Hello everyone! Today I'm going to talk about adoption and prophet muhammad's marriage to Zainab. To begin there are five topics I want to discuss how Prophet Muhammad married Zainab. How adoption got abolished. Ancient cultures and adoption. Difficulties with adopting in Islam. Why did Prophet Muhammad marry his daughter-in-law? Did Muhammad fall in love with Zainab? And how adoption became forbidden with Zaid and Zainab. The first topic is ancient cultures and adoption. Looking at history, we know adoption was a common practice in many cultures, it's something good to do you know adopting someone is like making them your son or daughter they become part of your family. They take your name, they inherit from you they become you know they become part of the family. There's many examples - Ancient Roman culture, Elite Romans used to adopt children and they became part of the family. Sometimes the the adopted son would even have a higher status than the natural born son. This is because the adopted son was chosen, whereas the natural son was just born with however he was. A very famous example is Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. They had a child and Julius also had an adopted son. Guess who became the next leader of the Roman Empire? The adopted son. The adopted son became Caesar Augustus the first emperor of the Roman Empire. This is because he was adopted by Julius and he was given the Empire. So I mean this is kind of amazing that this is how you know in ancient culture adopted sons and daughters were treated they were treated like your own child you know and they would get everything that the that parents would have - the customers, the respect, the privilege, the family name, you know they were given the honor of being like an actual child. Infact Julius Caesar his adopted son became Emperor not his natural son. The same thing in Pre-Islamic Arabia, you know sometimes pre-Islamic Arabia "Jahiliyah" the period of ignorance as it's called is sometimes look down upon, but there was many good things in Pre-Islamic Arabia, for example Tabari mentions that in accordance with the Arabic custom of adoption at the time Zaid ibn Haritha was thereafter known as Zaid Ibn Muhammad and was a freed man regarded socially and legally as Muhammad's son. So before Islamic law changed with with the marriage of Zainab and Prophet Muhammad, adoption was a very normal process in Pre-Islamic Arabia so much so that they would take the name of.. You know Zaid was actually Zaid the son of Muhammad. Muhammad actually adopted him and he took his name, his family name. And why did this all change? We'll get to that. I want to talk about practical difficulties with adoption in Islam. Yusa Gomaa in an article titled "Why Adoption and Fostering Must be Our Muslim Duty" in April 2016 wrote: So basically she was writing an article about adoption in Islam and how difficult it is. She did some interviews and research and she says, when I asked whether Muslim children frequently came into the system, the adoption system, she was told that they did but they were amongst the most difficult children to match into homes because of the unique religious and cultural needs. I made similar inquiries in Michigan, Washington, Indiana and Wisconsin only to hear the same response that it was there with the most difficult children to match. It's very hard to for a Muslim family to adopt and and let's discuss why. The first reason is because of Mahram issues - mahram is basically the laws of blood meaning when you're mahram with someone you're allowed to be alone with them, you can hug them, kiss them.. like you know you're mahram to your mother, mahram to your father, you know you can basically be alone with them, they're like family members and you cannot marry your marahim The thing is when you when you adopt - that child is not mahram to you, so if you adopt a girl, like if I adopt my daughter I wouldn't be able to be alone with her I can actually marry her. It's not considered an actual adoption, because adoption is not allowed, so what would happen is that girl would just be a part of the family, but would kind of be like a stranger in the family. As well how can you get around this? I actually know you one individual who wanted to adopt a child, one family and so what they did was in order to adopt this little boy the mom tried to, I mean like the adopted mom tried to take some you know.. some sort of herbal medicines to try to get some breast milk so they could feed the baby because you can become a "foster mom" in Islam and the the child would be mahram to you. Because this didn't actually work, the second option they did was to get get her sister to breastfeed the child. Even though the child was you know done breastfeeding and obviously was a foster child that wasn't being adopted, by her sister breastfeeding it became kind of like a relative, and she became like an auntie to the child. So this is kind of like the workarounds you have to go to in order to have an actual child in your family that's related you or "so-called related" to you. And you can imagine how difficult is and how problematic it is, and so many Muslims, they don't want to because when the child grows up What would they do? They don't always have these workarounds available. Very strange that you have to do this. As well the adopted son or daughter doesn't take the name of the family the family name, The adopted son has to be known as, this child has his own name and we'll get to the story of how this happened, but basically this is a very serious thing in Islam so serious that it's punishable by hell. I'm going to read a hadith narrated in Bukhari and Muslim. it was narrated from Abu Dharr may Allah