The Marriage of Juwayriyyah bint al-Harith

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Among the roughly one thousand captives taken at al-Muraysīʿ was Juwayriyyah (originally named Barrah), daughter of Banū al-Muṣṭaliq's chieftain al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Ḍirār, allotted to the Anṣārī Companion Thābit ibn Qays ibn Shammās. As a chieftain's daughter unwilling to remain a captive, she arranged a mukātabah, a contract to purchase her own freedom in installments, a right explicitly protected in the Qurʾān (Q 24:33). Needing help raising the funds, she went to the Prophet's (ﷺ) house, where ʿĀʾishah was present and later narrated the account in the first person, admitting she disliked Juwayriyyah on sight, certain the Prophet (ﷺ) would find in her the same striking beauty she herself recognized.

Rather than lending her money, the Prophet (ﷺ) proposed directly: he would pay off her contract himself and marry her, her freedom becoming her mahr. She accepted. When word spread among the Anṣār that the Prophet's (ﷺ) new wife came from among the captives, they reasoned that his in-laws could not remain enslaved, and one by one, the Anṣār freed the entire captured tribe of Banū al-Muṣṭaliq, down to the last person.

Her father al-Ḥārith then arrived in Madinah to negotiate ransom, unaware of everything that had already happened. The Prophet (ﷺ) told Juwayriyyah the decision was entirely hers: she could return with her father or remain. (Dr. Qadhi draws a parallel to the earlier episode with Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, whom the Prophet ﷺ similarly refused to compel when his own father came to reclaim him, this practice of granting a spouse or dependent a genuine choice over a set period became, in fiqh, the model for a husband delegating the right of divorce to his wife, tafwīḍ al-ṭalāq.) Juwayriyyah chose to remain. Seeing his own daughter willingly choose the Prophet (ﷺ) over him, al-Ḥārith was so moved that he accepted Islam on the spot, followed immediately by his entire tribe, who received back every confiscated animal and possession intact, now simply as fellow Muslims rather than as captives.

ʿĀʾishah later said she knew of no woman who brought greater blessing to her people than Juwayriyyah. Juwayriyyah herself was known for devout worship, the Prophet (ﷺ) once found her still seated in dhikr in her prayer space hours after Fajr, and taught her a single comprehensive phrase of tasbīḥ equal in reward to hours of remembrance: "Subḥān Allāhi ʿadada khalqihi wa zinata ʿarshihi wa riḍā nafsihi wa midāda kalimātihi", Glory be to Allah, as much as the number of His creation, the weight of His throne, His own pleasure, and the ink of His words. On another occasion, finding her fasting on a Friday specifically, he gently corrected her, Islamic practice does not single out Fridays for voluntary fasting on their own. Juwayriyyah died in 50 AH at around 65 years of age.

❧WISDOM OF THE MARRIAGE

Dr. Qadhi notes that ʿĀʾishah's own account, that the Prophet (ﷺ) would see in Juwayriyyah what she herself saw, should be taken at face value rather than explained away: there is nothing objectionable in ordinary human attraction leading to a lawful proposal of marriage, and treating the Prophet (ﷺ) as somehow beyond ordinary human response misreads the Qurʾān's own description of him as "innamā anā basharun mithlukum", only a man like yourselves. Beyond this, the marriage carried clear long-term wisdom: it extended a mark of honor to Banū al-Muṣṭaliq at no cost to the public treasury (which could not have afforded to simply free a thousand captives outright), and set in motion the conversion of an entire tribe, restored to their previous status, wealth, and leadership, now simply as Muslims rather than as a defeated people.