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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khawla Bint Hakim & Uthman Ibn Madhun: The Righteous Couple | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Al-Shifa bint Abdullah (ra): The Healer and Scholar | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Shurahbil Ibn Hasana (ra): The Scribe and Commander | The Firsts Shorts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra): The Legendary Military General | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Amr ibn al-As (ra): His Wicked Father and “Better” Brother | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (ra): From False Prophet to Shaheed | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zayd ibn al-Khattab (ra): The Quiet Brother of Omar (ra) | The Firsts
Umm Salama (ra): A Legacy of Wisdom (Part 2)
She was most elegant and wise, and left behind her legacy through her support of the Prophet ﷺ, her students, her children, and the likes of Imam Hassan Al Basri who were brought up in her home.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Welcome back to the first Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. So tonight inshallah ta'ala we're going to talk about Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha a bit further, but I wanted to focus on the legacy of Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha. So it'll be a bit shorter than last week's halaqa where we talked about how she got to the point of moving into the house of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and becoming from the Ummahatul Mumineen, from the mothers of the believers. But Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha, though there aren't so many narrations about her life, there are so many narrations from her. And there is so much to take from her that only she uniquely brings to the seerah of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So let's talk about now her coming into the life of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam as his wife and what some of the implications of that were. And then some of the things that we take from her legacy radiAllahu ta'ala anha that are unique to her radiAllahu anha. Well for one, when she married the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, remember the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said that your family is my family, your children are my children. And this is going to be a significant part of what we cover tonight inshallah ta'ala, particularly Zainab her daughter and how she really became the daughter of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and was treated as such. Not treated as different from the other children or grandchildren of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, but really a beloved daughter to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that was also an extension of the legacy of Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha. Here we have a transition that's going to take place, which is that she is going to move into the hujurat. Now the hujurat were the homes of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that are literally like apartments that are right next to the masjid of the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam where his wives Alaihi Salatu Wasallam would stay. They're very small chambers, small places where each one of the wives radiAllahu anhun had their place. So she moved into the house of one of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam's wives who had passed away. In fact, the only wife of the Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to die in Al-Madinah, Umm al-Masakin Zaynab bint Khuzayma radiAllahu ta'ala anha. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam only buried two wives in his entire lifetime. He buried Khadijah radiAllahu ta'ala anha as we know, and this was the other wife that died while the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was still alive, Zaynab bint Khuzayma radiAllahu ta'ala anha who we'll talk about inshAllah ta'ala in some detail later on bint Allah ta'ala in another lecture. So Zaynab had passed away and Umm Salama is going to move into that home now with her children to function as, you know, fully a wife of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and her children raised up in the shadow of the Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. But Umm Salama radiAllahu anha would immediately occupy a special place that would never be taken from her. For one, when she married the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, she was the eldest of his wives at that time, and when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would visit his wives, he would always visit her first. So she had that distinction, okay, that she was the first to be visited by the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. She also would be the one that would accompany the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam on many of his journeys and really became an advisor to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in some of the most important incidents that would take place along those journeys, along those expeditions, and we'll talk about some of those. She had an elegance to her radiAllahu ta'ala anha that was completely unmatched. So we already got a glimpse into her tawakkul in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, her trust in Allah. We got a glimpse into
