The Death of Khadijah (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهَا) and the Prophet's Enduring Love
storySpeaker note: Dr. Yasir Qadhi says he has given full dedicated lectures on Khadijah's life, including a long lecture to the sisters. Here he covers her death and the Hālah-ʿĀʾishah incident which best illustrates the Prophet's undying love.
CHRONOLOGY:
Ibn al-Jawzī (ابْنُ الْجَوْزِيّ) states the two deaths occurred within 40 days of each other. The speaker cites Abū Ṭālib's death in Shawwāl and Khadijah's on the 10th of Ramaḍān, "one month and five days" between them.
❧THE BURIAL
The Ṣalāh (صَلَاة) had not yet been prescribed, the Farḍ prayers would come with the Isrāʾ wal-Miʿrāj. Therefore no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah was performed over her. The Prophet ﷺ himself entered her grave and laid her body in it, taking personal charge of the entire burial. This itself is a mark of honor, he would not delegate to anyone else.
❧THE GRIEF
Multiple Ṣaḥābah reported: after the death of Khadijah, we did not see the Prophet ﷺ smile for months. This was no ordinary grief. She was the first person to believe in him when the entire world rejected him; the first to spend wealth on him during the Shiʿb; the one who comforted him when Jibrīl ʿalayhi al-salām first came and left him trembling. She was the mother of all his surviving children.
❧THE TWO PILLARS (as the speaker describes them)
Abū Ṭālib was the external protector, his tribal prestige was the Prophet's "visa" for preaching in Mecca. Khadijah was the internal support, she protected him from within the home: emotionally, financially, spiritually. With both gone, the Prophet ﷺ was uniquely exposed: no external shield, no internal anchor.
❧THE HĀLA INCIDENT AND ĀʾISHA'S JEALOUSY (from Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim / Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)
After the Hijrah to Medina, Khadijah's sister Hālah bint Khuwaylid (هَالَةُ بِنْتُ خُوَيْلِد) came to visit the Prophet ﷺ. She knocked on the door and called out for permission to enter. The Prophet ﷺ was resting, half-asleep. At the sound of her voice, which was strikingly similar to Khadijah's, he jumped up visibly shaken, flustered, and overcome with recognition and grief.
ʿĀʾishah (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهَا) witnessed this. She was approximately 14–15 years old, and she had never met Khadijah. But her jealousy, even of someone long dead, was intense. When Hālah left, ʿĀʾishah said (with words she later acknowledged were inappropriate): "Yā Rasūlallāh, for how long are you going to keep remembering that old woman of the Quraysh, that old lady whose teeth have fallen out? Allah has given you someone better than her."
The Prophet ﷺ had perhaps let the first phrase pass. But "Allah has given you someone better than her", this irritated him. He said with unmistakable feeling:
"Lā wallāh (لَا وَاللَّهِ), By Allah, no. Allah has not given me someone better than her:
Āmanat bī idh kafara al-nās: She believed in me when all people rejected me.
Wa-ṣaddaqatnī idh kadhdhabanī al-nās: She supported me when all called me a liar.
Wa-wāsatnī bi-māliha idh ḥaramanī al-nās: She comforted me [and shared her wealth] when all withheld from me.
Wa-razaqanī Allāhu minhā al-walad idh ḥarama minhu sāʾira nisāʾī: And Allah gave me children through her when He deprived all my other wives of this blessing."
ʿĀʾishah said: "After that day, I never opened my mouth about Khadijah again." She learned.
❧THE LESSON
This exchange, years after Khadijah's death, in Medina, shows that the Prophet's love for Khadijah was not diminished by time, marriage to others, or the natural comfort of new companionship. It was rooted in the unique circumstances of his mission: she was there at the very beginning, in the most vulnerable moment, when no one else believed.
❧THE CONTINUING HONOR
Even in Medina, whenever the Prophet ﷺ slaughtered an animal, he would send portions to the friends and companions of Khadijah. ʿĀʾishah noted this as one of the things that most intensified her jealousy, that a woman she had never met, who had been dead for years, continued to receive honor through her surviving relationships.