Khadijah

Picture the caravans leaving Makkah for Syria. Some of them belonged to a woman. Khadijah was a widow who ran a trading business of her own, hiring men to take her caravans north.

One of the men she hired was the young Muhammad. In Makkah he was known as al-Amin, the trustworthy.

His honesty impressed her. So she proposed marriage, through a friend. The best-known reports say she was forty and he was twenty-five. Other reports give her a younger age.

They were married for about twenty-five years. While she lived, he married no one else.

Khadijah proposed, and while she lived he married no one else.

Then the cave of Hira. The first revelation comes there. Muhammad ﷺ comes home trembling, and says: cover me.

When the fear passes, he tells Khadijah what has happened. He says he fears for himself.

What does she say? She answers: "Never, by Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You keep good relations with your kith and kin, help the poor and the destitute, serve your guests generously and assist those afflicted by calamity."

Then she takes him to her cousin Waraqah, a Christian scholar. And she becomes the first person to accept Islam.

Khadijah's first proof was his character.

Khadijah's belief was not only words. Her wealth supported the early Muslims.

When Quraysh boycotted the Prophet's clan, she shared their years of hunger in a valley outside Makkah.

She died soon after the boycott ended, around 619. In the same year the Prophet lost his uncle and protector, Abu Talib. Muslims call it the Year of Sorrow.

Years later, 'A'ishah said she was jealous of no woman as she was of Khadijah. The reason, she said, was how often he spoke of her.

Years after Khadijah died, the Prophet still spoke of her.