Anecdotes from the Life of the Prophet Muhammad
by Mumtaz Ahmad Faruqui
Muhammad as a Husband
In the religious history of the world there is no person who has done so much to elevate the position of women as the Prophet Muhammad. He gave them rights when they had none.
“The rights of women are sacred. See that women are maintained in the rights granted to them,”
said he.
Another saying goes:
“That is the best of Muslims whose disposition is best; and the best of you are they who behave best to their wives.”
At the age of twenty-five, he married a well-to-do widow, Khadijah, who was then forty years old. He remained devoted to her till her death twenty-seven years later; and she was then his only wife and the mother of his children. He was true to his wife all his life, and even after she was dead, he never forgot her. He always showed respect and consideration even for those with whom Khadijah had associated. Later on, he married a second time and his wife, Ayesha, was both young and beautiful. He liked her very much, but he never forgot his late wife, Khadijah, and always used to remember her with such affection that Ayesha once felt a little jealous and said to him:
“Was she not old, and has not Allah given you a better one in her place?”
“No,”
replied Muhammad,
“there can never be one better than her; she believed in me when others ridiculed me, she helped me when I was persecuted by the world.”
No wonder, Professor T.W. Arnold called it
“one of the most beautiful pictures of a perfect wedded life that history gives us.”