________________
96
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1878.
his marriage in the present instance, he remained in her society for a period of three days; and his example in this particular was ever after followed by "believers' when they added fresh inmates to their harams. From the circumstance that Muhammad was wont to have Umm Salama accompany him on the march and in his travels generally, it has been inferred that she was one of his special favourites. The exact period of her death is not known: it occurred, however, at some period between the fifty-ninth and sixty-first years of the Hajira, when she had reached the advanced age of eighty-four.
7. Muhammad's seventh wife was Zainab the daughter of Jahsh. Zainab was a cousin of Muhammad's, being daughter of Amirna, who was a sister of Mohammad's father, 'Abdu'l-lah. Her former husband, Zaid bin Harith, was at one time a slave of Muhammad's, and, being afterwards freed by him, was adopted by him as his own child. Zainab was diyorced from her husband in order that she might be united in marriage to
the prophet of God.' This marriage was effected a few months after the former one with Umm Salama-viz. in June 626, in the fifth year of the Hajira, Muhammad being then fifty-five years of age. Zainab, in common with 80 many of his other wives, was childless, and died at the eye of fifty-three. There are certain exceptional features in connexion with this marriage : in the first place, the four witnesses required by Islamic law in order to legalize the marriage were dispensed with. The reason was that when, in consequence of the displea- sure generally felt in regard to the whole transaction, the difficulty of finding witnesses in this case arose, Muhammad declared that Gabriel had been sent down to him with a message from God, “We have joined her in marriage unto thee." Thus was Zainab his divinelyappointed bride,-a circumstance on which she was wont, on occasion, to vaunt herself in the presence of her co-wives, saying that, whereas the other wives were given away by their relatives, she had been bestowed upon the prophet' by an express divine revelation and behest. Another exceptional feature is found in the extreme difficulty that exists in arriving at a harmonious statement of figures. Accord ing to one account, the divorce took place a year after her marriage with Zaid, and when she was only nine years of age, or as some say seven;
according to another account Zainab was over thirty at the time of that event. Again, as to the time of her death, it is said by some that she survived till the fiftieth year of the Hajira; by others that she survived Muhammad only ten or eleven years, or till about the twentieth year of the Hajira. It seems most likely that she was thirty at the time of her divorce; and, her age being fifty-three at the time of her death, she would have survived Muhammad about seventeen years.
8. The eighth wife of Muhammad was Ju. wairiya, daughter of Bani-Harith, chief of the tribe of the Bani-Mustaliq. Juwairiya was a widow at the time of her marriage to Muhammad,-her unfortunate husband, Ziu-l-Shafrain, who was her paternal cousin, having just been put to death at the battle of the Bani-l-Mustaliq. On lots being cast for her as a trophy of war, she fell to the share of Thabit bin Qais. She is said, however, to have been particularly beautiful; and it is related that the prophet of God, overpowered by her beauty, purchased her from Thabit for a sum of money, and without further delay consummated marriage with her. This event occurred in the fifth year of the Hajira, December 626 A.D.; and, as she died in the fifty-sixth year of the Hajira, at the age of sixtyeight, she would be about seventeen at the time of this marriage.
9. His ninth wife was a Jewess, Safia, daughter of Hayy bin Akhtub. Safia is said to have been a beautiful damsel of seventeen or eighteen years of age at the time of her marriage to Muhammad. She had been twice married, and had been divorced by her first husband, Salam bin Shikam. Her secoud husband, the Jewish chief Kinana bin Rabi', was slain by the party of Muhammad in the battle of Khaibar. On returning from the battle the prophet of God' seated her, as his favourite trophy in the war, behind himself on his own camel, and covered her with his own mantle, in token of having made her his wife. The marriage took place immediately after the battle in which her husband had been slain,that is, in the seventh year of the Hajira (= 628 A.D.). Safia died childless in the fifty-second year of the Hajira, having survived Muhammad forty years: by that time she would be about sixty-three years of age.
10. Muhammad's tenth wife was Umm Habiba, daughter of Abû Sofiân. At the