be pleased with him that he heard the prophet peace and blessings be upon him say "There's no man who knowingly calls himself after someone other than his father but he has committed kufr Whoever claims to belong to people of whom he has no ties of blood, let him take his place in hell. This is a very serious point. Taking a child, giving a child your name, it's strangely serious.. It's very strange you know that a child cannot take your family name. The adopted son or daughter does not get inheritance, thats another thing. The rules of inheritance are fixed in the Quran - that this person gets this much. This person gets this much.. Her son gets you know one amount, and daughters would get a half of what the son gets, but the adopted child will not get anything. Now there is one-third allowance that you can be flexible with, so you would have to specify that from the one-third, give my adopted son this amount, otherwise an adopted child would not get any in inheritance from the family, which is again quite a sad thing. Compare this to the Pre-Islamic method that the child would inherit, would be basically would be like an actual child, Does it seem like Islam actually raised the rights Increase the rights of adopted children? No it actually took away rights that they had before Islam, and many Muslims are not aware that this whole thing actually happened because of Prophet Muhammad wanting to marry Zainab. Now why did Prophet Muhammad marry his daughter-in-law? This was something that was considered taboo. Forbidden in Pre-Islamic society. So much so that Prophet Muhammad was scared to tell people that he was going to marry Zainab. It says in the Quran Chapter 33 Verse 37 "And you feared the people, while Allah has more right that you fear him." Meaning Prophet Muhammad was scared about this, he was scared to do this, but he wanted to do it. Zaid was just like Muhammad's son. He was his adopted son, and he was part of the family, he loved Prophet Muhammad very much so and Prophet Muhammad loved Zaid really much as well. Infact Zaid is the only one mentioned, the only companion mentioned by name in the Quran. He has that high a status and that much love Prophet Muhammad had for him. So Prophet Muhammad got Zaid married to Zainab, the the marriage lasted less than two years, they had some troubles. She was an attractive young lady of the tribe of Quraish. Aisha said, "from amongst the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, Zainab was my peer in beauty and in love that she's received from the Prophet, and this is narrated in Bukhari. So it's well known she was a beautiful young lady she got married around the age of 35. In fact, the law of hijabwas revealed on the on the wedding night of Prophet Muhammad to Zainab, so before that there was no law of hijab. When he married Zainab the same night the law of hijab was revealed. The story goes that when the "iddah", the waiting period of Zainab was over, meaning Zaid had divorced Zainab, and there was a waiting period in Islam to know whether.. you know she's pregnant or not and once the waiting period was over, Zaid went to Zainab and told her that Prophet Muhammad has sent a proposal of marriage for you. Zainab replied "I won't to anything until I talk to my lord" She went to pray and while she was praying the Quran was revealed and then the Messenger of Allah came and entered upon her without any formalities. And this is narrated and Sahih Muslim. So basically she was praying, she was asking she's asking God should I marry him? Maybe she was worried.. you know .. what would people say about me, you know what's gonna happen if I marry this man who was my father-in-law essentially. That you know she was she was like a daughter to him right? So she maybe she was thinking about this, and while she was thinking about this and praying Prophet Muhammad walked right into a home and said "I'm your husband!" It's interesting why was there a need for Prophet Muhammad to demonstrate this rule of marrying you know ex wife of your adopted son. This is something that really needed demonstrating? Why would you even want to marry your daughter-in-law? I mean my my father and my wife.. He treats my wife like, he used to treat my wife like his daughter she was like you know you should call her "beti", like your daughter It's just weird and strange like why would you want to marry someone that's like your daughter? Do people do this, is this a common thing that Allah needed to reveal a verse about this and tell everybody for ever and ever? Now... On one Islamic site it says the reason for the revelation of these verses was that Allah wanted to prescribe a law for all believers that adopted sons did not come under the same rulings as real sons in any way and there's nothing wrong with those who had adopted them marrying the wives after divorce. So basically Allah wanted to ensure that that all the Muslims would know for ever and ever until the day of judgment that if you know one day your adopted son has a wife, and you know he divorces his wife, you can marry her you know.. Just in case you know she might be an attractive lady, young lady, you never know maybe you want to marry her. You know what's the best way of showing this is for Muhammad to marry his own "daughter-in-law" who was you know this attractive young lady So you know what, now we know, I mean this is great, I mean this is a great thing, you know if it ever happens again. Now, did Muhammad fall in love with Zainab? This is an interesting story. I always used to think this was a completely you know weak hadith and fabricated story, but after looking into it and doing some research i found out that this is actually considered a pretty solid story. The