her life in terms of her patience. We have seen her bravery. We've seen her courage. We've seen her nobility. We've talked about the family that she came from and the generosity that she had, that she took as a trait and something to be proud of. We talked about her preceding her brothers to Islam and the fact that her brothers would narrate hadiths from her later on. So what does Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha look like when you meet her? Beyond her beauty, which was notable, she was extremely elegant, intelligent. She was knowledgeable. She was inquisitive. She was very outspoken. She was someone that had such a presence that she immediately occupied the place of a scholar in any gathering that she was in. So she really, you know, when we say mothers of the believers, she truly, all of them are our Ummuha, they're all our mothers, but she SubhanAllah truly had that place of the mother of the Ummah in that sense that, you know, Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha was a scholar that would be looked to by anyone that came into her presence. And one of the things that we know about her radiAllahu ta'ala anha is that from the women after Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala anha, she narrates the most ahadith from the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam. So when you talk about legacy, much of what we know about the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam would come through her. Just like we said, when Abyssinia, with the situation in Abyssinia, we know what we know about Abyssinia through the eyes of Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha. Likewise, you're talking about hundreds of narrations that are frequently quoted amongst the Muslims from the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam and about the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam that come through Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha. So hundreds of ahadith that she narrates from the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, no one outranks her in that sense amongst the women other than Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala anha. And, you know, she also was known for her eloquence and her mastery of the Arabic language. They
said that Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha, what's narrated about her is that she always said the perfect thing about the situation, right? So when she was describing something, she would describe it perfectly. When she wanted to ask a question, her questions were clearest. When she gave a fatwa, her fatawa were the clearest, were the most concise and clear and straight to the point. She had a beauty to her tone radiAllahu ta'ala anha and a mastery of the language. She never had to repeat herself radiAllahu ta'ala anha because of how eloquent and how, you know, precise her delivery was radiAllahu ta'ala anha. So I'm just trying to give you this portrait of her radiAllahu ta'ala anha that can clearly be derived through the various incidents about her radiAllahu ta'ala anha. And not only would the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam ask her, you know, for advice, but she would ask the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam some difficult questions. And she was known to be willing to answer difficult questions as well. So a lot of the masa'il, a lot of the questions that show up in the religion that have to do with some of the embarrassing topics, you know, topics surrounding intimacy or topics surrounding women's issues in particular, Umm Salamah radiAllahu ta'ala anha was the one that would tackle it in a way that was appropriate, but at the same time, did not have any ambiguity to where the ummah would not understand those issues properly. So she is the advisor to the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam. She asked the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam some difficult questions. She is able to take on difficult questions from the ummah and she occupies that special place for all times, as we'll see when we talk about the types of ahadith that we have from her radiAllahu ta'ala anha. So where do we find her most famous incidents with the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam after she married him? Now, again, when you talk about questioning, just look at what she asked the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam before she married him. Though she was ecstatic, right, that a proposal would come to her from the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, she made it a point to state her boundaries
from the very beginning, to state her issues from the very beginning, the three things that she mentioned to the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, and that played out in a very special way that, you know, though the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam of course would have never mistreated her children, but the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam going out of his way to make her family feel like his family SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, not excluded in any way whatsoever. So where do we really find her greatest contributions in the life of the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam in terms of the incidents of the seerah? None so more than Hudaybiyyah, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, because this was a situation where the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam himself was stuck in trying to figure out how to make his companions deal with the situation in the way that was most appropriate. So let's just kind of give some pretext to this. Umm Salama after she married the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam she accompanied the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam on Banu Mustaliq, she accompanied the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam on Khaybar, she accompanied the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam on Hunain, she accompanied the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, in fact in the conquest of Mecca after Hudaybiyyah, and she was present particularly when the Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam signed the Treaty of Hudson and she was amongst those that were present at with at the pledge that took place, Bay'atul Ridwan, which we talked about with Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. Right, that special pledge under the tree that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions to us in the Quran. So what happens in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah? Obviously the sahaba, particularly the muhajirun that came from Mecca, had been dreaming about the moment that they could go back to Mecca. Imagine the emotions of the companions of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that were run out and persecuted. And now they are on their way to make Umrah. And they are already, you know, intending to reach Mecca. And they are stopped in the place of Hudaybiyyah. This treaty takes place and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam now is telling them that we're going back to Medina.
