The Messenger’s Age When He Married Khadijah

Ibn Hisham said: When the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, reached the age of twenty-five, he married Khadijah bint Khuwaylid ibn Asad ibn Abd al-‘Uzza ibn Qusayy ibn Kilab ibn Murrah ibn Ka‘b ibn Lu’ayy ibn Ghalib, according to what more than one learned person narrated to me from Abu ‘Amr al-Madani.

[1] Other reports say the Messenger was twenty-one, thirty, or thirty-seven years old when he married Khadijah, and there are further reports. See Sharh al-Mawahib and al-Isti‘ab. [2] Khadijah was then forty years old; another report says forty-five. In the pre-Islamic period she was called al-Tahirah, “the Pure,” because of her chastity and reserve. She had been married to Abu Halah ibn Zurarah al-Tamimi, who died before Islam. Khadijah bore him Hind, a Companion who narrated a description of the Prophet and witnessed Badr, or, according to another report, Uhud. Al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali narrated from him and called him his maternal uncle, since Hind was the brother of Fatimah through their mother. Hind was eloquent and skilled in description. He used to say, “I am the noblest of people in father, mother, brother, and sister: my father is the Messenger of Allah, my brother is al-Qasim, my sister is Fatimah, and my mother is Khadijah.” Hind was killed with ‘Ali on the Day of the Camel; another report says he died in Basra during the plague, while another says it was his son, also named Hind, who died in the plague. Khadijah also bore Abu Halah a son, Halah ibn Abi Halah, who was a Companion. After Abu Halah died, Khadijah married ‘Atiq ibn ‘A’idh al-Makhzumi and bore him a daughter named Hind, who accepted Islam and became a Companion. See Sharh al-Mawahib and al-Isti‘ab.