The marriage of the Prophet (peace be upon him) to Juwayriyyah, the daughter of a tribal chief who was preparing to launch an attack on Madinah, was discussed last week. That marriage led not only to the release from captivity of all her tribesmen who had fallen prisoner in Muslim hands, but her tribe soon became a Muslim tribe after her people realized the nature of the Islamic message and enjoyed the Muslims’ kind treatment. Yet Juwayriyyah was not the only daughter of an enemy to be married to the Prophet. Two others shared that distinction.
When the Prophet and his companions immigrated to Madinah, the Quraysh launched a prolonged campaign of hostility against the fledgling Muslim state, fighting at least three battles, in one of which a monthlong siege was laid to Madinah by the Quraysh and its allies who were determined to eradicate Islam and the Muslims. The man who led the Quraysh during much of this campaign was Abu Sufyan. However, his daughter, Ramlah, better known as Umm Habeebah, had long been a Muslim. She immigrated to Abyssinia with her husband Ubaydullah ibn Jahsh where they stayed for several years. After a period in Abyssinia, her husband renounced Islam and embraced Christianity, influenced by some Christian priests. Not long after that, her husband died. She was stranded in Abyssinia with her daughter, unable to return to Makkah, because of her father’s hostility to Islam and encountering much difficulty in looking after her only daughter.
The Prophet heard of Ramlah’s situation. He had already immigrated to Madinah. So he sent to Negus, the ruler of Abyssinia, requesting him to put his proposal of marriage to her and, if she accepted, to arrange the marriage. When she received the Prophet’s proposal, Ramlah was overjoyed. Her position was very difficult until then. Now, acting on behalf of the Prophet, the king of Abyssinia called the Muslim immigrants in his country to his court where he was attended by his courtiers. He said: “God’s messenger has sent me a message requesting that I should arrange his marriage to Umm Habeebah. May God bless this marriage of His messenger.” Khalid ibn Saeed ibn Al-Aas acted for her in this marriage. Negus paid on the Prophet’s behalf a handsome dowry of 400 dinars, and gave a dinner in honor of the marriage. He then sent her with her daughter to the Prophet in full honors.
When Abu Sufyan heard of the Prophet’s marriage to his daughter, he said: “Muhammad is an honorable man, without blemish.” Umm Habeebah enjoyed her life as the Prophet’s wife, always showing that she put her religion far above any family ties with her parents who continued to oppose the Prophet for a couple of years before they finally embraced Islam.
The other enemy’s daughter the Prophet married was Safiyyah. Her father, Huyay ibn Akhtab, was a Jewish rabbi who recognized the Prophet as God’s final messenger the day he arrived in Madinah. However, he declared that he would stand in opposition to him for the rest of his life. He was true to his word. To start with, he was behind an assassination attempt on the Prophet when he visited the quarters of Huyay’s Jewish tribe seeking to hold them to their commitments under the treaty they had signed with the Prophet. When that failed and the tribe was evacuated from Madinah, he worked hard until he managed to forge an alliance between two major Arab tribes and other Jewish tribes, laying siege to Madinah and declaring their aim to annihilate Islam. The siege was ended by an act of God, and Huyay and the fighters among his Jewish allies were executed. Nevertheless, the remaining Jews in Arabia continued to scheme against Islam. This led to the Battle of Khaybar which ended in their final defeat.
Safiyyah was married to one of the Jewish leaders, Kinanah ibn Abi Al-Huqayq, who was killed in that battle. She fell captive after the battle, and Bilal took her with another woman to the Prophet, passing by the battlefield where many of their own people were lying dead. As the Prophet looked at them, he saw two weary women with tearful eyes and broken hearts. He rebuked Bilal, saying: “Are you devoid of compassion? How do you take two women across a field where their men have been killed?” Safiyyah was assigned to Dihyah ibn Khaleefah, but he felt that he should give her over to the Prophet, and he did so. He gave her a choice: either to remain captive or to marry him. She chose the latter option.
On the way back to Madinah, the Prophet stopped for a while, and he freed Safiyyah from captivity and married her. Anas reports that when he wanted to move on, the Prophet put up his knee for Safiyyah to step over so that she could mount the Prophet’s camel.
What sort of marriage was this? Safiyyah was the daughter of a man who never wavered in his hostility to the Prophet, trying to raise against him all sorts of enemies, and to forge alliances to ensure great superiority of numbers, in the hope that such superiority would bring him victory. His efforts ended in miserable failure and he lost his life in the process. Furthermore, Safiyyah lost her husband who was killed in battle. Now she was married to the man who was the focus of enmity by her people. How could she live with him.
When the Prophet had rested a little, he said to Safiyyah: “I am sorry that I had to do with your people what I did. It was they who started hostility. Your father raised the Arabs and marshalled them against me, forging alliances.” He explained the circumstances leading to the Battle of Khaybar. When she thus looked at the other side of the argument, she realized that all aggression came from her own people. She said to the Prophet: “By God, no one was more hateful to me than you. Now, however, you are dearer to me than my father and husband whom I lost. I am now a follower of your faith.”
Safiyyah was pretty and only about 20 years of age at the time of her marriage to the Prophet. It was natural that the Prophet’s other wives should be jealous of her. Some of them said once to her: “We are dearer to the Prophet than you. We are not only his wives, but also his cousins.” She felt sad. When the Prophet came in later, he asked what was the matter with her. She told him. He consoled and comforted her. Then he said: “Should they do it again, you can tell them: how can you be in a better position than mine when Muhammad is my husband, Aaron is my father and Moses is my uncle?” That reply focused on her relation with three prophets, two of whom are praised in the Qur’an as being endowed with exceptional resolve.