Kamil Ahmad – The Lives of the Sahabiyyat – 12 – Maymunah bint al-Harith – ra
AI: Summary ©
The Prophet's culture is discussed, including their marriage of various houses and relationships with houses of their uncle. They also discuss the aftermath of their marriage to May polymer and their romantic relationship with a woman named Barrah. The story of May dates and their families are also mentioned, including their nephews and parents. The death of May booking is also discussed, along with the aftermath of their wedding to May and the aftermath of their wedding to Barrah.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the best
of Allah's creation.
And upon his family, his companions, and those
who followed them with goodness until the Day
of Judgment.
And after that, O Allah, teach us what
will benefit us, and benefit us with what
You have taught us, and increase us in
knowledge, and show us the truth as the
truth, and grant us to follow it, and
show us falsehood as falsehood, and grant us
to avoid it.
And make us of those who listen to
the word, and follow the best of it.
And admit us with Your mercy among Your
righteous servants.
And after that, peace and blessings be upon
you.
We continue on with our series on the
lives of the Suhabiyat.
And we started this series with the Ummahatul
Mu'mineen.
The mothers of the believers.
The wives of the Prophet ﷺ.
And we started with Khadijah.
And today we conclude with the last wife
that the Prophet ﷺ married.
And that was Maymunah bint al-Harith.
Maymunah bint al-Harith.
And so she is Maymunah bint al-Harith
ibn Hazn.
However, her name at birth was not Maymunah.
It was Barrah.
Her original name was Barrah.
And later on, Rasulullah ﷺ changed it to
Maymunah.
And the Prophet ﷺ would often change the
names of his companions whenever a certain name
was not appropriate.
So Barrah, the word Barrah means someone who
is righteous.
Someone who is pious and righteous.
And this is like a praise, like a
self-praise.
And we shouldn't praise ourselves.
As for Maymunah, it means someone who is
pure.
Someone who is happy or blessed.
Her father was al-Harith ibn Hazn from
the Hilali tribe of Mecca.
From the Hilali tribe of Mecca.
And her mother was Hind bint Awth.
Hind bint Awth al-Himyariyah.
And this woman, we mentioned her previously.
When we spoke about Zaynab bint Khuzaimah.
Zaynab bint Khuzaimah was one of the wives
of the Prophet ﷺ.
And this woman, Hind, was also her mother.
Hind bint Awth was also the mother of
Zaynab bint Khuzaimah.
So now we have Maymunah and Zaynab, their
mother is Hind bint Awth.
But their fathers are different.
So they are half-sisters.
And we mentioned how this woman was special.
The Arabs would say that there was no
woman who had more noble son-in-laws
than her.
Meaning that all of her daughters married the
most noble of Arab men.
And these noble men even became Muslim.
So who were they?
Well we have Muhammad ﷺ.
What greater honor than that?
And he didn't just marry one of her
daughters, but he married two.
Maymunah and her half-sister, Zaynab bint Khuzaimah.
And then we have al-Abbas, the uncle
of the Prophet ﷺ, who married Umm al
-Fadl.
So Umm al-Fadl is also the daughter
of Hind.
And then we have Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib,
the other uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, who
married Salma bint Umais, another of the daughters
of Hind.
And then there was al-Walid ibn al
-Mughira, who married Lubabah bint al-Harith, another
one of the daughters of Hind.
And she was the mother of Khalid ibn
al-Walid.
And then you have Ja'far ibn Abi
Talib, who married Asma bint Umais, another one
of the daughters of Hind bint Awth.
And when Ja'far passed away, she married
Ali ﷺ.
And then she married Abu Bakr.
And so, look at all of these daughters
of Hind bint Awth, who married some very,
very special men.
And so this shows us how the mother
of Maymunah was unique and special.
All of her daughters went on to marry
the most special men of their time.
And as we mentioned, these women, so these
daughters, they all went on to accept Islam.
And that's why Abdullah ibn Abbas, who is
the son of one of these women, Umm
al-Fadl, Abdullah ibn Abbas is her son.
He says, the believing sisters were Maymunah, the
wife of the Prophet ﷺ, Umm al-Fadl,
the wife of al-Abbas, Asma bint Umais,
the wife of Ja'far, and Salma, who
is the wife of Hamza.