earliest tafsir Ibn Ishaq doesn't say unfortunately mention much about the wives of Prophet Muhammad, but the next one that we have which is Ibn Saad who died in 230 AH mentions this story as follows: So Prophet Muhammad went to visit Zaid and Zaid wasn't home, so then Zainab answered the door And she said Zaid is not here, why don't you come in? Prophet Muhammad you know turned away and he muttered something.. He said something under his breath any left. Now when Zaid came back, Zainab mentioned what happened and she said that Prophet Muhammad came and Zaid asked her Why didn't you let him in? And she said I did invite him in but he turned away and he said "subhnalahil adheem subhana mussarriful quloob" which basically means you know Glory to Allah The Great, The one who changes the hearts. So Zaid, he understood what this meant and he said that Prophet Muhammad had feelings for Zainab, that he was attracted to her, so immediately he went to Prophet Muhammad. Zaid had some issues with his marriage to Zainab, it seems like Zainab was not happy marrying Zaid who was an ex-slave basically. And she wanted someone of higher status. Now the interesting thing is that it seemed that Prophet Muhammad had liked her from this story and this was mentioned in Ibn Saad, so after this happened, Zaid asked for permission to divorce Zainab, he no longer wanted to be married to Zainab. He couldn't bear after this to be married to Zainab and he asked Prophet Muhammad over and over again can i divorce her? And Prophet Muhammad said "No" and this is the verse came in: "And you fear the people while Allah has more has more right that you fear him." So the verse was revealed discussing this. Eventually, Zaid couldn't take it and he divorced Zainab, and then as you know Allah revealed the verse that Muhammda got married to Zainab. Now is this an authentic story? The earliest earliest reference we have is Ibn Saad and as I mentioned in 210 AH. who mentioned this story. And then Muqatil ibn Sulayman was actually the earliest tafsir even before Ibn Saad mentioned the story, this is in 150 AH. starts even before Ibn Saad mentioned the story this is 150 AH. But this story This tafsir is not considered reliable. However Tabari who died in 310 AH is considered the greatest scholars of tafsir, he is the most Orthodox The most authentic, he's considered an encyclopedia of tafsir, the bastion of sunni tafsirs, and he mentions this story that Prophet Muhammad had feelings for Zainab. He mentions that this and he narrated this from Ibn Zaid and Qatada who was a student of Ibn Abbas. Also other than Tabari, Tafsir Samarqandi Thalabi, Zamakhshari, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi they all mentioned the same story that you know and why is a big problem? The problem is, it's a big problem because it seems that Prophet Muhammad you know he had feelings for someone, and then you know what the next thing that happened was he ended up marrying her, and Allah married her to him it seems troubling . Ot is also interesting that in the later centuries 4th 5th and 6th centuries this story became very very frowed upon and you know Ibn Kathir even says that some of the earlier books have reports we wouldn't rather not mention. an Ibn Hajr who died in 852 AH doesn't even mention this story. Later on, scholars went even further to say this early story is a complete fabrication and you always made by the evil orientalists, the conspiracy theories, and all of this is mentioned by Uasir Qadhi and is in Seerah lecture that all of these references which I mentioned. So to conclude this story and this video Adoption became forbidden after Prophet Muhammad.. I mean after Zaid divorced Zainab because before that they used to call him Zaid ibn Muhammad. And this was something that was considered completely taboo to marry your adopted son's ex-wife basically marry your daughter-in-law was considered taboo because his son was considered like a real son so in order to to to make this you know marriage not as controversial, adoption had become forbidden and you were not allowed to call anyone by the name. So in order to marry Zainab all of the goodness that came from adoption was completely eliminated. I mean why else would it be that adoption was eliminated at this timely point. When you know Prophet Muhammad wanted to marry Zainab. It's interesting that the both of them happen, both of these things happen at the same time. It's also interesting that you know if adoption is forbidden now, and Muslims cannot adopt or take the name.. Why go to all of this you know why would Prophet Muhammad even need to show people? I mean we can't even adopt anymore, so why would you need to have this big hoopla about just so you should marry her so that you know no one will have any trouble,none of the believers would have trouble to marry their adopted son's ex-wife. For the final revelation of God to include such a strange thing, doesn't it seem just seem troubling? Doesn't it seem strange that in the final revelation sent to mankind that you would need to include such a such a obscure rule? And isn't it troubling that this beautiful young lady that Prophet Muhammad liked, that he had to come up with moral justification to marry her from Allah? That if it wasn't for this, he could never marry her and people would talk bad about him and say that look at this man he's marrying his daughter-in-law? I mean these are just some things to think about - I think I went a little bit longer than I wanted to. Thank you for watching, please subscribe to keep up with my other videos and as well please check out my other video - Muhammad's revelations that he received for marrying his other wives Thank you very much! :)