We're talking about years and years and years of missing Mecca. We're talking about years and years and years of wishing for the moment to do tawaf around the Kaaba. We're talking about the years that have gone by, where the companions have endured all sorts of difficulties at the hands of Quraysh, at the hands of the Meccans that have come to them and have persecuted them and have instigated all sorts of skirmishes and battles in the process. And now the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, he signs this treaty because the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam through divine revelation knows that the goodness that will come through this treaty is greater than any type of going forward and the emotional response to that moment would have been to just go forward and to just fight and to deal with the persecution that would come at the hands of the Meccans and to insist on doing Umrah and go with whatever comes with that. But Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la had different plans for the Muslims and we know the famous stories of Abu Bakr and Umar, may Allah be pleased with them. Umar radiAllahu ta'ala Anhum, who went around to the companions of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and saying, are we not on the truth? And are they not on falsehood? Why are we holding back? Should we not go forward? And Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala Anhum, as always seeing things exactly the way the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam saw things and advocating the exact same position as the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. But you had emotional people, you had a group of companions that felt like, it's important for us to just go forward. And I want you to think about the scene, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam tells them that we're going to go back, that we're going to end our ihram here, and no one is moving. They don't want to, they don't wanna sacrifice, they don't wanna shave their heads, they don't wanna get out of their ihram, because they still have hope that maybe, just maybe, something's gonna change and Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
will pave the way for them to make their way to Mecca that particular year. And so when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam gives them the order to shave their heads and to sacrifice, to exit the ihram, and says that we are going back, they don't move. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam comes in and he speaks to Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, and he tells Umm Salama about the situation, and he asks Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha for advice. Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha says, go out there and do not say a word, just carry out your sacrifice, and then call for the barber to shave your head, and then once you do that, then you will see what will happen, okay? So Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha is the one that said to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would you like them to follow your instruction after three times of getting nowhere with the companions, telling them what to do. Don't say a word, just act. And these people ultimately, the companions of the Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, radiAllahu ta'ala Anhum ajma'een, may Allah be pleased with them. These are the same people, by the way, that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions he was pleased with when they took the pledge under Bay'at Ar-Ridwan. So it's not out of disobedience to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, it's out of the hope and the connection that they still have to Mecca, that maybe we're still gonna be able to go forward. Ultimately, Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha is saying, Ya Rasulullah, if they see you do it, then they're going to do it, right? Because there's a finality to that, and they follow your example more than anything else. There's a finality to that that will allow them to move forward. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, indeed, he came out, he didn't speak to any of them. Just as Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha said, he carried out his sacrifice SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, he called for his barber, the barber shaved his head, the Sahaba saw that, and finally, they got up and they started to slaughter their sacrifices, and they started to shave the heads of one another. And some of them were so upset that they were cutting each other's heads. You know, if you've ever been to Umrah or Hajj, those blades, sometimes it can get a little bit rough.
So they were so upset that they had to do this, that some of them had actually cut each other's heads due to the difficulty of that situation. But that is the advice of Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha, that wise advice. It might seem like, you know, it's nothing, but just think about the incident, right? Think about the wisdom and the knowledge and the perspective that Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha was able to have in that crucial moment with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and it's no wonder that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam trusted her with some of those very sensitive situations. We also have some of the difficult questions that she asked the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that led to the revelation of some of the most important verses in the Quran. One of them is a frequent question that would be asked. Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha asked the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, how come it seems like in the Quran, only the men are mentioned and the women are not? It feels like the Quran is speaking to the men and it's not speaking to the women. Now, she's not saying that out of rebellion. Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha is a woman of taqwa. If you haven't already seen that, she's a woman of piety and God consciousness. She's asking the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam from a place of pure heartedness, right? Not asking him to challenge him, not questioning the Quran, but asking, you know, why is it that it seems like only the men are mentioned in the Quran? So, Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha, she says that, you know, when I asked the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam ma yantiqoo anil hawwa, he does not speak from himself. So she says that, not, you know, a few moments passed by, but the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was answering me from the minbar. He was answering me from the pulpit. So think about the situation. She asked him this question in his home. And then the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was not able to answer her at the moment, but he goes to the minbar,
and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam starts to address the issue that Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha had asked him about. And when she said that, I heard the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam beginning to address the issue, she said, I quickly tied my hair. You know, I put my hair up, I tied my hair, and I went to my door and I started to listen carefully to what the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was saying. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam had answered her question. And he said, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has revealed, inna almuslimina walmuslimati walmu'mineena walmu'minat walqanitina walqanitat walssadiqina walssadiqat The very long verse that verily, the Muslim men and the Muslim women, the believing men, the believing women, the devout men, the devout women, the truthful men, the truthful women, the patient men, the patient women, the humble men, the humble women, the charitable men, the charitable women, the men who fast and the women who fast, the men who guard their private parts and the women who guard their private parts, men who remembered God often and women who remember Allah often, for them Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has prepared forgiveness and a great reward, which is verse 35 in Surah Al-Ahzab. This verse, which actually spells out that the men and the women are equal in their reward, are spiritually equal in the sight of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la was revealed as a response to Umm Salama radiAllahu anha, asking the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, what must have been on the minds of many women at the time of the Messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, establishing that when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la speaks to the mu'mineen in the male sense, it includes the men and the women in terms of reward and duty, unless something specifies otherwise, that the Quran is speaking to both men and to women, but that's Umm Salama radiAllahu anha asking the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam that question and that is the background of that revelation, of that beautiful verse of the Quran, which lays out the men and the women in similar fashion in that regard.
