1 of 2 · Dhu al-Qa'dah 7 AH · 629 CE · Makkah and Sarif
Maymunah bint al-Harith رضي الله عنها
A Wedding at Sarif
Maymunah came from a family of sisters joined to the best of houses. Her full sister Umm al-Fadl Lubabah was the wife of al-'Abbas and the mother of 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas; another sister was the mother of Khalid ibn al-Walid; and her half-sisters through her mother included Asma' bint 'Umays, wife of Ja'far and later of Abu Bakr. It was said of their mother, Hind bint 'Awf, that no woman on earth had nobler sons-in-law. Maymunah's own name had been Barrah, and the Prophet ﷺ renamed her.
In 7 AH, under the terms of Hudaybiyyah, the Prophet ﷺ came to Makkah with the Muslims to make the 'umrah they had been denied the year before. Maymunah, then a widow, was given in marriage to him during those days, with al-'Abbas arranging the match. When the three agreed days were over, Quraysh sent word that he must leave. He offered to hold the wedding feast among them; they refused.
So he left, and the marriage was completed at Sarif, a place on the road some miles outside Makkah. She was the last woman he married.
Even the Prophet's ﷺ wedding gave way to the terms of a treaty he had agreed to; he kept his word though it cost him.
Have you kept a promise when keeping it was inconvenient to you?
- Sahih al-Bukhari 1837 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 1411 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Kitab al-Hajj (hadith of Abu Rafi')Grade not recorded here
- Ibn Hisham, al-Sirah al-NabawiyyahHistorical report
- Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-KubraHistorical report
- Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'abHistorical report
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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