So the Prophet ﷺ, or Abdullah ibn Abbas,
he mentioned how all of these sisters, they
were believers.
Alright, Maymunah, she was first married to Mas
'ud ibn Umair al-Thaqafi.
Mas'ud ibn Umair al-Thaqafi, who later
on divorced her.
So then she married Abu Ruhm ibn Abdul
Uzza, who later on passed away.
Now, Maymunah had embraced Islam before the Hijrah.
However, she remained in Mecca, as she didn't
have anyone to make Hijrah with.
She didn't have any male relatives who she
could travel to Medina with.
And the story of her marriage to Rasulullah
ﷺ takes us to the 6th year of
the Hijrah, when Rasulullah ﷺ had set out
with the Muslims for Mecca to make Umrah.
And so they were met with resistance, and
they camped outside of Mecca at a place
known as Hudaybiyyah.
There, the Prophet ﷺ held negotiations with Quraysh,
which would later on lead to the peace
treaty known as the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.
And part of the agreement was that the
Muslims are not going to be allowed to
perform Umrah this year, but they would have
to return the following year to perform Umrah.
Also the agreement was that when they come
back to perform Umrah the following year, they
would only be allowed to spend three days
in Mecca, and then they have to leave.
So now a year passes by, and in
Dhul Qa'dah of the 7th year, all those
who were present with Rasulullah ﷺ at Hudaybiyyah,
now they set off from Medina to make
their long awaited Umrah.
They reached Mecca, and part of the agreement
that Quraysh made was that when the Muslims
come, they would vacate Mecca for the period
of the stay of the Muslims.
And this was because of their hatred for
the Muslims, they couldn't stand seeing them.
So they left Mecca, Quraysh, the people of
Mecca, they evacuated from Mecca.
They went on to the hilltops and the
mountains surrounding Mecca, where they could see the
Muslims from far.
So the Muslims, they go into Mecca, and
they perform their Umrah, and once they had
completed their Umrah, Maymunah,
who had been living in Mecca, and by
now she was a widow, she had a
wish to marry the Prophet ﷺ.
She had this wish, she wanted to marry
Rasulullah ﷺ.
So she shared this interest of hers with
her sister, Umm al-Fadl, the wife of
al-Abbas.
And so she went and shared it with
her husband al-Abbas, the uncle of the
Prophet ﷺ.
And so al-Abbas, he didn't waste any
time, he went straight to the Prophet ﷺ,
and he tells him, O Messenger of Allah,
Barrah, that was the name of Maymunah as
we mentioned, he said, Barrah has been widowed
after Abu Ruhm, so why don't you marry
her?
Why don't you marry her?
So al-Abbas, he proposed, he said, this
is a good idea, why don't you marry
Maymunah?
So Rasulullah ﷺ agreed, and he sent Ja
'far ibn Abi Talib to give her the
good news.
So when Ja'far came and told Maymunah
of the good news, at the time she
happened to be riding on a camel, and
out of extreme joy, she jumped off of
the camel and said, this camel and everything
on it is for Allah and His Messenger.
Now it is said that this ayah in
Surah al-Ahzab was revealed concerning Maymunah, because
she offered herself to the Prophet ﷺ in
marriage.
Allah ﷻ says, وَامْرَأَةً مُؤْمِنَةً إِنْ وَهَبَتْ نَفْسَهَا
لِلنَّبِي إِنْ أَرَادَ النَّبِيُّ أَن يَسْتَنكِيحَهَا خَالِصَةً لَكَ
مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ Allah mentioned that it is
also permissible for you, O Muhammad, to marry
a believing woman who offers herself to the
Prophet ﷺ without any dowry, without any mahr,
if he is interested in marrying her.
This is exclusively for you, O Muhammad, not
for the rest of the believers.
However, others mention that the woman that is
being referred to here in this ayah refers
to another woman.
There is a hadith where a woman comes
and offers herself in marriage to the Prophet
ﷺ, and the Prophet ﷺ didn't say anything,
as if he was not interested.
So one of the companions asks, O Messenger
of Allah, if you're not interested in her,
can I marry her?
And there are other opinions mentioned as to
which woman is being referred to here.
