A Marriage, a Divorce, a Death: The Household in 8 AH

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

In the last months of the 8th year the Prophet's ﷺ household saw a marriage, a divorce, a death, and (early the next year) a birth.

❧A marriage and a swift divorce

He married a woman of Banū Kilāb, her name disputed, often given as Fāṭimah bint al-Ḍaḥḥāk, but on entering upon her she said, أَعُوذُ بِاللهِ مِنْكَ, "I seek Allāh's refuge from you." He answered, لَقَدْ عُذْتِ بِعَظِيم، الْحَقِي بِأَهْلِكِ, "You have sought refuge in One Mighty; return to your family", and sent her back unconsummated. (Whether from folly, a jealous relative's trick, or ignorance is not recorded; she regretted it till she died.) From this: divorce may be given in indirect wording (ṭalāq kināyah), and, since most of the Prophet's ﷺ wives were previously divorced or widowed, and he even divorced then took back Ḥafṣah at Jibrīl's word, the cultural stigma against divorce has no basis in the Sunnah.

❧A death

Zaynab bint Muḥammad ﷺ, his eldest daughter, died, never having recovered from the miscarriage caused years earlier when Habbār ibn al-Aswad struck her howdah at the Hijrah. Her husband Abū al-ʿĀṣ ibn al-Rabīʿ, who loved her deeply and whom she had once publicly granted protection, had been reunited with her without a new marriage contract. Three of the Prophet's ﷺ four daughters died in his lifetime, Ruqayyah, then Zaynab, then Umm Kulthūm, only Fāṭimah outliving him, by six months. (The birth was his son Ibrāhīm, in the 9th year.)