There's also a narration from Mujahid rahimahullah ta'ala that Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anha once said to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, Ya Rasulullah, Taghzu alrijal wala naghzu that the men go out to battle and we don't go out to battle. And we have nisful mirath, we have half of inheritance. How come we have half of the inheritance and not the same as the men? It's also a question that's asked. Now keep in mind by the way, that Islam was the first religion to establish any inheritance for women. Okay, it was the first religion to establish any inheritance for women. And the idea that it has established half for women and half for men is not necessarily true because there are multiple circumstances. In fact, numerous circumstances where the women will get the same as men or in fact, even more sometimes, right? Depending on which woman and depending on how the equations shape out. However, the idea here of men having more inheritance in a default situation than women, meaning sons and daughters, comes from the idea of the huqoq, the rights and the responsibilities and how that's all worked out in the shara'a. And so the idea that women have the right to their own wealth, whereas men do not have the right to their own wealth in the sense that they are entrusted with spending upon their families and multiple other things, obviously factors into that. We have, Alhamdulillah, I mean, a great paper at Yaqeen on five myths in regards to women in Islamic law where you can read more about the inheritance question. But this was a question that Umm Salama asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and this is according to this narration from Mujahid Rahimahullah Ta'ala, the incident in which Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la revealed, wa la tatamannu ma fadhalallahu bihi ba'dakum ala ba'd lilrijali nasibun mimma iktasabu wa lilnisai nasibun mimma iktasabu
Where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions to not wish or to not desire that which Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has apportioned to one group over another. For the men is that which they have earned, for the women is that which they have earned. And to ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la from his virtue, from his bounty, and that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is all knowledgeable upon all things. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la answering also to the sweetheart's request, the inquiry of Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, that this is not a sign of value. This is something that plays out in regards to responsibilities, in regards to some of the norms. And it's part of the knowledge and the wisdom of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, but certainly again, not as a part of devaluing women as the twin halves of men that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said that they are. We also see the verse of Ahlul Bayt, as we said, was revealed in her home and included her family, which we talked about last time. And Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha is one of the few people that was able to see Jibreel Alayhi Salaam in human form. That Jibreel Alayhi Salaam visited in human form where he resembled Jibreel Alayhi Salaam radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu in her home radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. So she's special in that sense as well. Okay, that she was someone who would ask the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam questions that revelation would come down in response to, and again, she was uniquely qualified, uniquely fit to narrate the hadith about the migration to Abyssinia, about the Prophet's home life, about marital issues, about gender issues, about issues of intimacy, about her own life experiences. And she was truly the mother of the believers in that sense as well radiAllahu ta'ala Anha in that she was always able to address some of those very sensitive issues and never shy to ask the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam about some of those very sensitive issues radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. And thus would also be the situation of her daughter Zainab
who would grow up to become a scholar like her and really carry on with that same dedication to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to his hadith, to his sunnah and have the brilliance of her mother Um Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. After the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away, Um Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha was known for dedicating her life to worship and dedicating her life to teaching. And so her home became a university of sorts. The Sahaba would come to Um Salama radiAllahu ta'ala Anha particularly for the narrations on behalf of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and for her fiqh. And so you find that the Sahaba considered her from the fuqaha of the Sahaba from the jurists amongst the companions from those who would be frequent in giving fatwa and speaking to the issues as they arose and delivering some of those fatawa. Ibn Abbas radiAllahu ta'ala Anhuma was a student of Um Salama radiAllahu Anha. He used to go to her and ask her some of the difficult questions and she would always be fully capable of answering some of those questions radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. And as we said, she narrated the second largest number of hadiths from any female companion. Only Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha narrated more than her. What does that come out to? 378 authentic narrations from the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. 13 are mutafakun alayh, meaning they're agreed upon. Three more in Bukhari, 13 more in Sahih Muslim. So you have a body of narrations, traditions from her radiAllahu ta'ala Anha that we still benefit from today. She was also the last of Ummahatul Mumineen to pass away. She's the last of the mothers of the believers to pass away. So she died actually in her nineties radiAllahu Anha. Talk about a legacy, you know, of what she had seen, the three migrations, the life and death of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam the lives and deaths of all of Khulafa Ar-Rashideen
