Hadidja bint Chuwailid

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The angel Gabriel appears in the house of the Prophet Mohammed while Khadijah is present. Turkish illumination from the Siyer-i Nebi , ca.1594

Chadīdscha bint Chuwailid ( Arabic خديجة بنت خويلد, DMG Ḫadīǧa bint Ḫuwaylid ) (* around 555 , † around 619 ) was the first wife of Muhammad and the only one with whom he lived in monogamy .

Life

Khadijah was heir to a caravanserai and a trade in Mecca and daughter of Chuwailid from the Quraish tribe . She was a widow and married twice before marrying Mohammed. From these marriages she had several children. As an entrepreneur and business woman, she had free access to her wealth. Mohammed led a caravan to Syria on their behalf and became a partner in their trade. His commercial success and his high reputation in Mecca contributed to the fact that she finally offered him the marriage. There is a lively account of al-Baihaqī from the 11th century about advertising and weddings .

Islamic tradition portrays Hadidja as a faithful, caring wife and attests to her great concern for her husband's religious experiences. Ibn Hisham reports that she was very worried during his first revelation experience on Mount Hirāʾ and sent messengers for him because he stayed away for an unusually long time. After the experience, he went to her immediately, sat close by her side and told her about the frightening encounter with the angel, whereupon she reassured him and lifted him up. Immediately afterwards she rushed to her cousin Waraqa ibn Naufal , a Christian familiar with the “holy scriptures”, who confirmed to her that Mohammed was the expected prophet of his people.

In order to find out whether Mohammed was visited by an angel or a dangerous demon ( shaitān ) during his revelations, Khadīdja is said to have used a test: When the angel appeared to him, she asked him to stand one after the other on her left thigh and on her right thigh and to sit in her lap, the last time she also threw back her veil. Each time she asked Mohammed if he could still see the angel. While he still saw the angel the first two times, it disappeared when Mohammed was sitting in her lap and she had thrown back the veil ( chimār ). Then she knew that it was an angel and not a shaitan . It is based on the idea that an angel is allowed to linger in the presence of a virtuous, veiled woman, but moves away with suggestive behavior and exposure of her body, while the demon would not have disturbed this behavior.

According to Islamic tradition, Khadīja was the first person to believe in Muhammad's religious message. She is said to have loyally supported him in all his arguments with opponents. Ibn Hisham describes it as follows:

“Whenever Muhammad encountered vicious rejection and slander and was saddened by it, God made him forget it with her as soon as he came to her home, as she affirmed and strengthened him, believed in him and reassured him about the behavior of the people. "

Hadidscha had at least five children with Mohammed, namely four daughters - Fātima , Ruqaiya, Umm Kulthūm and Zainab - and a son named al-Qāsim, who died in childhood. From him Mohammed also had his Kunya Abū l-Qāsim. In addition to al-Qāsim, tradition mentions a son named ʿAbdallāh, who, however, was possibly identical with al-Qāsim. The names at-Tāhir and at-Taiyib, which also appear in the tradition, were epithets that were used for one or both sons.

It was only after Khadidja's death in 619 that Mohammed entered into further marriages. But Khadija remained the only wife of Muhammad who gave him several children. Like the other wives, she is considered to be one of the "mothers of believers".

The house of Hadidja

The excavations at the house of Khadidja in December 1989.

The house of Hadīdscha, which was a few hundred meters northwest of the Kaaba , was later built by the Umaiyad caliph Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyan and converted into a mosque. Information on the location, structure and history of this building can be found in the Meccan local chronicles of al-Azraqī (d. 839), al-Fākihī (9th century) and al-Fāsī (d. 1429). Various Muslim and European travelers who visited the house in the early modern period also provide descriptions of the house in their travel reports, which was particularly venerated by Muslim believers due to its great importance in early Islamic history.

After the Wahhabi conquest of Mecca , the building was destroyed in 1925. In 1951, Sheikh ʿAbbās Yūsuf Qattān received permission from King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud to build a three-story building with a Koran school on the site. When the outer courtyard of the Holy Mosque was expanded in 1989 , the buildings in the area northwest of the mosque, including the Qattān Koran school, were demolished. In the period from November 29 to December 26, 1989, an excavation team led by Ahmed Zaki Yamani had the opportunity to sift through the area. The excavation is documented in a volume from the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation . The volume contains not only numerous photographs of the excavation site, but also floor plans and reconstruction models of the house. After the end of the excavations, the property was backfilled with fine sand. Today it is completely covered by floor slabs around the Holy Mosque.

See also

literature

  • Doris Decker: Women as Carriers of Religious Knowledge. Conceptions of images of women in early Islamic traditions up to the 9th century. Stuttgart 2013. pp. 106–117.
  • MJ Kister: The Sons of Khadīja. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. Volume 16, 1993, pp. 59-95.
  • Annemarie Schimmel: My Soul Is a Woman. The Feminine in Islam . Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997 (English).
  • W. Montgomery Watt: Type: Kh adī dj a. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. IV, pp. 898b-899a.
  • Ahmed Zaki Yamani : The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā in Makkah Al-Mukarramah: a historical study of its location, building, and architecture . Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, London 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 103.
  2. ↑ Schimmel, 27
  3. ↑ Cf. Decker 107f. The Arabic text can be viewed here: The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâk; (P. 153).
  4. ↑ Cf. Decker 114f. The Arabic text can be viewed here: The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâk; (P. 154).
  5. ↑ Cf. Decker 113f.
  6. ↑ Cf. Ibn Ishâq: The Life of the Prophet . German Transfer from Gernot Rotter. Stuttgart 1982. p. 47. The Arabic text can be viewed here: http://archive.org/stream/p1daslebenmuhamm01ibnhuoft#page/n393/mode/2up (p. 155)
  7. ↑ Cf. Watt: Art: Kh adī dj a. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. Vol. IV, p. 898b.
  8. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, p. 42.
  9. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, pp. 41–48.
  10. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, pp. 87–111.
  11. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, p. 74f.
  12. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, p. 115.
  13. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, p. 156f.
  14. ↑ Yamani: The house of Khadeejah Bint Khuwaylid . 2014, p. 44f.
personal data
SURNAME Hadidja bint Chuwailid
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hadidja; خديجة بنت خويلد (Arabic); Ḫadīğa bint Ḫuwaylid (DMG romanization)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first and until her death the only wife of the Prophet Mohammed
DATE OF BIRTH at 555
DATE OF DEATH at 619