The Marriage of Hafsah bint Umar

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Ḥafṣah bint ʿUmar, born a few years before the daʿwah began, had married young, around eleven or twelve, to Khunays ibn Ḥudhāfah, an early convert and one of a small elite of Muhājirūn (roughly seventy) who fought at both Badr and Uḥud. Khunays was severely wounded at Uḥud and died of those wounds shortly after, leaving Ḥafṣah a childless widow in her late teens.

❧ʿUMAR'S TWO FAILED PROPOSALS

ʿUmar, wanting to see his daughter remarried, first approached ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, recently widowed himself by the death of his own wife Ruqayyah (the Prophet's daughter) at Badr. ʿUthmān, unable to explain that he already knew the Prophet (ﷺ) intended to propose for Ḥafṣah himself, simply said he did not wish to marry at present. ʿUmar then approached Abū Bakr with the same offer; Abū Bakr, for the identical reason, gave no answer at all, which ʿUmar found even more painful than ʿUthmān's refusal. Feeling both rejections keenly, ʿUmar eventually raised the matter with the Prophet (ﷺ), who told him: "Ḥafṣah will marry someone better than ʿUthmān, and ʿUthmān will marry someone better than Ḥafṣah", ʿUthmān would in time marry the Prophet's (ﷺ) daughter Umm Kulthūm. The Prophet (ﷺ) then proposed for Ḥafṣah directly, becoming his fourth living wife. Abū Bakr later explained his earlier silence to ʿUmar, adding that had the Prophet (ﷺ) not proposed first, he would happily have accepted. Dr. Qadhi highlights this as evidence that even the Prophet (ﷺ) sought counsel and consultation (mashwarah, istishārah) before major personal decisions.

❧ḤAFṢAH'S CHARACTER AND THE JIBRĪL INTERVENTION

ʿĀʾishah described Ḥafṣah as her closest rival among the Prophet's (ﷺ) wives, similar in age, and sharing her father's sharp wit and boldness. At least once, tension arose between Ḥafṣah and the Prophet (ﷺ) serious enough that he considered, or, by one account, actually pronounced, a divorce; Jibrīl is reported to have intervened, telling the Prophet (ﷺ) to take her back, and describing her as "ṣawwāmah qawwāmah", one devoted to fasting and prayer, and destined to be his wife in Jannah. On another occasion, finding Ḥafṣah in tears after a dispute with the Prophet (ﷺ), ʿUmar told her that if he divorced her again he would never speak to her again, making clear he would not side with his own daughter against his son-in-law.

❧KEEPER OF THE MUṢḤAF

Ḥafṣah was among the very few women of her era able to read and write. The original compiled muṣḥaf of the Qurʾān, first assembled during Abū Bakr's caliphate, passed to ʿUmar as caliph; when ʿUmar was assassinated with no successor yet in place, custody passed to Ḥafṣah as his heir. She held it until ʿUthmān, as caliph, needed it to produce the standardized muṣḥaf later distributed across the Islamic lands, after which she kept her copy until her death (41 or 45 AH), and was buried in Baqīʿ al-Gharqad.