Before we speak of Zaynab and her marriage to the Prophet (peace be upon him) we need to go back many years to tell of the beginnings of a remarkable story that had an important bearing on this marriage. The story began long before Muhammad (peace be upon him) received his first revelations, when he was in Makkah, a married man in his late twenties or early thirties. His wife, Khadijah, went to visit her nephew, Hakim ibn Hazam, as he returned home after a business trip. He brought with him a few slaves, one of whom was Zayd ibn Harithah, a boy in his early teens or even younger.
Zayd fell into slavery when some people attacked the home of his relatives where his mother was visiting. They carried him away and sold him as a slave boy. Hakim was the one who bought him and brought him to Makkah. As Hakim talked to his aunt, Khadijah, about his successful trip, he offered her to take one of the slaves he bought. She chose Zayd and took him home where she gave him as a gift to her husband, Muhammad.
Back among Zayd’s own family, his father was so distressed at what had happened to his son. Realizing that the boy was still alive and that he was likely to be sold as a slave, he kept inquiring about his whereabouts. The method that ensured that news traveled in Arabia at the time was poetry. The Arabs were gifted in poetry and they always learned what they heard and chanted what they learned in their social evenings.
Harithah, Zayd’s father, expressed his grief in a passionate poem and travelers chanted the poem wherever they went. Soon Zayd heard it delivered by a traveler from his tribe’s area who came to Makkah.
He answered his father with a few lines of poetry of his own. The traveler delivered the reply as he returned and Harithah learned that his son ended up in Makkah. He, therefore, embarked on a trip there with his brother, Zayd’s uncle.
The two brothers approached Muhammad, appealing to him by the nobility of his family which had long been in the leadership in Makkah, and in Arabia generally. They said that his was a family which helped to redress injuries that might befall others and restore justice where injustice had occurred. They wanted him to sell them their son and not to charge an exorbitant ransom. As he listened to them, he realized how distressed they were at what had befallen their son. He said to them: “I will give you a better offer. I will call Zayd and give him the choice to stay with me or to go with you. If he chooses you, I will set him free and charge you nothing, but if he chooses to stay with me, I will take his choice and keep him.” They said that this was more than fair.
When Zayd was given the choice, he unhesitatingly chose to stay with Muhammad. His father and uncle were extremely surprised: “How can you choose a life of slavery in preference to a free life among your own people?” Zayd said: “I have seen enough of this man to make me choose him over anyone else in the world.” Realizing the depth of feeling among all concerned, Muhammad asked all three to come with him. He went to the Kaaba, where many of the elders of the people of Makkah gathered and announced to them that he had adopted Zayd as his own son. Thus the relation between them had changed. Zayd’s father and uncle acknowledged his kind gesture and realized that their son would be well cared for. They returned home well pleased.