith, but they mentioned Zayd coming to complain about Zaynab , and the Prophet's words to him, and the revelation of the verse. Al-Bukhari (no. 7420), At-Tirmidhi (no. 3212) , and An-Nasa'i (no. 11407).






The fourth narration: It was narrated by Ibn Jarir in his interpretation (22/13), he said: Bishr told us, he said: Yazid told us, he said: Saeed told us on the authority of Qatada: {And when you said to him upon whom Allah had bestowed favor } and he was Zaid, upon whom Allah had bestowed Islam {and you had bestowed favor upon him } the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, freed him : {Keep your wife to yourself and fear Allah, and conceal within yourself that which Allah is to bring to light}, he said: And he was concealing within himself that he wished he had divorced her. Al-Hasan said: No verse was revealed to him that was more severe than His statement {And fear Allah, and conceal within yourself that which Allah is to bring to light}, and if the Prophet of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , had concealed something of the revelation, he would have concealed it {And you fear the people, while Allah has more right that you should fear Him}, he said: The Prophet of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, feared what the people would say. And Abd al-Razzaq narrated on the authority of Muammar on the authority of Qatada this story in brief. He said: Zaid bin Haritha came and said: O Messenger of Allah, Zainab ’s tongue is harsh with me, and I want to divorce her. He said to him: Fear Allah and keep your wife. He said: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, loves to divorce her and fears what people will say. Fath al-Bari (8/524). Qatada is Ibn Di’amah al-Sadousi, one of the imams and preservers of hadith, famous for his interpretation. Whatever he interpreted from his understanding of the verses should be looked into. As for what he mentioned as a narration, the scholars took him to task for frequent forgery, so they stipulated for the authenticity of his hadith that he explicitly stated that he heard it. This is if he mentioned the chain of transmission, but if he narrates it without mentioning anyone after him in the chain of transmission, as in his narration of this story, then it is very weak. Al-Sha’bi said: Qatada was a woodcutter at night. Abu Amr bin al-Ala’ said: Qatada and Amr bin Shu’aib were not deceived by anything, they took from everyone. Al-Tahdheeb (8/351-356). Yahya bin Saeed Al-Qattan did not consider the sending of Al-Zuhri and Qatadah to be anything, and he said: It is like the wind. Jami’ Al-Tahsil fi Ahkam Al-Marasil by Al-Ala’i (p. 101). However, his narration of the interpretation of the verse does not contain details as in the other narrations, and his narration can be referred back to the authentic narrations in the interpretation of the verse, so the meaning of (I loved) and (I would like) is that he knew that Zaid would divorce her and that would be by God’s inspiration to him, and his fear would be of what people would say at that time: He married his son’s wife. The fifth narration: Al-Qurtubi mentioned it in his interpretation (14/190). Muqatil said: The Prophet married












Zainab bint Jahsh was married to Zaid, and she stayed with him for a while. Then, peace be upon him, he came to Zaid one day to ask for her. He saw Zainab standing, and she was white, beautiful, and large, one of the most perfect women of Quraysh. He fell in love with her and said: Glory be to God, the Changer of hearts. Zainab heard the glorification and mentioned it to Zaid. Zaid became aware and said: O Messenger of God, give me permission to divorce her, for she is arrogant, she acts haughtily toward me and hurts me with her tongue. He, peace be upon him , said : Keep your wife and fear God. It was said: God sent a wind that lifted the curtain and Zainab was enjoying herself in her house. He saw Zainab and it fell into his heart, and it fell into Zainab’s heart that it fell into the heart of the Prophet , peace be upon him , when he came to ask for Zaid. Zaid came and she told him about that, and it fell into Zaid’s heart to divorce her. This narration was not attributed to Muqatil, and if it were authentically attributed to Muqatil, it would not benefit them at all, because Muqatil, who is Muqatil ibn Sulayman, it appears, was denied by a group of imams and described as a fabricator of hadith, and they relied on his interpretation. See his biography in al-Tahdhib (10/279-285).




The sixth narration: Ibn Ishaq said: Zayd ibn Haritha fell ill, so the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) went to visit him , and Zaynab bint Jahsh, his wife, was sitting at Zayd’s head. Zaynab stood up for some business, so the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him ) looked at her , then lowered his head and said: Glory be to the Changer of hearts and sights. Zayd said: Let her go for you, O Messenger of Allah. He said: No. Then Allah the Almighty revealed {And when you said to him whom Allah had bestowed favor and you had bestowed favor ... } until His saying {And the command of Allah is to be done.} The multiple wives of the prophets and the status of women in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Major General Ahmad Abd al-Wahhab (p. 68). This narration was not mentioned with a chain of transmission, and I did not find it in the biography of Ibn Hisham. After it became clear that these narrations are weak and fallible in terms of their chains of transmission, let us look at them from the perspective of their texts and what they contain of confusion and strangeness, from several aspects: - The first aspect: The contradiction of the mentioned narrations, as in some of them it is mentioned that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, visited Zaid bin Haritha while he was absent, and Zainab received him , and in some of them it is mentioned that Zaid was sick, so the Messenger of Allah , may Allah bless him and grant him peace, visited him, and he was sitting with Zaid and Zainab , so how could Zaid be absent and sick in his bed at the same time?! The second aspect: The narrations that mentioned that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , visited Zaid differed in how the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saw him.









