Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Alhamdulillah, we're building out the narrative. We took a break last week to talk about the plague of Amwas, which was the first plague that struck the companions of the Prophet ﷺ and some of the lessons that we could learn from that. But I want to take us back to the framing of Mecca, the framing of the household of the Prophet ﷺ, building out the story around the Prophet ﷺ properly so that we can understand what's really taking place in the house of the Prophet ﷺ and who's witnessing what. And if there's one thing that I hope everyone has appreciated as we went through some of the stories of people like Khadijah and Warqa and Umm Ayman and Abu Bakr and others and Ali and Fatima is the extent of the relationships that existed with these people in the Prophet ﷺ before Islam and that in and of itself is a beautiful story. You can see the character of the Prophet ﷺ reflected in the way that he treated these people before Islam and so that intimate look at the Prophet's life is not just beautiful after Islam, it is beautiful and it is loaded with lessons and character for us before Islam as well. And so the person we're going to talk about today is Hib Rasulullah ﷺ. His nickname is the loved one of the Prophet ﷺ, the beloved of the beloved ﷺ. And that is, anybody know? Anybody? We already talked about Ali. The question, who is Hib Rasulullah? The beloved one of the Prophet ﷺ. The nickname of this companion? If they're watching the live stream, it's easy.
Zayd ibn Haritha is nicknamed the beloved of the beloved ﷺ. And I'll get back to what the implications of that are in a moment. If you watch the movie The Message, Al Risalah, Zayd plays a very prominent role in the movie The Message, but he looks absolutely nothing like he's portrayed in The Message. So Zayd is described by Ibn al-Jawzi as a man of very dark skin who was close to the Prophet ﷺ as we'll talk about. His son Usama ibn Zayd literally has narrations about Abu Dawud describing them from the darkest of the companions. So if we're talking about the race component, go ahead and flip The Message movie again outside of your head inshaAllah ta'ala and what it actually means and the type of society, equitable society that the Prophet ﷺ was nourishing just in his very being ﷺ. So Zayd was described as a short man of very dark skin. He didn't have a big build. And he was ten years younger than the Prophet ﷺ. His story of coming to the household of the Prophet ﷺ is so unique that it resembles the story of Yusuf ﷺ. How so? First, let's start with who he's from or what his family is. Zayd's father is al-Harithah, Harithah ibn Sharahil. He was from an Arab tribe known as Banu Kalb and it was a prominent tribe. They weren't from the area of Mecca though. They weren't from Quraysh or from the area of Mecca but a little bit to the outside.
His mother was a woman by the name of Su'adah ibn Tha'laba from the Qutai tribe. And Zayd ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu, we know him as the first freed slave to accept Islam, the first of the mawali to accept Islam. But his story of becoming a slave in that society in and of itself is peculiar. It's a very unusual story. He's not like Bilal ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu or Khabab ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu or the others that were born into that situation or whose families were captured in some sort of war. He has a unique story in and of himself of how he became or how he attained that status or was resigned to that status rather in society when he was a child. So Zayd ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu actually tells his own story of how this happened to him. Zayd was on a trip with his mother to visit some of their relatives, the relatives of his mother. And as Zayd and his mother Su'adah were on their way outside of Mecca, Zayd ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu said, we went to sleep that night on the way there. They pitched the tent, they went to sleep. And while they were sleeping, a group of bandits attacked. Now when they attacked Zayd and his mother, they stole all of their food, they stole all of their money and ultimately they kidnapped him also. So Zayd ra'da allahu ta'ala anhu was taken by or taken from his mother as a very young child in this situation but he could recall the incident precisely. And the name of the tribe that took him was a tribe by the name of Banu al-Qayn. Banu al-Qayn was known as a military tribe. They were a tribe of troops, they were rough, they accepted Islam after the death of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. But they were all very skilled warriors and they had a large contingent of them that were bandits, that were highway robbers, that would especially attack people on the outskirts
of the cities where they could do so under the darkness of the night and get away with it. So Zayd allahu ta'ala anhu recalls this incident where he says that he was asleep next to his mother and it was just him and his mother traveling and suddenly this group of men attacked, they stole everything, took him from his mother and they immediately took him to the slave market of the time, Suq al-Uqqaf. So Zayd is a young man, he is not Abyssinian, he's not Habashi, he's not from outside of the Arab world or from Mecca. But the way that this is all proceeding is extremely fast. So Zayd allahu ta'ala anhu says that they took him, they sold him into the slave market and suddenly Zayd allahu ta'ala anhu was chained and he was put into the slave market. SubhanAllah, just like that. And if you think about that moment, SubhanAllah how tragic that is what happens to him. SubhanAllah it would be hard to think about what's to come next. And like when they say about Yusuf alayhi salam, the Prophet Joseph, wa sharahu bi thamanin bakhsin dirahima ma'dooda, that Joseph was sold for a few dirhams, Zayd was sold for a few quick coins to get a quick turnover before they could discover that he was captured and kidnapped and put into that circulation of the slave market. So the strategy was kidnap quickly, sell him into the market quickly and then disappear. And that way they won't be able to trace it back and a person is at that point being exchanged from hand to hand. So Zayd allahu ta'ala anhu is in the slave market, his mother and his father were searching for him, they could not find him. And Haritha in particular, the father of Zayd had a deep love for him and he used to author poetry. He'd go out during the day and he would look for him and he used to author this poetry