living all the way until the reign of Yazid ibn Muawiyah. Right, so she lived a very long life radiAllahu ta'ala Anha which was to the benefit of the Ummah that so many sahaba and tabi'een were able to narrate directly from her. So many sahaba and tabi'een were able to narrate directly from her and study directly from her radiAllahu ta'ala Anha. She lived to see, unfortunately, the fitna that she was warned about, that she heard the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam warned about. She was deeply grieved by the murder of her brother Ammar ibn Yasir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. If you remember, we said that she was the one who narrated the hadith about the murder of Ammar ibn Yasir and she lived to see the day that her brother, her foster brother Ammar ibn Yasir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu would actually be killed. She was deeply grieved by the death of so many of the family of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, the Ahlul Bayt of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And SubhanAllah, there are some painful narrations about her own children, her own grandchildren, being amongst those that were martyred in some of those wars and some of those massacres that took place. A very painful narration about Zaynab, the daughter of Umm Salama, two of her sons being killed in the massacre of Al-Madina that was carried out in the reign of Yazid ibn Muawiyah and being placed in front of her, two dead sons being placed in front of her. So SubhanAllah, in her lifetime, she saw so much of the history that was pleasant and not so pleasant, where you had victory and you also had some of the division and the turmoil that would arise in the Ummah. So her children, her grandchildren went on to be soldiers and governors and martyrs, SubhanAllah, everything in between. And she witnessed all of that radiAllahu ta'ala anha. There are a few things I wanna mention about her, then I wanna talk about some of the not so known parts of her legacy, okay? For one, you know, one of the beautiful things we have
from her is that she kept the hair of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, similar to Khalid ibn al-Walid radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Khalid was famous for placing a hair of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam in his helmet, right? And in one of the battles, when the hair came out of his helmet, he, you know, in the middle of battle, forgets himself, right? And just looks for that hair to place back into his helmet, seemingly not even caring for his own life. And Khalid radiAllahu anhu, of course, was a cousin of Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. So Umm Salama used to keep some of the hair of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and certainly relished whatever she had left of the messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. She lost him, she lost her first husband Abu Salama and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, of course, told her that you would be the best, with the best of your husbands in Jannah, that she would be with the messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And she died of natural causes and the one that would lead her janazah was Abu Huraira radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, the great sahabi, the great narrator of the hadith of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So I wanna talk about two things inshallah ta'ala, two extensions of her legacy that often go unappreciated. The first one is regarding her daughter Zainab, okay? As we said, her children were sahaba, right? They met the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, they live with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and they were considered from Ahlul Bayt of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Now, when she married the messenger SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, her youngest daughter Zainab was still breastfeeding, she was still a very young girl. And so the only father that she would really know growing up was the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, not Abu Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam loved this young girl so much and imparted so much upon this young girl. And because she was not of marriageable age as she was growing up in the house of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, she spent the most time in the house of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
and Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. And there's so many different things we take. Number one, Zainab radiAllahu ta'ala anhu would narrate many ahadith herself. She was known herself for her knowledge and for her intelligence and for taking from Umm Salama radiAllahu ta'ala anhu some of those most praiseworthy qualities. She also gives us a dimension into the life of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, an example, which is the example of a stepfather. You know, a lot of times when you have marriages that take place where the children come from a previous marriage, they're going to be treated differently, right? There's often tension that's going to arise. And there's often going to be an issue with treating, you know, the children of your spouse from a previous marriage with the same level of love and respect and honor that they so desperately need, right? And Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he told her, reassuring her that your family is my family, here's how