For Zainab (may Allah be pleased with her), a narration says that he was standing at the door and she came out to him, and a narration that he was standing at Zaid’s door and the wind lifted the curtain of hair and he saw her and was pleased with her. The third aspect: The narrations agree that the Prophet’s (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him ) admiration for Zainab and the love for her falling into his heart came late, that is, after Zaid (may Allah be pleased with him) married her, and this is something amazing, for Zainab was born when the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) was over twelve years old, and she grew up and was raised in front of him, for she was his cousin, and he did not notice her charms until late, and after she became the wife of his adopted son, and he was the one who married her to him, and the veil had not yet been revealed, for it was revealed on the morning of her wedding, so that he would not have witnessed her, so if he had loved her or she had fallen into his heart, nothing would have prevented him from marrying her, for a sign from him (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) was sufficient for them to present her to him, and it was even reported that she offered herself to him. See the words of Ibn al-Arabi about this aspect in his book Ahkam al-Qur’an (3/1543). Fourth aspect: Even if we assume for the sake of argument that her love entered his heart, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, late after seeing her with Zaid bin Haritha, then how can we explain what he did , may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and what Zaid and Zainab understood from her that she had fallen into his heart, whether it was glorifying Allah, lowering the head, or something else?! How is that, when he is the one who forbade a man from tempting another woman against him ? Would he do what he forbade his nation from?! Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said : “ Whoever tempts a man’s wife or slave is not one of us.” Abu Dawud (No. 5170) with a saheeh chain of transmission. Even if we assume that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace ) did not intend for her to understand that, but rather it happened spontaneously without intention, then how about what they mentioned that he had made up his mind out of his love and desire for Zaid to divorce her so that he could marry her? If that was attributed to an individual Muslim, then he should have been acquitted of that. And above all, how could Allah reproach him, as these narrations say, because he concealed that from the people and did not announce that he loved Zayd’s wife, and that he wished to divorce her in order to marry her? An imagination like this is enough to show the invalidity of these narrations. The fifth aspect: These narrations that they interpreted the verse with, if nothing else was mentioned, it would not be correct to interpret the Book of Allah Almighty with them, because their chain of transmission and text are weak. So how is it that other narrations were mentioned in the logical interpretation of the verse, in which there is no problem or objection? What the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) concealed was what his Lord informed him that she would become his wife, and what he feared was people saying that he married the wife of the one he was called to. The strange thing in the matter is that some of the interpreters left these authentic narrations that are not questionable, and mentioned those strange, deviant narrations, and some of them did not mention them but went on to interpret the verses in light of them.













Now that it has become clear that these narrations are invalid in terms of chain of transmission and text, I cannot fail to record here the positions of some of the investigating imams, commentators and others, who took a firm and solid stand against these narrations. Some of them mentioned them and refuted them, and some of them ignored them after pointing out their weakness and objectionability.

Ibn al-Arabi said after mentioning a summary of these narrations and explaining the infallibility of the Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace : All of these narrations have invalid chains of transmission. Ahkam al-Qur’an (3/1543). Al-Qurtubi said after mentioning the correct interpretation of what the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, was hiding and what he feared from people: This statement is the best that has been said in the interpretation of this verse, and it is what the people of investigation among the commentators and established scholars, such as al-Zuhri, Judge Bakr ibn al-Ala’ al-Qushayri, Judge Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi and others, agree upon . As for what was narrated that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) fell in love with Zaynab, the wife of Zayd, and that some of the licentious may have used the word “passion,” this only came from someone who was ignorant of the infallibility of the Prophet ( peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him ) from such a thing, or who took his sanctity lightly. Al-Jami’ li-Ahkam al-Quran (14/191). Ibn Katheer said after mentioning the authentic narrations: Ibn Abi Hatim and Ibn Jarir mentioned here narrations from some of the salaf (may Allaah be pleased with them) that we wanted to ignore because of their lack of authenticity, so we will not mention them. Imam Ahmad also narrated here a hadeeth narrated by Hammad ibn Zayd from Thabit from Anas (may Allaah be pleased with him) in which there is something strange, so we have also left out its context. Tafsir al-Quran al-Azeem (3/491). Ibn Hajar said after mentioning the authentic narrations: Other narrations were narrated by Ibn Abi Hatim and al-Tabari and transmitted by many of the commentators, and we should not be preoccupied with them. Fath al-Baari (8/524). There is a large group of Islamic scholars in the present age who have become aware of such news, and their eyes have cast their eyes on what it contains of dangerous entrances that are not befitting the status of the prophets. So Allah enlightened their insights to uncover these foreign traces, and they were credited with alerting and awakening Islamic thought to confront every plot intended to undermine the sanctity of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace , or distort the historical facts in the heritage of Islam. Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Rida says: The storyteller has words in this story that should not be accepted, and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, must be protected from these absurdities that have been falsely and slanderously attributed to him. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace (p. 275). In short, the marriage of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to Zaynab bint Jahsh was on the crescent of Dhul-Qi'dah in the fifth year of the Hijrah, and she was thirty-five years old. Ibn Sa'd in Al-Tabaqat (8/114). Al-Bukhari narrated in his Sahih (No. 7420): Zaid came complaining about his wife, so the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, began...















He said: Fear God and keep your wife. Aisha said: If the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace , had concealed anything, he would have concealed this. She used to boast to the wives of the Prophet , may God bless him and grant him peace , saying: Your families married you, but God married me from above the seven heavens. And the last of our supplication is that all praise is due to God, Lord of the worlds.