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THE WIVES OF MUHAMMAD.
APRIL, 1878.]
good age, for she survived Muhammad about forty-seven years, and did not die till the fiftyeighth year of the Hajira (= 680 A.D.), when she would be about sixty-seven years of age.
Partly on account of her having always been so great a favourite of her husband's, and partly on account of her having become after his death so great an authority for legends concerning him, 'Aisha is known in Moslim literature as An-nabiya, the prophetess,' and Ummu-l-Muslimin, mother of Moslims.'
4. His fourth marriage was with Hafsa, daughter of 'Umar, the immediate successor of Abu Bakr in the Khilâfat. The name of this lady appears in various forms: thus, Hafsah, Hafza, Haphsa, Haphza, Haphsah, Haphzah, &c. The marriage took place in the third year of the Hajira (i.e. in 624 A.D.), when Muḥammad was in his fifty-fifth year, Hafsa being from eighteen to twenty years of age. This was her second marriage, her former husband, Khunais the Ethiopian (some name him Jaḥsh the Egyptian), having died six or seven months before her marriage to Muhammad. Whatever may have been the real purpose of Muhammad in contracting this alliance, it had the effect of drawing into still closer friendship to himself her father, 'Umar. The course of this marriage was not unchequered; it was Hafsa who, on one of her own days, discovered the chief of the prophets' on her own bed with Mary the Coptic slave: she is, moreover, said to have been one of those two of Muhammad's lawfully-married wives whom he divorced, -the other, as we have seen, was Sauda. The occasion of her being divorced was his displeasure at her determination not to observe secrecy in relation to the circumstances of his amour with the Egyptian girl: afterwards, however, when 'the apostle of God' perceived the deep offence which the divorce had occasioned his friend 'Umar, the angel Gabriel was sent down with a special revocation of the sentence of divorce, the matter was made up, and the daughter of 'Umar was restored to favour. Hafsa died at Madina, at the age of sixty, about the forty-first year of the Hajira, and was childless in both of her marriages.
5. His fifth wife was Zainab daughter of Khuzaima. This alliance was contracted in the ninth month of the fourth year of the Hajira (Dec. 625 A.D.). At the time of her marriage to Muḥammad, Zainab had already been thrice married: her
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first husband, Tufail bin Hârith, divorced her ; the second, 'Ubaida bin Hârith, a paternal cousin of Muhammad's, was slain at the battle of Badr; and the third, 'Abdu-l-lâh bin Jahsh, was slain in the battle of Uhud. The exact age of this lady at the time of her marriage to Muḥammad does not appear to be known she died soon after her marriage,-some say eight months after, and others say a year and a half,and with the single exception of Khadija was the only one of his wives who did not survive him. Zainab was childless in all her marriages. She is said to have been one of the three whom Muḥammad took in marriage at their own request. The beneficence of her disposition towards destitute converts won for her the epithet Ummu-lmusakin, 'Mother of the poor.' Some, however, record that this epithet was applied not to this Zainab, but to Zainab bint Jahsh.
6. The sixth wife was a paternal cousin of his, Umm Sala m a, daughter of Abi Umaiyya. This alliance took place in the fourth year of the Hajira, in January 626 A.D., within one month of Muḥammad's marriage with Zainab bint Khuzaima. At the time of her marriage to Muḥammad she was twenty-eight years of age. and had been once a widow. Her husband, Abû Salama, died from a wound received at the battle of Uḥud,-death supervening some eight months after the infliction of the wound. She brought with her four children, the offspring of her late marriage, but she had no issue by her second. Umm Salama had been twice to Abyssinia with her husband, who had emigrated thither on account of the persecutions and hardships which, as adherents of Muḥammad, they experienced at Makka. Though not young at the time of her marriage to Muhammad, she still is said to have been very beautiful. She at first excused herself from complying with his proposal, partly on the ground of her maturity in point of age. Muhammad, however, removed her objections by urging that he too was well advanced in years, and that as for her children, they should be his care. Notwithstanding this, however, it is recorded by some of the traditionists that this lady was one of the three who were taken in marriage by Muhammad at their own request. This marriage of Umm Salama was consummated four months after the death of her husband, and within one month of Muhammad's marriage to his fifth wife. After