But the reality is that there were several
women who proposed themselves directly to Rasulullah ﷺ,
so it's not necessarily talking about one particular
woman.
And this was mentioned by Imam al-Bukhari.
So anyways, Rasulullah ﷺ then married Maymunah in
Mecca, and as I mentioned, he changed her
name to Maymunah.
Initially it was Barrah.
So he married her in Mecca, and now
he wanted to have a Walima in Mecca
before they left.
However, as we mentioned, part of the agreement
that he had with Quraysh in the Treaty
of Hudaybiyyah was that the Muslims would only
be allowed to stay in Mecca for three
days.
And now the three days were up.
They had to leave.
So some of the leaders of Quraysh, they
came to the Prophet ﷺ and they said,
we ask you in the name of Allah
and the treaty between us to leave.
So they were coming and telling him that
your time is up, you have to leave.
And this was because of their hatred for
the Muslims.
It was so much so that they couldn't
stand the presence of the Muslims in Mecca.
And they were just waiting for the three
days to be up so they could leave.
So now, immediately, they came to the Prophet
ﷺ and asked him to leave.
Rasulullah ﷺ said, look, I have just married
a woman from among you.
It won't harm you if I finish my
wedding with her and prepare a Walima.
We'll have a huge feast and I want
you guys also to come and enjoy the
food.
So they said, look, we have no need
for your food.
We ask you to leave.
We ask you in the name of Allah
to leave.
In one narration, it says that Quraysh, they
said, we want you to leave our land.
This is our land.
So some of the Ansar, they were with
the Prophet ﷺ at the time.
And one of the leaders of the Ansar,
Sa'd ibn Ubadah, he said, out of anger,
he said, this is not your land nor
the land of your fathers.
Rasulullah ﷺ calmed him down and said, we
will leave.
We will leave.
So they left Mecca and Rasulullah ﷺ held
the Walima outside of Mecca at a place
called Sarif.
On the way out of Mecca, heading towards
Medina.
On the way out of Mecca, heading towards
Medina.
And this is where he had the Walima
with the companions.
And this is where he consummated the marriage
with Maymunah.
Now Maymunah, she ended up only staying with
Rasulullah ﷺ for the next three years before
he passed away.
So she spent the least amount of time
with Rasulullah ﷺ from among his wives.
However, even though that was the case, she
is among the top of his wives in
narrating a hadith.
So she comes third after Aisha and Umm
Salama in terms of narrating a hadith.
So it's mentioned that she narrated some 76
ahadith.
And seven of them are agreed upon.
Seven of them are in Bukhari and Muslim.
Among the important ahadith that she narrated was
the description of the ghusl of the Prophet
ﷺ.
She described in detail how the Prophet ﷺ
performed ghusl.
She said she would come bring the bucket
of water and prepare the water for him.
And then how he would pour the water
and how he would make ghusl from beginning
all the way until the end.
And so through this narration we learn how
we're supposed to perform the ghusl.
She also narrated a hadith that mentions how
the Prophet ﷺ drank milk on the day
of Arafah.
And this was because the people were confused.
They didn't know whether the Prophet ﷺ was
fasting or not on that day.
When they made hajj and they were standing
in Arafah.
The day of Arafah is a day that
we fast.
However, not for those who are making hajj.
So the companions, they didn't know.
And they were too shy to go and
ask the Prophet ﷺ if he was fasting.
So again it shows the wisdom of Maymunah.
She was very wise and intelligent.
So she narrates the hadith.
She says people had doubts about the fasting
of the Prophet ﷺ on the day of
Arafah.
They didn't know.
So I sent him a cup of milk
while he was standing on the plains of
Arafah.
And he drank from it while everyone was
looking at him.
So that's how everyone knew that the Prophet
ﷺ was not fasting on that day.
We also have the famous incident of when
Rasulullah ﷺ was presented with the meat of
a certain animal.
The Dhab.
The Dhab is basically a desert lizard.
It's a desert lizard.
It's very huge.
And some of the Arabs, they used to
eat it.
And this incident took place in her house.
Ibn Abbas is the one who narrates it.
So Ibn Abbas, Abdullah Ibn Abbas is the
nephew of Maymunah.
