The Dream, the Walimah of Hays, and the Stumbling Camel

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧THE DREAM OF THE MOON

When the Prophet ﷺ first saw Ṣafiyyah he noticed a fresh bruise on her face and asked about it. She told him: she had dreamed that the moon rose from Yathrib and fell into her lap. When she told her husband Kināna, he struck her across the face, do you hope the king of the Arabs will marry you? He had interpreted the dream correctly. Her menses began that very day, and he never approached her again before he was killed in the battle. Allah was preparing her heart, and settling that account, before the dream came true.

❧WHY SHE SAID NO THE FIRST NIGHT

At the first stop out of Khaybar the Prophet ﷺ wished to spend the night with her and she refused, and he left her be. Only when they were a night away from Medina did she agree. Asked later why, she said she had feared the Yahūd might retaliate while the army was still close to Khaybar, and wanted him farther from danger. Her answer increased his love for her, īmān and intelligence together.

❧A SALON BETWEEN THE TREES, AND A CAKE OF DATES

The Prophet ﷺ asked Umm Sulaym, the mother of Anas ibn Mālik, to prepare her. Umm Sulaym strung two cloths between trees for privacy and made do, no jewelry, no perfume, none of a bride's usual things on a military road, as she relates in Ibn Saʿd, yet when they finished they smelled a fragrance finer than any perfume they knew. The next morning the Prophet ﷺ found Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī standing in the distance, sword in hand: this young lady has just lost her father, brother, and husband, he explained, and I did not feel safe leaving her alone with you. The Prophet ﷺ laughed and prayed for him, Ṣafiyyah was by then a believer who loved the Messenger ﷺ. Then he called for whatever food anyone had: dates, clarified butter, barley, all mixed into ḥays, the humble trail-cake that was the walīmah of Ṣafiyyah.

❧THE STUMBLING CAMEL

Nearing Medina the riders sped up, as travelers do at the sight of home, and somehow the Prophet's ﷺ camel tripped, throwing both him and Ṣafiyyah to the ground, a genuinely dangerous fall. The companions all turned away to give her privacy; the moment was so awkward that only Abū Ṭalḥah cried out: are you hurt, O Messenger of Allah? I am not hurt, he answered, then covered Ṣafiyyah with his cloak, set her back on the camel, and rode on. Had Allah willed, His Prophet's ﷺ camel would never stumble, but it is Allah's will precisely to show that the Messenger ﷺ is fully human: he eats, he drinks, and his camel trips like anyone else's.