Zayd ibn Ḥārithah: The Adopted Son

Zayd ibn Ḥārithah رضي الله عنه was from the Qaḥṭānī branch of the Arabs, the Southern Arabs, not the ʿAdnānī branch of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. His father Ḥārithah and his mother Suʿdā were from two different Yemeni tribes that had a shifting relationship: sometimes allied, sometimes at odds. One day Suʿdā took her young son Zayd, seven or eight years old, to visit her own tribe. That same day a skirmish broke out between her tribe and her husband's tribe. And in the cruelty of Jāhiliyyah thinking, some of her own distant relatives took Zayd and kidnapped him from his mother, as a way of striking at the tribe he came from. Without her knowledge, they sold the child into slavery at the market of ʿUkāẓ, the great annual fair held near Makkah after the Hajj season, for four hundred dirhams. It is as if the story of Yūsuf عليه السلام was being reenacted.

The buyer was Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām, the nephew of Khadijah رضي الله عنها. She had given him money and asked him to find her a young servant. Ḥakīm went to ʿUkāẓ, saw this Arab boy from Yemen with features different from the Ethiopians and others being sold, bought him, and brought him to Khadijah's home. Zayd became her servant. When Khadijah married the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, she gifted Zayd to him as part of the gifts of the marriage. All of this happened years before the revelation.

Meanwhile, Zayd's father Ḥārithah was going mad with grief and searching. He sent criers out with his son's description, he spread the news across the tribes, he went to gatherings and fairs, asking: has anyone seen a boy from our tribe, this is how he looked? Then one year during the Hajj season, someone from the region of Yemen saw Zayd in Makkah and recognized his features as belonging to the tribe of Ḥārithah. By asking Zayd questions they confirmed it: this was the boy his father had been searching for.

When they returned home, they told Ḥārithah: we found your son. He is in Makkah, a servant to one of the grandsons of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, a young man called Muḥammad. Ḥārithah gathered every coin he could and went with his brother Kaʿb immediately to Makkah. They asked where Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh was and were told he was in the Ḥaram. They found him there and came to him with words of praise: "O Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, you are of noble lineage, people of the sacred house, and people of trust. We come to you to ask your generosity: our son was unjustly stolen and sold into slavery. We are prepared to pay whatever ransom you ask, but we ask you to be generous with us, for we have only what we have."

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, this is before his prophethood, said: "Is there another option? Shall I call Zayd and ask him? If he chooses you, he goes with you and you owe me nothing. And if he chooses me, then I cannot turn away from someone who has chosen me." The father was overjoyed: free his son back and no ransom? More than he had dared to hope.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم called Zayd. Zayd was by now around twenty-five years old. He had spent over ten years in this household, first with Khadijah, then with the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. He was no longer a child. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم introduced the two men: "Do you recognize these men?" Zayd said: "Yes. That is my father, and that is my uncle." The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "They have come asking that you go with them. I leave the choice to you: if you wish, go with your father and your uncle. If you wish, stay with me."

Instantly, without hesitation, Zayd said: "I can never choose anyone over you. You are to me more than a father and an uncle combined."

His father stood up in shock: "Zayd! Have you lost your mind? You will choose to remain a servant in a foreign land, with a man not your blood, and refuse to come home to your own father and your own people?" Zayd answered calmly: "I have seen from this man that which I cannot choose anyone over him."

What Zayd had seen, in years of living in that household, was an akhlāq, a character, that simply could not be equalled. And this was before prophethood. Before revelation. Before Zayd had any religious motivation. It was the purely human force of who the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was that made Zayd choose servitude over freedom, and a stranger over his own father.

When Zayd made his choice, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم took him by the hand, walked to the Ḥijr, the open section of the Kaʻbah, where public announcements were made, and declared before the people of Makkah: "O people, bear witness: Zayd is free from this day, and I adopt him as my son. He will inherit from me and I from him." And so Zayd ibn Ḥārithah became known as Zayd ibn Muḥammad. Ibn ʿUmar رضي الله عنهما later said: "We never knew Zayd by any name but Zayd ibn Muḥammad. I had no idea that there was any other name for him, until Allah revealed:

ادْعُوهُمْ لِآبَائِهِمْ هُوَ أَقْسَطُ عِندَ اللَّهِ

"Call them by their fathers, that is more just in the eyes of Allah." (al-Aḥzāb 33:5)

And from that moment, thirty years after the adoption, his name was returned: Zayd ibn Ḥārithah.

Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, one of the great early scholars, held that Zayd was the first person to accept Islam. The narrations that say Khadijah was first, that Abū Bakr was first, that ʿAlī was first, all can be reconciled: Khadijah was first among women, Abū Bakr first among free adult men, ʿAlī first among children, and Zayd first among the freed servants. He was one of the very first four to believe.

In the days of Jāhiliyyah, Zayd married Umm Ayman, who had been the maidservant of the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم mother Āminah, and who the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had inherited when Āminah died. Their son was born in the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم household, there were no hospitals, and it was simply where they lived, and that son was Usāmah ibn Zayd. The companions would go to Usāmah with their requests of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, saying "You are his Ḥibbu an-Nabiyy, the beloved of the Prophet; he never refuses you." Usāmah had been raised from birth in the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم house, and the love the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had for Zayd extended to his son.

After Islam, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم showed Zayd's full status by encouraging him to marry his own cousin, Zaynab bint Jaḥsh, for a former servant could not have married a noble Qurashī woman in Jāhiliyyah. The marriage was tense and Zayd eventually divorced her. Then, in the fifth year after the Hijra, Allah revealed a command unprecedented in all of the Quran: He revealed that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم would marry Zaynab, and He performed that Nikāḥ Himself in revelation. No witnesses, no walī; the contract was made by Allah's word in Sūrat al-Aḥzāb. And in that same Sūrah, Zayd ibn Ḥārithah became the only companion mentioned by name in the Quran:

فَلَمَّا قَضَى زَيْدٌ مِّنْهَا وَطَرًا

"When Zayd had fulfilled his purpose with her…" (al-Aḥzāb 33:37). Every Muslim who recites this verse, until the Day of Judgement, recites Zayd's name. Not even Abū Bakr is named in the Quran, he is indicated clearly (the second of two, in the cave) but not named. Zayd alone has that honour.

Every time the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم sent an expedition, over ten military missions, Zayd was the commander. Never was anyone placed above him. He was killed at the Battle of Muʾtah, the great early engagement with the Byzantine Romans, the first where the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم appointed three commanders in succession, knowing it would be difficult: "Zayd leads. If he falls, Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. If he falls, ʿAbdullāh ibn Rawāḥah." All three were martyred. The army then chose Khālid ibn al-Walīd, a brand-new convert of only weeks, who brought them through, and upon his return the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم called him Sayf Allāh, the Sword of Allah.

Some of the companions said: had Zayd been alive when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم passed away, he would have been appointed Khalīfah. That is how beloved he was. And ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb رضي الله عنه, when his own son ʿAbdullāh complained that Usāmah ibn Zayd had a higher stipend in the Islamic treasury than he did, said: "Because Usāmah was more beloved to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم than you, and his father was more beloved to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم than I was."