So he says that Khalid Ibn Al-Walid
entered the house of Maymunah with Rasulullah ﷺ.
So the two of them entered the house
of Maymunah.
And a roasted lizard was brought to them.
And the Prophet ﷺ reached for it with
his hand.
He was about to eat it.
But then some women, perhaps some of his
wives, they said someone should go and tell
the Prophet ﷺ what this meat is.
Because they knew that he doesn't like it.
So they told him, this is a lizard,
O Messenger of Allah.
So then he withdrew his hand.
He took away his hand.
And so Abdullah Ibn Abbas, he asked the
Prophet ﷺ, Is it haram, Ya Rasulullah?
Is this meat haram?
So the Prophet ﷺ said, No.
However, this is not the food of my
people.
We are not used to this kind of
food.
We're from Mecca and we don't eat this.
And I don't find myself inclined towards it.
So we learn a huge lesson from this
hadith that took place in the house of
Maymunah.
And that is that certain things are not
haram just because the Prophet ﷺ stayed away
from it.
But it could be that he doesn't like
it, in terms of his personal taste.
Now Maymunah was also known for her piety,
and her taqwa, and her righteousness.
And this is something that we have seen
with all of the wives of Rasulullah ﷺ.
We have mentioned many, many examples of their
ibadah, their righteousness, their taqwa.
And so Maymunah was no different.
Maymunah was no different.
And she was also known for being firm
upon the truth.
She was also known for commanding the good
and forbidding the evil, and being firm upon
Islam.
And so one day, one of her nephews
came to see her, and she noticed the
smell of alcohol.
So she said to him, By Allah, either
you go and receive the punishment for drinking,
which is to be lashed, to get whipped.
She said, either you go and receive the
punishment for drinking alcohol, or you never step
in my house ever again.
I don't want to ever see you.
This is her nephew.
This is her own nephew.
So it shows us that she didn't play
around with the deen of Allah, but rather
she was firm upon her principles and the
principles of Islam.
And this was something that even Aisha radiallahu
anha, she commended and praised Maymunah for.
One day, Yazid ibn al-Aswam, he was
one of Maymunah's nephews.
He was one of the nephews of Maymunah.
He narrates, he says, I met Aisha, I
was with the son of Talha ibn Ubaidillah.
So he says, I met Aisha as she
was returning from Mecca, and I was accompanied
by a son of Talha ibn Ubaidillah, who
was the nephew of Aisha.
So here we have two of the sahaba.
One is a nephew of Maymunah, and the
other is a nephew of Aisha.
So the nephew of Maymunah, he says, I
was with the son of Talha ibn Ubaidillah,
and we met Aisha as she was returning
from Mecca, and we had entered one of
the gardens of Medina and taken some fruit
from it.
Right?
So when Aisha found out, she turned to
her nephew, she turned to her own nephew,
and she admonished him, and she reprimanded him,
and she criticized him, she really gave it
to him, her own nephew.
Then she turned to me, and she admonished
me severely.
And she said, She said, Do you not
know that Allah has blessed you to be
among the family of His Prophet ﷺ?
By Allah, Maymunah is gone.
So here, Aisha is speaking to who?
To the nephew of Maymunah.
She says, By Allah, Maymunah is gone, and
now you are left to your own self.
Meaning, there's no one stopping you from doing
as you wish.
You know, when Maymunah was alive, she would
really give it to you if she saw
you doing something wrong.
And then Aisha says, By Allah, she, meaning
Maymunah, was the most God-fearing.
She was the most pious of us.
And she was the best at maintaining ties
of kinship.
She was the best at maintaining ties of
kinship.
So Aisha radiallahu anha, she praises Maymunah radiallahu
anha for her taqwa, for her righteousness, and
her piety.
And this also shows us that Aisha outlived,
she outlived Maymunah.
But both of them, both of them were
among the last of the Ummahatul Mu'mineen to
pass away.
As for Maymunah, she was the last of
the Ummahatul Mu'mineen for the Prophet ﷺ to
marry.
And she was among, she was among the
last to pass away.
So she passed away at a very old
age.
It's mentioned that she was around 80 years
old when she passed away.
But they differed, they differed over the year
of her death.
