Debunking Slanders about the Prophet's Marriage to Hazrat Safiyah and Her Iddah Period
By
Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
6 September
2021
The
Prophet’s Marriage With Hazrat Safiyah: Was She Forced Into Marriage, And That
Too Before The Completion Of Her Iddah Period?
Main
Points
1. Hazrat Safiyah chose to marry the Prophet
[peace be upon him] rather than being forced to.
2. The relevant
rule in the case of Hazrat Safiyah was not of ‘Iddah (waiting period), but that
of Istibra' [the freeing of the womb] which could be obtained with a single
menstrual cycle
3. A widow must
wait for four months and ten days before she can remarry, or until her child is
born if she is pregnant at the time.
4. A divorcee must wait three menstrual periods
[about three months] before she can remarry or until the birth of her child if
she is pregnant at the time
5. A captive
lady must wait for one menstrual cycle or until the birth of her child if she
is pregnant at the time
6. A captive
woman’s marriage gets annulled unless she and her husband are taken as captives
together
-----
Some people
in our culture have a predisposition when it comes to evaluating others. They
neglect the truth and tightly hold the falsehood. They don't think twice about
saying exaggerated and incorrect things to the praise of the people they care
about. On the contrary, when they despise someone, they propagate untrue
rumours to condemn him in public without investigating the facts. They don't
want to know the truth. Their hatred has grown to the point where its
intoxication precludes them from comprehending the truth.
In short,
the biggest extremists among such hateful people are those who unjustifiably
accuse the purest personality of the world and the most moral and honourable
Prophet, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa (peace be upon him). It would have been nice
if these bigots had learned the truth before spreading their lies to the whole
public.
In order to
realise the very actuality, let us try to counter an objection made by nasty
people about the marriage of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with Hazrat
Safiyya bint [the daughter of] Huyay of the Nadir Jewish tribe. This objection
is based on two points:
1. The wedding took place after the
conquest of Khaibar, during which Safiyya's husband and other family members
were killed, while her father had already been killed a few years before. They
question how Safiyya could willingly marry someone who is responsible for her
relatives’ death.
2. The Prophet (peace be upon him) wedded
her well before the Qur'anic waiting period for a woman whose husband dies
(i.e. four months and ten days). [The Qur’an 2:234] This circumstance is used
to claim that the Prophet (peace be upon him) broke the law he himself
established.
Expressing
the above two points of the objection, they do the propaganda that it is
difficult to understand how the Prophet's coercion of Hazrat Safiyyah into
marriage for freedom could be considered ethical or humanitarian. [Ma’azallah,
may Allah protect us from such erroneous thoughts]
Hazrat
Safiyya chose to marry the Prophet and was not forced to do so: Proofs are
listed below
They have
speculated that she was forced into marriage since the Prophet (peace be upon
him) took her as a slave, freed her, and then married her. To put it another
way, it is stated that she had no choice but to marry the Prophet [peace be
upon him] in order to live as a free person. This is completely wrong because
of the reports and evidence preserving the details of the Prophet's (peace be
upon him) offer to her after he had taken her from Dihya.
The report
of Ja‘far b. Mahmud is the most detailed in this regard:
When Hazrat
Safiyya approached the Prophet (peace be upon him), he said to her, “Among the
Jews, your father did not stop in his animosity against me till Allah
annihilated him.” She said, ‘O Allah's Messenger! Indeed Allah says, “No one
will bear another's burden.” So the Prophet (peace be upon him) told her, “Make
your choice; if you choose Islam, I will choose you for myself; if you choose
Judaism, I will set you free and send you back to your people.” She said, ‘O
Allah's Messenger, indeed I yearned for Islam and testified for you even before
you extended this offer to me when I came to you. I don't have a Jewish guardian; neither a
father nor a brother, and I prefer Islam to unbelief. I value Allah and His
Messenger more than freedom returning me to my people.” [Ibn Sa‘d, Muhammad,
Tabaqat al-Kubra, Vol.8, 97.]
The above
report is also substantiated and reinforced by the reports recorded by the
scholars of Hadith, for example, by Ibn Hibban [in his Sahih], Abd al-Razzaq
al-San’ani [in his Musannaf], Ahmad b. Hanbal [in his Musnad]. They have
reported through an authentic chain of narration that Hajjab b. ‘Ilat informed the
Prophet’s uncle al-Abbas about the campaign of Khaibar as follows:
“The
Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had chosen Safiyya, Huyay's daughter,
for himself and had given her the option of gaining her freedom and marrying
him or joining in her family; she had chosen for him to free her and to be his
wife.” [Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq, Hadith 9771/ Musnad Ahmad b. Hanbal, Hadith
12409, Sahih Ibn Hibban, vol.10, p.392]
Both of the
above accounts reveal that Safiyya was not forced to marry the Prophet (peace
be upon him) in order to be freed from slavery; rather, she was offered the
opportunity to join her Jewish relatives, but she gladly preferred the
Prophet's (peace be upon him) company overall else.
The Prophet
(peace be upon him) did not disobey the waiting period requirement mentioned in
the Quran
The nasty
people argue that, while the Quran prescribes a waiting period of four months and
ten days for women whose husbands die, they are only allowed to remarry after
this period has passed [The Quran, 2: 234-235], we see that the Prophet (peace
be upon him) married Hazrat Safiyya soon after her husband died, implying that
the Quranic rule of the waiting period has been broken in her case.
