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 (mahrams).
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 (disbelief). 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 hijab (head covering for women) was
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 (meaning God)"
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 (in Hindi).
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.
(excuse me)
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 (Muhammad: Allahs Favorite Prophet)
Thank you very much! :)