So some say she passed away in the
year 51.
And others say that she passed away in
the year 61.
And this was after performing hajj.
So she went to perform hajj.
And after the hajj she became extremely ill.
She fell ill.
And she felt as if she was about
to die.
So she told those who were with her
to take her out of Mecca.
Because Rasulullah ﷺ had told her that she
would not die in Mecca.
The Prophet ﷺ had told her that she
would not die in Mecca.
So they took her, they took her until
they reached the exact same place where Maymunah
married Rasulullah ﷺ outside of Mecca at that
same place called Sarif.
You know, outside of Mecca where the Prophet
ﷺ had the Walima and where he consummated
the marriage with Maymunah.
So that is where she also passed away.
And that is where she was buried.
That is where she passed away.
And that is where she was buried.
And this is about 10 kilometers north of
the Haram boundary of Mecca.
So if you're leaving Mecca on your way
to Medina on the road to Medina it's
about 10 kilometers from Masjid Aisha which that
area is known as Al-Tana'im.
And her grave is right there on the
road.
On the road between Mecca and Medina.
Now, she was with her nephews when she
passed away.
She was with her nephews.
As we know, the wives of the Prophet
ﷺ besides Khadija none of them had any
children with the Prophet ﷺ.
Right?
Besides Maria and we're going to talk about
her next week insha'Allah but she was
not a wife of his as we're going
to mention.
So none of these wives who we have
covered their lives Aisha, Hafsa, Umm Salama, Zaynab,
Umm Habiba and also Maymuna none of them
had any children.
So who would take care of them after
the death of the Prophet ﷺ?
It would be their nephews.
Their nephews are the ones who would take
care of them.
So here, Maymuna, she had many nephews.
Right?
Because we mentioned all of her sisters married
some very famous companions.
So at the time she was with At
the time she was with Abdullah ibn Abbas
her nephew Abdullah ibn Abbas and Yazid ibn
al-Asam Yazid ibn al-Asam and we
mentioned Yazid ibn al-Asam in the story
of Aisha when, you know, he says when
we encountered Aisha as she was returning from
Mecca So this is the same Yazid ibn
al-Asam So he narrates Yazid ibn al
-Asam, he narrates We buried Maymuna at Sarif
in the shaded area where Rasulullah ﷺ had
consummated his marriage with her Me along with
Abdullah ibn Abbas we descended into her grave
we went down into her grave and we
laid her in her grave and we prayed
her janazah and then we buried her in
her grave So this is basically the life
of Maymuna bint al-Harith رضي الله عنها
and as I mentioned this is the last
of the wives of Rasulullah ﷺ and the
last of Umm al-Hatul Mu'mineen the mothers
of the believers they are our mothers and
we need to, you know, have high esteem
of them and hold them in high regard
and that starts with learning about their lives
that starts with learning about who they were
and so, you know, if we think about
it if we think about it no other
person from among the sahaba none of the
other sahaba had any closer relationship with the
Prophet ﷺ than his own wives they had
the barakah of not only living in the
household of the Prophet ﷺ but living with
him and engaging with him on a very
very private and intimate level that no other
person was able to do and so that
shows us their high status and among the
female companions that means no one comes before
them among all of the female companions no
one else is higher than them in status
because Allah ﷻ singled them out as mentioned
in the Qur'an in Surah al-Ahzab
وَأَزْوَاجُهُ أُمَّهَاتُهُمْ and his wives are your mothers
the wives of the Prophet ﷺ are our
mothers now there were other women who played
an important role in the life of the
Prophet ﷺ we're gonna start with the slave
women that he possessed because again, these were
women who were special they had a private
and intimate relationship with the Prophet ﷺ that
no other woman had so we're gonna mention
whoever we know of his slave women and
then after that we're gonna move on to
the daughters of Rasool Allah ﷺ his daughters,
which are four and then after that we
will move on to other female companions who
were close to the Prophet ﷺ and then
after that, after that bi-idhnillah we'll look
at some of the more famous female companions
who may not have had a close relationship
with the Prophet ﷺ but nonetheless they were
famous and there are lessons to be learned
from their stories and their lives so we'll
stop here insha'Allah and we will resume
next week bi-idhnillah