about Zayd. And it's a very heartbreaking poem because you can see the grief of a father for his son. He would sit outside his door and he would weep and he would say, bakaytu ala Zaydin walam adri ma fa'al, ahayyun fayurja am ata doonahu al-ajr. He said that I weep for Zayd not knowing what became of him. I have no idea what's happened to him. Ahayyun fayurja, is he alive that maybe I can expect one day to see him again? Am ata doonahu al-ajr or has he been overtaken by death? Meaning I'm looking for closure at this point. You know it's torture to not know for a fact, you can have an idea, you can think that he's been killed or taken to a sham or taken to the Roman Empire because they live far away from Mecca. You can make all these assumptions, I just want closure. I want closure. Ahayyun fayurja, am I ever going to see him again? Am ata doonahu al-ajr, fa wallahi ma adri wa inni lasailun, aghalaka ba'da al-sahlu am ghalaka al-jabal. Very powerful. He said, wallahi ma adri wa inni lasailun, he said by God I ask you, do not comprehend. Was it on flat ground that you died or was it a mountain that brought about your end? Meaning I want to know how you died. I want to know if you died and if you did die, I want to know how you died and that way I can start to come to terms with the grieving process. And so you imagine you've got a father and a mother that are essentially looking for this child that's been kidnapped and he's in a slave market and they have no idea what has happened to him. So how does his journey or how does he end up in the house of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam? The story starts with Khadija radiyaAllahu anha. We talked about Khadija. Khadija radiyaAllahu anha was the wealthiest woman of Mecca. Khadija radiyaAllahu anha did not own a large group of slaves. She did not live a luxurious life.
She was a modest and humble woman with all of that. So it's not like she had a bunch of slaves in that society running around her, serving her and pampering her. So Khadija radiyaAllahu anha one day told her nephew Hakeem ibn Hizam that she's getting tired and she needs some help. So she asked Hakeem ibn Hizam if he could provide a servant for her. So Hakeem ibn Hizam, he went to Suq al-Uqqad, he went to that market, to the slave market, and he purchased Zayd ibn al-Haritha for 400 dirhams. Small price. Right? This little boy, he wasn't that old and he wasn't particularly strong. He had a very small build. He wasn't born into this. He didn't have this reality. So Zayd radiyaAllahu anhu, remember when we said Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu saw great value in people. SubhanAllah the qadr, the decree of Allah that Hakeem ibn Hizam saw him and Hakeem ibn Hizam purchased him and brought him to Khadija radiyaAllahu anha and gifted him to Khadija radiyaAllahu anha. Now Khadija radiyaAllahu anha gets married to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and Zayd immediately had a special relationship. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam loved Zayd and saw something special in his character, in his modesty, in his being. And so Khadija radiyaAllahu anha recognized that and she asked the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, do you love Zayd? And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said, yes. She said, fa huwa lak, then he's yours. So technically he was gifted to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He's only 10 years younger than the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He's not a little boy at this point. So when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam was 25, he would have been 15 years old. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam did not treat him like someone who was lower than him. He treated him like a son. Treated him like a son in the house already, developed an extremely close relationship
to him, did not differentiate between him and his own children salAllahu alayhi wasalam in that home. Now what happens is that a few years pass and every day Khadija is out there looking for his son and the brother of al-Haritha is out there looking for him as well. So the brother of al-Haritha says that I went to the Kaaba and I saw Zayd with another man over there, with Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wasalam and with another group of people, with another tribe. And Haritha said, are you sure? He said, I'm sure. I remember how Zayd looked as a young man. It's been years, right? Years since they've seen him, but I remember him and that was him. So Haritha immediately makes his way to Mecca to find the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He enters into the Kaaba and he finds the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam sitting next to the Kaaba and he walks up to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and he says to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, you are a people of Banu Hashim. You are known for your generosity. You're known for your taking care of the orphans. You're known for taking up the cause of those who are in need. My son Zayd was kidnapped years ago and taken as a slave and I am willing to give you anything that you want for him. Ask your price and I will pay for his freedom. I will purchase him and free him. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said, how about we let Zayd come here and if Zayd wants to go with you, you don't have to pay anything. There's no ransom for him. You know, you're his father. He was taken unjustly. He can go back with his family. He can go back with his father and his mother. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam called for Zayd.
