In the Valley of the Boycott

When Quraysh resolved to starve Banu Hashim into handing over the Prophet ﷺ, the clan withdrew into the narrow valley of Abu Talib. Khadijah was of Banu Asad, not Banu Hashim. The boycott was not aimed at her clan. She went into the valley anyway, at her husband's side.

The woman who had once sent caravans to Syria now lived through nearly three years of hunger. Ibn Ishaq reports that her nephew Hakim ibn Hizam was once caught by Abu Jahl carrying wheat to his aunt, and that another Qurayshi, Abu al-Bakhtari, stepped in: would he stop a man taking food to his own aunt?

Her fortune, once among the largest in Makkah, was spent on the cause during these years. By the time the boycott ended she was elderly and worn, and she did not live long after it.