The
waiting-time restriction inherent in the Quran [2: 234-235], however, does not
apply in situations like Safiyah’s. The reason for this is that after a
conquest, Hazrat Safiyya was taken as a slave, and her marriage was pronounced
null and void because her husband had not come. Even if her husband Kinana had
escaped death and captivity, Islamic law would have ruled his marriage to
Safiyya null and void. [see Al-Jassas, Abu Bakr, Ahkam al-Qur’an, Vol.5, 328-331/
al-Sarakhsi, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al-Mabsut, Vol.5, 50-53/ ‘Uthmani, Zafar Ahmad,
I‘la’ al-Sunan, Vol.11, 107-109]
As a
result, the relevant rule in the case of Hazrat Safiyya was not of ‘Iddah
(waiting period), but that of Istibra'. Istibra' refers to
ensuring that a woman's womb is empty. This assurance could even be obtained
with a single menstrual cycle, as happened in the instance of Hazrat Safiyya,
according to credible records.
According
to a narration of Anas bin Malik, “the Prophet (peace be upon him) chose her
[Hazrat Safiyya] for himself and started off with her, and when we arrived at a
place called Sadd al-Sahba', Safiya became lawful (i.e. free of menses) and the
Messenger of Allah married her.” [Sahih Bukhari Hadith 2893/3974/2235/ 4211/,
Sahih Muslim Hadith 1365/, Fath al-Bari Vol.7, 480]
According
to another narration of Anas bin Malik, “The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon
him) avoided (intimacy with) Safiyya until she was free from her monthly
cycle”. [Al-Musannaf Abd al-Razzaq, Hadith 13109/ Tabarani 69/24/Musnad
al-Harith, 502/Fathul Bari li Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, vol.4, p.494/ Sunan
al-Kubra lil Baihaqi, Hadith 15688/ Bughyah al-Bahith ‘an Zawa’id Musnad
al-Harith by al-Haithmi, Hadith 502/1005]
According
to these Ahadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not have intercourse with
Hazrat Safiyyah prior to her 'iddah period. Because Hazrat Safia was taken as a
captive lady, her 'iddah was limited to one menstrual cycle.
This was
not an uncommon occurrence. On another occasion, the Prophet (peace be upon
him) made the same judgment in a similar situation. Regarding the slave
captives taken at Awtas, Hazrat Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri traced the following
statement to Prophet (peace be upon him):
“There
shall be no intercourse with a pregnant woman until she gives birth to her
child or with a non-pregnant woman till she menstruates once.” [Sunan Abu
Dawud, Hadith 2157]
It has been
narrated by Hazrat Ruwaifi bin Thabit al-Ansari: Should I tell you what I heard
the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say on the Day of Hunain? “It is not
permissible for a man who believes in Allah and the Last Day to have sexual
relations with a captive lady until she is free from her menstrual period.
[Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 2158]
Imam Muslim
(1365) narrated from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) (in which it is said
that) the Prophet [peace be upon him] entrusted her [Hazrat Safiyah] to
Umm-e-Sulaim so that she might embellish her and prepare her (for marriage)
with him. He (the narrator) said: He had been under the impression that he had
said that so that she might spend her period of 'Iddah in her (Umm-e- Sulaim's)
house.
According
to Imam Nawawi, here 'Iddah’ refers to ‘Istibra' [i.e. the
freeing of the womb from pregnancy] because she was imprisoned in battle.
Istibra 'was obligatory in this case. During this istibra the Prophet kept her
in the house of Umm-e-Sulaim. When the istibra was completed, Umm-e-Sulaim
prepared her for the Prophet (peace be upon him), that is, she adorned her and
prepared her for marriage. [The commentary on Sahih Muslim, 9/222]
Al-Jassas
(d. 370/980) writes on this subject:
“There is no distinction among jurists from all
the regions that a captive woman must be free of one menstrual course” (before
establishing conjugal relations).”
Captives’
marriages are invalidated the moment they are taken captive. Hazrat Safiyah’s
(may Allah be pleased with her) former husband had waged war against the
Prophet (peace be upon him) and killed one of his companions; he was taken into
prison, and thus his marriage was annulled. If his former wife later desired to
marry, she would not follow the widow’s waiting period (four months and ten
days), but rather that of a captive woman because her marriage was annulled and
she is neither a widow nor a divorcee. The normal Iddah period for a
divorced woman or a widow does not apply here since Hazrat Safiyah’s (may Allah
be pleased with her) position was unique, as she was a prisoner of war and her
husband was still alive at the time of her capture and therefore her marriage
was automatically annulled and only one menstrual cycle was enough for the
Prophet [peace be upon him] to marry her and be intimate with her.
The
following summary provides extremely clear information regarding the waiting
period mandated for widows, divorcees, and captive women:
A widow
must wait four months and ten days before she can remarry, or until her child
is born if she is pregnant at the time.
A divorcee
must wait three menstrual periods [about three months] before she can remarry
or until the birth of her child if she is pregnant at the time
A captive
lady must wait for one menstrual cycle or until the birth of her child if she
is pregnant at the time
A captive
woman’s marriage gets annulled unless she and her husband are taken as captives
together
---
A
regular Columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi Dehlvi is a
Classical Islamic scholar and English-Arabic-Urdu Translator.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/hazrat-safiyah-iddah-prophet/d/125320
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