Zayd came and you can imagine how emotional this is for Zayd as well. The history of Zayd and the conflict inside of him already, his parents are coming to him or his father is coming to him to bring him back to his home. But Khadijah and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam are effectively his parents. Now if the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam was 10 years older than Zayd, then that would make Khadijah radiAllahu ta'ala anha 25 years older than Zayd. It's practically his parents. He's grown up in a house where he's been shown a lot of love and respect and Zayd also now has to deal with the sudden reality that his father showed up after all of these years and he has to make a choice. So when Zayd came, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said to Zayd, do you recognize these two? Just to make sure it's not someone just claiming to be his father and then not really his father. So Zayd said yes. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said, who are they? He said, it's my father and my uncle. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam told him that you're free to go with them, no ransom, no nothing. Zayd immediately responds and he says, bal uqeemu maak, no I'll stay with you. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam did not say anything. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam was giving him a choice. He said go back with your father, go back with your uncle. It's okay, you're free to go now. And when his father heard that, his father said, ya Zayd, atakhtaru al-ubudiyya alal hurriya wa ala abika wa ummika wa baladika wa qawmika? Are you going to choose, oh Zayd, are you going to choose slavery over freedom? And over your father, over your mother, over your balad, meaning your city, because remember they weren't from the people of Mecca, and your people, your qawm. And Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala anhu's conflict, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam is telling Zayd go ahead. Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala anhu is saying, I want to stay with Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wasalam.
It's not that he does not like his father, he blames him, but he's developed a relationship now with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam of those sorts. And Zayd says, and listen to the words, he says, inni qad ra'aytu min hatha rajuli shay'a wa ma ana bil ladhi ufariquhu abada. He said, I have seen something special from this man, meaning the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, and I would never be the one to part ways from him. Meaning he'd have to get rid of me, but I'm not going to part ways from him because there's something special about this man. Speaking about the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Now by the way, Prophethood has not come yet. He's still just Muhammad ibn Abdullah as-sadiq al-Amin, this is before the age of 40, before the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam has received revelation. He's just the noble man of Mecca and the sun. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, he's watching this and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam does not want to interfere. Haritha says, ma yasna'u sayyiduka bik? You know, what does your master do with you? And Zayd's response, yu'thirunee ala ahlihi wa waladihi. He treats me better than he treats his own kids and his own family. That's how Zayd described the treatment of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And Khadijah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anha with that. Now the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam derived that the father of Zayd was more concerned with his well-being. He's a grown man, he's not going to go live with his parents at this point. But he's more concerned with his status in society because he's insisting, why would you choose slavery over freedom? Even though he wasn't being treated like a slave, he was being treated like a member of the household, but still, as far as the social status was concerned, this was his reality. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, he took Zayd to the steps of the Ka'bah. After Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam treats me better than he treats his own family and his own children, the Prophet salAllahu
alayhi wasalam says, ishhadu, he announces. He says, ishhadu anna hatha ibni warithan wa mawruth. Bear witness that he is free, he already freed him, this is my son, he inherits from me, and I inherit from him. Meaning he is just like, he is now free and he is just like my son. When the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam announced that, Zayd radiyaAllahu anhu's father was pleased. He was actually happy. Because it formalized the status of Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu as a free man in society. And Zayd was not going to leave the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And Zayd was pleased now because from that day he is Zayd ibn Muhammad. He is Zayd the son of Muhammad. So he actually now has the status of a freed man and also the status of a son, regarded socially and legally as the son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Now how free was Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, what kind of respect and status was he given in society at this point? Well he married Hind bint al-Awwam, a niece of Khadijah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. So he married from that most noble of tribes. He also at some point married Um Kulthum bint Uqba, who was a sister of Uthman radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. So Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was fully treated and integrated into society at that point as a freed man and as the son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and Khadijah radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. He was also engaged to Fakhita bint Abi Lahab, one of the daughters of Abu Lahab, the uncle of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And if you remember the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam had two of his sons engaged to two daughters, I'm sorry the two daughters of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam were engaged to two sons of Abu Lahab. So Uqba and Um Kulthum were both engaged to Uthman and Uthayba, the children of Abu Lahab.