the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam actually carried that out. When the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam used to come to Umm Salama radiAllahu Anha, when he would enter the house, he would ask, where is our Zaynab? Not where is Zaynab, where is our Zaynab? And Zaynab radiAllahu Anha would run to him and the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would grab her and he would kiss her SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and he would play with her Alayhi Salatu Wasallam. So he didn't walk in and it was like, you know, let me talk to my wife and then, oh, okay, there's Zaynab again. No, he would walk in and immediately say, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, where is our Zaynab? Okay, so he called Zaynab, he attributed Zaynab to himself. We mentioned the narration last week where the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam embraces Zaynab and Umm Salama along with Fatima, Al-Hassan, Al-Hussein, may Allah be pleased with them all. We also see a narration where Ammar ibn Yasir radiAllahu Ta'ala Anhu, that he would pick up Zaynab, remember he is her uncle, right? And he would pick her up when she was a young girl and he would joke and he would say, this is the one who has come between the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and his family.
Because the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam loved her so much that it's like she has distracted the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, she's taken his attention away from all of the rest of his family members because of how much the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam loves her. And there's a beautiful narration. It is one of my favorite narrations about the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and Zaynab. And listen carefully, by the way, those of you that have daughters in particular, as you think about how these playful moments will come to play. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam had a habit with her of splashing water in her face from his wudu. So he would play with her SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and he would take the water and he would splash it in her face. And there's a very particular incident that's mentioned where the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was washing himself after a state of janaba and Umm Salamah said, go to him. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam took water and he threw it in her face. nabaha fee wajhi minal maa He threw water in my face and he said, irji'i, go back. Playing with her radiAllahu ta'ala anha. And there was something that came out of this. Number one, just the beauty of this. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam playing with her like his daughter, making it a point to show that extra attention, to sprinkle some water in her face, to show that joy and to give her memories of joy that she could carry. I mean, who gets to grow up and say that my stepfather was the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and treated me like his own, never made me feel like I wasn't his daughter. There's something very beautiful that comes out of that. Zainab would live a long life, a long life. And she would be noted as the most knowledgeable woman in Medina, okay? And would end up being the teacher of some of the most incredible scholars. She was the teacher, listen carefully, the teacher of Urwa ibn Zubair, who we get most of the seerah from. She was the teacher of Zainul Abideen, Ali ibn Hussain, the great grandson of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam the great scholar, Imam, sage,
was a student of Zainab bint Abi Salama. She was the teacher of Salama ibn Adir Rahman. Abu Rafi, the great Imam of Al-Madinah, he said that she was the most knowledgeable woman of her times. Afqahil Nisa, just like Umm Salama was known for her knowledge and her scholarship, she was known for being the most knowledgeable scholar from the women of her time. And here's what comes out of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam sprinkling water in her face. What is known about her is because from the day that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam sprinkled water in her face, maa naqasa min wajhiha shayt. She never aged, she never aged. Her face always remained as youthful as the time when she was with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and she attributed that and they attributed that to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam's habit of putting the water in her face, radiAllahu ta'ala anha. So she lived to be a'jooza, she lived to be an elderly woman, just like her mother. But though she lived to be an elderly woman, she always kept the youth in her face because of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam sprinkling water in her face and certainly the joy in her heart when she narrates hadiths of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, think about the thoughts that come to her mind, right? She remembers the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam as a father that always made it a point to show her that added level of compassion, that added level of love, which is so important, especially for those, it's important to be that with your children, period, but especially, subhanAllah, those that are dealing with orphans or those that are dealing with stepchildren to really make it a point to impart that love and that joy upon them. So that is Zainab radiAllahu ta'ala anha. Zainab, the daughter of Umm Salam and Abu Salama, but the stepdaughter of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam who would carry on the legacy, who was like her mother and who had those precious memories with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and was a teacher to some of the greatest imams of the tabi'een. There's another one that is, subhanAllah, just the beauty of Islam and what it established.
