Right in front the eyes of “Quraish” tribe of Makkah, Prophet Muhammad led a blame-free life. He was raised up as an orphan by his grandfather then his uncle. When capable, he worked as a shepherd for the cattle owners in Makkah. At his young age he was too poor to get married as early as his people were accustomed to. When he grew up to become a strong young man capable of traveling for months in the desert, he started accompanying his uncle in his trade-travels to Sham, and he gained a highly respectable reputation among his tribe to the extent that people nicknamed him “The truthful, the faithful.” When he was twenty five, he was employed by Lady Khadijah Bint Khwailid who was a highly respected woman and caravan owner of great honor and fortune among Quraish. As a woman, she used to employ men to travel with her caravans to Sham. Quraish people were mostly trades’ people, so when lady Khadijah was informed of Muhammad who had gained the best reputation for his morals and ethics, she asked his uncle to let him travel with her caravans and she would give him double the rate of the other caravan owners. She also offered to send her hireling Maisarah with him to give him aid on the journey. The prophet agreed and traveled with Maisarah to Sham for trade.
Strange things happened during the journey. Maisarah reported that on passing by a monk’s hermitage in Sham, Prophet Muhammad stopped the caravan for rest and he sat under a tree taking shelter in its shadow, the monk watched him carefully then he asked Maisarah about him saying: “Who is that man sitting under that tree?” Maisarah answered: “This is a man from Quraish tribe from the sacred city” The monk replied: “The man under that tree is not but a prophet, is there some redness in his eyes?” Maisarah answered: “It never parts his eyes” The monk said: “That’s him, the seal of all prophets, and I hope that I would catch up with him when he is ordered to preach his message.” [Recorded by Ibn-Sa’d]. Maisarah also noticed that while traveling in the desert, whenever the sun’s heat increased, a cloud always threw its shade upon the prophet protecting him from the sun.
When they returned to Makkah, lady Khadijah noticed that her profit was increased four times and more. Maisarah told her of the monk’s story and what he had noticed during the journey. He described to her the prophet’s good manners, honesty, deep thought and long meditation on nature. She realized that this man wasn’t an ordinary man but a holy blessed person whom any woman would aspire to have as a husband. Many notable men had proposed to her after her second husband’s death, but since that she was a widow who took care of 3 children, and doubting those men’s real intentions, she always refused their proposals. She entrusted her wish of marrying Muhammad to her friend Nafisa.
Nafisa reported that she went to Prophet Muhammad and after a short talk with him, she succeeded in convincing him of proposing to Lady Khadijah signifying her admiration and certain consent if he proposed to her. Receiving the news with pleasure, Prophet Muhammad asked his uncle to go to Lady Khadijah’s uncle and ask for her hand. Subsequently, they were married. There he was married for the first time when he was 25 years old to a 40 years old widow with children. He lived with Lady Khadijah for the next twenty five years without ever thinking of getting married again. This was his choice at a time when polygyny was normally practiced by most men of his tribe without any blame. The prophet and Lady Khadijah were blessed through their marriage with 4 daughters and 2 sons.
A few years before turning 40, the prophet used to withdraw and seclude himself in the Cave of Hira’, in one of the mountains surrounding the valley of Bakkah. This desire of staying in seclusion visited him every year in the month of Ramadan. During that month, he used to devote his time to worship and the remembrance of his Creator. This continued until he started receiving revelations at the age of 40 and began preaching Islam. The prophet’s marriage to Lady Khadijah continued for 25 years until she died at the age of 65 after the siege of Muslims in the narrow passage of “Abu-Tālib.” Prophet Muhammad’s companions called the year in which she died “The year of grief.” That was for the sorrow they saw on the prophet after her departure.
It was reported that 10 years later, at the conquest of Makkah —the prophet was 60 years old by then— during the first night spent in Makkah, a lot of people who have embraced Islam were inviting the prophet to stay at their houses persistently, and the companions were asking him if he would stay in his old house, but the prophet answered in modesty with a longing voice: “Nay, but stretch me a tent beside Khadijah’s tomb.”
Pondering over his response, one can immediately understand that Her side was his house and resting place even if she was dead, and as long as he lived after she departed, he remained her loyal partner.
Lady ‘Āʾishah, herself reported that once when jealous from the feelings Prophet Muhammad still had for the departed Lady Khadijah, she said: “You always remember her and she was nothing but an old woman whom Allah has given you in exchange who’s better.” The prophet replied in an honest burst of anger: “No, I swear that Allah hadn’t given me in exchange of her who’s better, she believed in my prophethood and embraced Islam when people disbelieved in me. She helped and comforted me in person and with her wealth when there was none else to lend me a helping hand, and I was given from her my children and deprived having them from any other wife.” Lady ‘Āʾishah felt how she had hurt the prophet’s feelings so she said: “Ask Allah to forgive me O prophet.” But the prophet answered: “Ask Allah to forgive Khadijah first then I shall ask him to forgive you.” [Recorded by Ahmad].
Lady ‘Āʾishah also reported that: “Whenever the prophet slaughtered a sheep, he would say: ‘Send from its meat to Khadijah’s friends.’ When I asked him about that, he said: ‘I love whomever she loved.’ ” [Recorded by Muslim].
That jealous wife was lady ‘Āʾishah, the prophet’s youngest bride and the only virgin he ever married. The wife for whose marriage the prophet is always accused by western writers of being a rapist and a pedophile. The wife who has reported in many occasions after the prophet’s death that she was his most jealous wife, she said, “I never felt so jealous of any woman like I did from Khadijah though she passed away three years before the Prophet and I got married, the reason was that I heard him mention her too often.” [Recorded by Bukhari].
Unfortunately, western media failed magnificently in conveying this image of Prophet Muhammad’s marital life to their viewers and listeners. They always say, “How do you believe in a pedophile to be a prophet? How can you follow a child rapist and a womanizer, He married ‘Āʾishah when he was 54 and she was 9, are you that crazy?! You Muslims encourage child abuse and Islam is a religion that teaches pedophilia.” It is always that bustling tone that we hear from where the sun sets, but rarely a sound of reason. They never try to ask about matters they don’t understand, nor do they care about grasping true knowledge about the other. In response to that, read my posts History of the age of consent, The Glaring Beacon, & Lady ‘Āʾishah’s Age.
Sheikh “Mufti Muhammad Shafi” in his commentary “Ma’aref Al-Qur’an” said: “The first five decades of his life, specially his younger years and, his youth, were all too visible to the people of Makkah. Nobody, not even an enemy, ever found an occasion to point an accusing finger at him regarding anything that could put his pristine piety and purity in doubt. His enemies tried whatever arrows they had in their quiver. They accused him of being a magician, a sorcerer, a poet, madman, liar, and fabricator. But, they never dared say anything, not one word, about his innocent life, about whatever could refer to any crookedness of extra-marital sex or passion.”
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Written By: Ehab Shawky
Islamic Methodologies Made Easy 