The uncle that would of course announce, that would oppress the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam more than anyone else when he announced his Islam. The one who is named in the Quran as a humiliated one who cursed the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam as he stood up on a Safa and called the people to this new way of life. So Zayd was also engaged to the sister of those two men that were engaged to the two daughters of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. So he's functioning literally as a child of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam in this sense. Now obviously when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam announced that he was a Prophet, Abu Lahab ordered his sons to do what? To divorce or to break off the engagement as a further means of humiliation to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, to break off the engagement to the daughters of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Likewise here it could be in the same context that the engagement of the daughter of Abu Lahab and Zayd also ended in the same vein or in the same spirit. Now when did Zayd accept Islam? Right away. The problem is we don't have his story of shahada the way we have the story of Ali radiAllahu ta'ala anhu and Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. So the scholars debated where does Zayd fit into those people in terms of timeline. He definitely didn't resist when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said that he was a Prophet and messenger. At what point did Zayd exactly become a Muslim? Was it between Ali and Abu Bakr? Was it after Abu Bakr? Allah knows best. It's actually not specified but he's recognized as the first mawla, the first freed man to accept Islam. The first of the mawali to accept Islam at the hands of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And Zayd of course accompanied the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He remained as a son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam with all of its technicalities. Meaning within the house of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Just like any of his other children at that point. He was an adopted son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam.
And he would witness the most painful day of the Prophet's life. What was that day? What was it? Ta'if. Right. It was the day of Ta'if. Zayd was the only person with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam on the day of Ta'if. And of course Ta'if was an extended ordeal. But that particular last day, the story of Ta'if, who's dead at this point? Khadija is dead. Abu Talib is dead. It's basically open season on the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Anyone can kill him at any time. It's at the last stages of persecution in Mecca. There is nobody that can protect the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam in that context. The Prophet is desperately looking for someone to accept him and to give him protection from the persecution of Mecca. He goes out to a Ta'if which of course is very close to Mecca. Medina is very far. Yathrib was very far. Ta'if is very close. Yathrib, which would become Medina, was a bunch of young people. Ta'if had some of the leaders, had some of the great idols that the people of Mecca would worship. They had some of the royals that lived in the area of Ta'if. If any of you ever go to Ta'if, it's a beautiful place. A beautiful place right on the outskirts of Mecca. Almost an entirely different environment than the environment of Mecca. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam went out there. For two weeks he was mocked. He was humiliated. He was made fun of. He was kicked from door to door. Every single person that rejected the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and Ta'if did not just reject him, but rejected him in the most humiliating way possible. And Zayd was with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam.