You know, possibly the greatest imam of the tabi'een, al-imam Hassan al-Basri radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Imam Hassan al-Basri, who rose to be known as the master of the tabi'een, the master of the second generation of this ummah, right? The best of the second generation of this ummah. Has a very unique connection to Umm Salama. But when I say the genius of Islam, the beauty of Islam, it is that Imam Hassan al-Basri was the child of two freed slaves. Was the child of two freed slaves. When you talk about Islam being able to transcend immediately this idea of being an Arab religion and immediately become not just the religion of the Persians and the religion of the Africans and the religion of so many different empires and nations and peoples, but the fact that people would rise immediately to become scholars and spokespeople for this religion from those regions, that they were not shackled, that they were not put down because they belong to different races and different nations. SubhanAllah, you know, think about where Islam came from. Islam started with its main opponent as tribalism, right? And everything that was enshrined through the system of tribalism, slavery, racism, you know, family ties, sub-tribes, economic inequality, and the way that people were given rank in accordance with all of those different things. Imam Hassan al-Basri Rahimahullah Ta'ala, out of all people, the child of two freed slaves, his father, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, was a freed slave of none other than Zayd ibn Thabit, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Okay, so the one who of course gathered the Quran, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. His mother was a freed slave of Umm Salama. The mother of Imam Hassan al-Basri was a freed slave of Umm Salama. Her name was Khairiyah, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. And Imam Hassan al-Basri Rahimahullah Ta'ala was born in the house of Umm Salama.
This is such an amazing connection, subhanAllah, to make when you think about scholarship and legacy and wisdom. And those that know Hassan al-Basri Rahimahullah will particularly appreciate this connection. Even though his mother was a freed slave, she still lived with Umm Salama. She accompanied her. She became like a daughter to Umm Salama herself and became a great student of Umm Salama herself. Imam Hassan al-Basri Rahimahullah Ta'ala, he describes his childhood in the house of Umm Salama. Okay, and his mother would basically still go out and she would assist Umm Salama in all things. Umm Salama was busy teaching the ummah, the students and the scholars, the sahaba, the tabi'een would come to the house of Umm Salama to get her fatawa, to get her fiqh, to understand her jurisprudence on all of these new arising issues in the ummah and gather the prophetic narrations from far lands coming to learn from Umm Salama. So Hassan al-Basri Rahimahullah, he said, my mother, Khairiyah, she used to go out and she used to tend to the affairs of Umm Salama while Umm Salama would teach. And when I used to cry, Umm Salama would suckle him. So Umm Salama would actually breastfeed him, Rahimahullah Ta'ala, as a child to calm him down when his mother would go out to tend to her needs and Umm Salama would take him with her to meet the companions of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and so he used to play with the sahaba of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam as a young child and learn from them, particularly Umar ibn al-Khattab radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu used to pick Imam Hassan al-Basri up as a child, the one who was living in the house of Umm Salama and he would make dua for him radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. So SubhanAllah, look how Allah placed this great scholar, right, you know, an unrivaled Imam amongst the second generation of Muslims in the house of this unrivaled wife of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, this unrivaled woman and her elegance and her knowledge and her wisdom and everything that she had. This was the planning of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
for the Umm of Muhammad SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Allah was not just planning for the family of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, Allah was planning for the Umm of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, the greatness from which we continue to benefit from today. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala be pleased with our mother, Umm Salama. May Allah Azawajal reward her for all of the good that came from her that we benefit from, whether we attribute it to her or not. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gather us with the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and the companions, our mothers, and the family of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and his companions and those that were beloved to him and the Salihin, may Allah gather us with them all in Jannatul Firdaus. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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