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Join date : 2011-04-30
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 | Subject: The Marriage of the Prophet, pbuh, to Zainab bint Jahsh: The Big Issue of Orientalists  Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:32 am | |
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The Marriage of the Prophet, pbuh, to Zainab bint Jahsh: The Big Issue of Orientalists
By: Dahlia Sabry
The issue of the marriage of the Prophet, pbuh, to Zainab bint Jahsh is always used by Orientalists to attack Islam and the Messenger of Allah, pbuh.
The accusation said is that the Prophet, pbuh, developed a crush on Zainab and made his fostered son divorce his wife to marry her.
First of all, it should be noted that Zainab bint Jahsh was the Prophet's (pbuh) cousin. She used to counsel him about whom she should marry among her suitors, and it was the Prophet, pbuh, himself who suggested Zaid, his adopted son for her to marry. She was not a stranger to him and had he willed to marry her, she should have immediately accepted as marrying the Prophet was no doubt a great honour. This was, actually, one reason behind marrying some of his other wives like Aisha, Hafsa, Safiyyah to honour his great Companions Abu Bakr and Umar in the first two cases, and Safiyah the Jewish woman who was captured and who belonged to a noble Jewish family.
Zainab refused marrying Zaid because she was of a prestigious family, and he was formerly a slave but Allah revealed the ayah:
"It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allāh and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allāh and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error." [33: 36]
When she knew Allah commanded that, she accepted, but she always acted as superior to Zaid. A lot of problems occurred, and he always went to complain to the Prophet, pbuh, who used to tell him to fear Allah and to bear up. Then, Allah told him that Zaid would end up divorcing her, and that he would have to marry her to make it lawful that someone can marry the ex-wife of his fostered son. Still, when Zaid came to complain to the Prophet, he used to advise him to be good to his wife and to fear Allah, and he did not tell him about what he knew would happen.
Obviously, the Prophet, pbuh, was trying to postpone it as much as possible because though it was an order of Allah that he had to obey, he knew that people would misinterpret it saying that he made the man to divorce his wife to marry her.
Hence, the following ayah was revealed:
"[And remember, O Muhammad] when you said to the one whom Allah has bestowed favour upon and you bestowed favour upon, 'keep your wife and fear Allah', and you concealed within yourself what Allah was to disclose. And you feared people while Allah is more entitled to be feared …" [33: 37]
Some interpret "you concealed within yourself what Allah was to disclose" as his crush on her, etc. This is not possible due to the reason mentioned earlier, namely that she was his cousin for whom he himself suggested Zaid as a husband. What he concealed, apparently, in himself was his knowledge that the problem was not going to be solved and that Zaid would end up divorcing her and he would marry her to obey what God had destined to make an example through the Prophet that marrying the ex-daughter of a fostered son is permissible. Otherwise, people would have still thought it hard to apply that because that was the custom them. They treated fostered sons legally as blood children.
I believe God in this ayah was admonishing him because he continued to pacify Zaid and tell him to keep his wife despite God's telling him in advance of how matters would end up.
Of course, for an ayah like this to be revealed telling the Prophet "And you feared people while Allah is more entitled to be feared"), is not an easy matter at all. After receiving any revelation he had to gather his companions and teach them what he got. How hard would it have been to recite to them verses in which he was admonished for an already very difficult situation? However, he had to obey Allah's command while he knew how the matter would be interpreted, and indeed this is what has been happening until this very day.
Aisha, his wife, said that nothing of the revelation was harder on the Prophet than this one, and that if it were in his hands to hide anything of what was revealed to him, he would have hid this one. However, of course he could not.
I take this ayah to be one example of the ayat that prove that the Prophet, pbuh, could NOT by any means have authored the Qur'an as many have claimed. | |
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