And for that long stretch, when finally at the end of calling people to Islam and Ta'if, and looking for someone to take him in salAllahu alayhi wasalam, to shield him, after all of this had happened, they stacked, they lined up two rows of their kids and others, and the thugs of Ta'if, they lined them up into two rows. And they made the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam walk between those two rows, and it was a stretch of miles. A stretch of miles. And each one of them hit him with a shoe, spit on him, punched him. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam fell over multiple times. Not a single part of his body was not covered in blood salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He literally, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, remembered, he recalled, even his shoes being full of stones at that point because of the amount of times that he was knocked over, and the amount of the torture that took place with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala anhu remembered that day, and Zayd was trying to go in front of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, as a lone supporter of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, to stop the people from their blows, or to stop the blows of the people from reaching the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. So imagine having witnessed that. The most painful day of the Prophet's life. Aisha radiAllahu anha asked the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam what the worst day of his life was. Was it Uhud, when he almost died, and many of his companions were killed? The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said no, it was Ta'if. That was the worst day of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam's life. And Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, trying to protect him and guard him. He saw the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam go under a tree to seek respite, after having walked and being beaten for how long? For over 15 miles. If you actually measure the stretch, the path of where the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam was beat,
imagine he would have walked 15 miles, beaten, tortured, turned away. That's enough to break any human being. Especially, he's already lost Khadijah, he's lost Abu Talib, he's lost salAllahu alayhi wasalam, his closest family, Mecca is bleak, it has no hope. And Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala anhu saw the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam take respite under a tree and call out to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with the most painful of words, asking, where do I go next? Ila man takiluni? Who are you going to leave me to? Who do I go to at this point? Am I entrusted to a stranger? Am I entrusted to a close person? Who's going to take care of me? What is my next step? And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam is looking for answers desperately in those moments as the blood is still fresh on the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Zayd was with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam when Jibreel alayhi wasalam came to him and the angel of the mountains and offered to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam to punish his people for what they had done. Not just to crush the people of Ta'if, but to crush the people of Ta'if and Mecca. The mountain of Ajyad, which is on the other side of Mecca, all the way to that mountain in Ta'if to crush them all and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said no because it might be that from their children there will be people who worship only one. Maybe their children will be different. Maybe their children will be different. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam chose mercy and spared them even in those moments. So Zayd alayhi wasalam accompanied the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam on the worst day of his life. And you can imagine what that does in terms of building a relationship. When the most traumatic day of your life, there was only one person that was with you that was trying to protect you in the midst of all that. And of course Zayd himself was covered in blood and took a beating in those moments trying to protect the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Zayd alayhi wasalam was also sent back in the Hijrah to accompany the family of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam.
So Zayd was the one who accompanied, remember Fatima and Ali were not married yet, but he accompanied Fatima, Saudah, Um Kulthum and the household of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam on that migration, on that Hijrah as the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam went out in Mecca. I'm sorry, left him and Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu made their way out of Mecca. Now when Zayd got to Medina, who was his brother? The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam was pairing the Ansar and the Muhajireen together. The people of Medina with the people of Mecca together, but there were a few exceptions to that rule. So you'll see some that were paired together that were both from Mecca. The people of Medina in general were the Ansar, were the helpers who received the people of Mecca, the Muhajireen, those that migrated from Mecca. And specifically an Ansari is a person or the brothers of the Muhajireen were those who took them into their own households and shared half of everything with their brothers and sisters from Mecca. But the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam paired Zayd with Hamza, his uncle salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And Zayd and Hamza were extremely close. And in fact Hamza radiAllahu anhu, the uncle of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, entrusted Zayd with his wasiyya, with his last testament. And so if you think about this by the way, Hamza is the grand uncle of Zayd radiAllahu anhu in that context. Because it was still a time of tabanni, a time of adoption. So there's a family relationship there. And Zayd radiAllahu anhu was the one who took that testament or took that will from Hamza radiAllahu anhu. Zayd radiAllahu anhu was an extremely talented warrior. He was very talented in battle. He was one of the archers of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. He fought in all of the battles with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. In the battle of Badr, in the battle of Uhud, in Al-Khandaq, in Khaybar.
He was next to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam on the day of the treaty of Hudaybiyyah. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam appointed him, left him behind as the governor of Medina when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam left. So he is functioning as a very special confidant to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Remember the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam had no adult sons. None of his sons lived beyond infancy. So Zayd radiAllahu anhu is basically functioning as his only son if you think about what it looks like in that society. Ali radiAllahu anhu of course was like a son, son-in-law and treated in a special way. But Zayd radiAllahu anhu is Ibn Muhammad. He is the son of Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wasalam. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam sent Zayd radiAllahu anhu on seven military expeditions. Something that is very telling is that he put him as a commander of each one. So when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam sent out any military expedition with Zayd, Zayd radiAllahu anhu was a commander. Now what happens next in terms of the marriages of Zayd radiAllahu anhu at that point? We talked about Baraka Um Ayman radiAllahu anhu. Who the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam called my mom after my mom. My mom after my mom because of what Um Ayman radiAllahu anhu represented to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. The Abyssinian woman. Now think about this story by the way. Um Ayman radiAllahu anhu was a Habashiyya. She was an Abyssinian woman and she was purchased from the Suq al-Uqad. From the same slave market that they had at the time before Islam. Purchased by the father of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. So she came into the household of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam in that way. And of course cared for the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam as a young woman cared for the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam when he was born. Was the first one to hold the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam.
As he was born into this world and we talked about how special Um Ayman radiAllahu anhu was. Zayd radiAllahu anhu was kidnapped into that market. And ended up in that process of slavery into the house of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. How in the world does Zayd, the son, marry the woman who is like a mother to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. Very simple, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam said, Whoever wants to marry a woman of Jannah, then marry this woman. Zayd said, I got it. I want to marry her. So he jumped at the opportunity to marry a woman from paradise. That was it for him. And he indeed married her and they had Usama ibn Zayd radiAllahu anhu. Usama ibn Zayd was so beloved to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam that his nickname was, the beloved, the son of the beloved of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. So, hib, the son, ibn hib Rasulallahu salAllahu alayhi wasalam. The beloved one, the son of the beloved one of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam treated Usama radiAllahu anhu the same way he treated Al-Hassan, Al-Hussein, and his other grandchildren. So if you remember when we talked about the story of Ali and Fatima, it was common to see Al-Hassan, Hussein, and Usama all jump on the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And he would love Usama ibn Zayd so much that if you wanted to get to the Prophet's ear, you sent Usama. So there's a famous story, if some of you remember when we did the 40 hadith on social justice, a very famous story about the royal lady from Banu Mahzum, a very noble woman that stole.
And she wanted to avoid, at that time you couldn't be punished if you were from the higher classes. Punishments were only taken, pretty much what happens now by the way, harsh punishments are exacted on poor people of no class, no tribe. If you're from a noble tribe, it's very easy, wasta, you get a connection, call it off. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said, it's an equal system, everyone's going to be treated equally and in the same way. Whether you're the most royal of people or you're a slave in that society and you have no protections under the state of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, everyone is treated the same. Now that was a complete shift for that tribal society. These were the people that had to come together for alf al-fudul, to protect the lowest amongst them, because it was just so tribal that it was easy to be taken advantage of. And so they wanted to appeal to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam to be lenient with that woman and not properly penalize her. So what did they do? They talked to Usama ibn Zaid, to go talk to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, because they knew that Usama ibn Zaid always had the ear of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. They also, you know, you find that when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam went through his most difficult moments, one of his most difficult moments, which was the slander of his wife, the slander of Aisha radiAllahu anha. He takes Usama ibn Zaid, a very, very, very young man, into confidence, asks for his advice. That's the type of relationship that he had, not just with Zaid, who though technically a son was only 10 years younger than him, so was more like a brother to him. And Usama ibn Zaid radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Now in the process, so you've got this special family now, you've got Umm Ayman Zaid, Usama ibn Zaid. In the process of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam trying to break the social hierarchies and structures that existed in society, he wanted to marry people from different tribes
and different classes to one another to shatter that. So if someone was a freed slave, then it wasn't that they were restricted and they could only marry another freed slave. If someone was from a tribe that was generally disregarded, they couldn't just marry from there. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam wanted to break the marital hierarchy in terms of wealth, in terms of social status, in terms of tribe. And subhanAllah, you find so many examples of this where the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam insists on people from different tribes formulating a marriage, people in terms of different status, in terms of the superficiality of how beauty is judged. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is trying to shatter all of that. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam wanted to marry Zaid to Zaynab, Zaynab bint Jahsh. Zaynab radiAllahu ta'ala anha is an extremely noble woman, extremely wealthy woman, who lives in a certain way and who is sought after in that sense. The thing is, Zaynab wanted to marry the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam had another idea which was to shatter this social barrier, this social structure. He's known Zaynab her whole life, but to shatter it, the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam chooses to eliminate that status in the equation of marriage. What ends up happening is that Zaid and Zaynab cannot mend their differences. Their differences were too many for them to actually be able to get along. Zaid and Zaynab both wanted out of the marriage. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed not just the divorce of Zaid, but also that the
Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam was also going to mandate a new rule as well in society, which was replacing tabanni, replacing adoption with kafala, with foster care or fostering. Why? What does Allah azawajal do? He reveals that the dissolution or dissolving the marriage of Zaid and Zaynab and the marriage of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam to Zaynab. Now if the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam was doing this himself, he would have saved a headache and gotten married to Zaynab before anyway. He's known her for a long time, so it's a very easy orientalist criticism that they could launch at the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and say he used revelation to get himself out of a tricky situation. It doesn't make sense from the way that these two knew each other from before and the way that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam could have easily asked for a hand without any of that happening. What did Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala do with this? Allah said from now on, people should be called in accordance with their actual families. Allah did not do away with this idea of taking care of the orphans, this idea of freeing the slaves. Adoption in the spirit of it. But one of maqasd al sharia, one of the objectives of the religion is the preservation of lineage. The preservation of lineage. So effectively Zayd is not going to leave the care and the love of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, but Zayd is Zayd ibn al-Haritha. He's still Zayd ibn al-Haritha. By the way I have a long lecture online on yaqeen if you search adoption foster care. You can see all of the fiqh and all of the rulings. I don't want to get caught up into that. But the point being that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by dissolving that marriage and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala marrying the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam to Zaynab made very clear
those barriers now when it came to tabanni between adoption and foster care. Now what happens with Zayd in the process of that? Zayd is the only companion of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. Male or female who is mentioned by name in the Quran. Mentioned by name in the Quran. Who when you say his name in tilawah, in recitation, that is a form of worship and a form of keeping that ibadah to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that act of worship to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala gets a special distinction in the process of that dissolution of the marriage or the annulment of the marriage of Zayd and Zaynab and instead is named in the Quran. So that's one of the virtues of Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala. Zayd would as I said go out and command the armies as the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam commissioned them. He led the expeditions and he led the expedition of the battle of Mu'tah. The battle of Mu'tah which was a very difficult battle. Okay so it was two hundred and thousand Romans against about three thousand Muslims. So the numbers were extremely tilted or disproportionate in that battle as the Romans were encroaching upon the Muslims in these times. And they fought in the area of Jordan, of what is modern day Jordan. And not only did Zayd radiAllahu ta'ala die in the battle of Mu'tah, Ja'far ibn Abi Talib who we will have a session about the cousin of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam died in Mu'tah. Abdullah ibn Rawaha, a great companion died. There were very close people to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam that died and that were martyred in this battle. Jibreel alayhi salam came to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and actually informed him of the deaths of Zayd, Ja'far and Abdullah ibn Rawaha. So it was not the, that was not
revealed or that did not come to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in the form of a messenger coming back. But instead it was revealed through Jibreel alayhi salAllahu alayhi wa sallam before the news of the army, before the news of the battle would even get back from the area of Jordan. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam he ascended the manbar, he ascended the pulpit to announce the news that Jibreel alayhi salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, the angel had informed him of the loss of the Muslims and the deaths of those noble people. And the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam was weeping as he announced the death of his son Zayd, who was like his son even though he was Zayd ibn Harithah who grew up in the household of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. Hibbu rasool Allah, the heart and the love of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And they could see the pain in the eyes of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in those moments. Now we can take a few things from this inshaAllah ta'ala for us. Number one, just a very practical matter, hibbu rasool Allah, the loved one of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. What that means is that one of the ways of loving the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is loving what he loved, loving who he loved. So loving Zayd in particular is an act of worship. Loving Zayd is an act of loving what the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and who the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam loved. For him to have that nickname is very special and it's a form of qurb, a form of closeness to Allah and to his Messenger salAllahu alayhi wa sallam as is the case with his son Usam ibn Zayd radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. And Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, she says just impressing upon us how special this man was to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. She says, ma baAAath rasoolAllahu salAllahu alayhi wa sallam Zayd unfi jayshin qatt illa amarahu alayhim. That Zayd never sent, that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam never sent an expedition out and Zayd was amongst them except that
Zayd was in charge of them. And this is Aisha the daughter of Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with them, saying, walaw baqiya ba'dahu istakhlafahu. Powerful words. She said if he was to have lived the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam would have appointed him as the Khalifa. That kind of, first of all the hadith is authentic and Muslim Imam Ahmed before someone pulls out searches on sunnah.com and doesn't find it. Not every authentic hadith is on sunnah.com. The hadith is an authentic hadith or an authentic narration from Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, the daughter of Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu, the first Khalifa in praise of Zayd ibn Haritha radiyaAllahu anhu. Now when Aisha radiyaAllahu anha says that, what do we take from that? That the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam would have appointed him as the Khalifa. Is there a literal form of that? Again, if he was like the son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam always sent him in charge of the army and he had that position, could that have very well actually ended up being the case after all that we talked about of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam making it very clear that Abu Bakr was number one in so many different ways? Allah knows best. He didn't live to see those moments. But what we do take from it, the only real beneficial thing beyond just trying to spend hours and hours, now I'm going to go compare the virtues of Zayd to the virtues of Abu Bakr, who the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said was the best person that ever walked the face of the earth after the Prophets. Beyond that, what we do take is just how special his status was. And when you're talking about the great difference, you're talking about Hib Rasulullah, the beloved one of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, who ended up dying with that type of a noble status. What does that mean, or how do we also contextualize that one other thing is that who did the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam put in charge of the army after his death? Usam ibn Zayd. So the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam never sent out an army except that Zayd was in charge when
he was alive and amongst them. And when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam passed away, he had appointed Usam ibn Zayd in charge of the expedition of the Muslims that would fight against the Romans, and the Muslims won under Usam, by the way if you remember that entire incident between Abu Bakr and Umar, may Allah be pleased with them, arguing about, or Umar radiAllahu anhu bringing forth the objection that Usam ibn Zayd was too young to lead an army. So Allah knows best. Maybe had Zayd lived, he would have been that person instead of Usam ibn Zayd. But it's a very special person that we're talking about, an incredible story, one that I love deeply. Because Umar radiAllahu anhu was a learner. The beauty of Umar is that you watch Umar bin al-Khattab grow through his interaction with the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, through his interaction with Abu Bakr, through his interaction with the companions, and then apply everything that he learns in that process. So the journey of Umar radiAllahu anhu is very raw, it's very telling, and you can see a practical implementation of everything that happens between him and one of the companions. Anything he sees, he implements, which is part of his sincerity radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. So when Umar was the khalifa, he used to give a greater pension to Usam ibn Zayd. He would give extra to Usam ibn Zayd. And one of the children of Umar said to Umar bin al-Khattab, you know, why do you give extra to Usam ibn Zayd? And it's not that he wanted extra, but he was shocked by it. It's like, why are you preferring him so much and so blatantly? So Umar radiAllahu anhu responded and he said, first of all, you are not better than him. Because the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, not because he didn't put his son down, he said the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam loved his father more than he loved me, and loved him, meaning Usam ibn Zayd, more than you. And he appointed Usam ibn Zayd a commander over me. Remember that incident where Umar came and told Abu Bakr that some of the companions
don't like this young, that the fact that he's so young and he's in charge of all of us, and Abu Bakr told Umar radiAllahu anhu, you want me to disobey the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam? So now he's saying, look, the Prophet loved his father Zayd more than he loved me, he loved Usam ibn Zayd more than he loved you, and the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam appointed Usam ibn Zayd a commander over me. So this shows you the way the psyche was molded to understand the special position and the special preference that they have. And of course subhanAllah, just the miracle of Allah in the way that Zayd was brought into the house of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. Right? The circumstances that brought Zayd radiAllahu anhu into that house to become the person that he was. The fact that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam treated him like a son, treated him so well that Zayd radiAllahu anhu could testify even before Islam, that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam treated me better than he would treat his own kids and that he would treat his own family. So imagine then when the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam says that the people are like precious stones, al-nasu ma'adan khiyarakum fil jahariya khiyarakum fil islam, the best of you in the days of ignorance are the best of you in Islam. Ida faqihu, if you add that understanding of Islam, the fact that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam had taken it to that next level, taken it to that next step after Islam is a testimony to the character of this man. And of course with all of that, the sacrifice, right? The fact that Zayd radiAllahu alayhi wa sallam was the son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam or lived like the son of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam even after tabanni was switched to kafala, it doesn't mean that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam sheltered him away and that he sat back and enjoyed the perks of being known to the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. That meant a greater sacrifice. And that's actually a consistent theme when you look
at the family of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, that being part of his family meant that you were involved more in the sacrifice, not sheltered from the sacrifice of the Messenger salAllahu alayhi wa sallam which was an example of his servant leadership salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to be pleased with them, to allow us to follow in their example, to allow us to love him because the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam loved him, and to allow us to come closer to the beloved salAllahu alayhi wa sallam by our love for him. Allahuma Ameen.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
