2 of 2 · Madinah · the years of marriage · Madinah
Safiyyah bint Huyayy رضي الله عنها
"You Are the Daughter of a Prophet"
In Madinah, Safiyyah lived among co-wives who were Arabs of Quraysh and the Ansar, and sometimes her origins were thrown at her. Anas reported that once she heard that Hafsah had called her "the daughter of a Jew", and she wept. The Prophet ﷺ came in and found her in tears, and asked why.
When she told him, he said: "You are the daughter of a prophet, your uncle is a prophet, and you are married to a prophet. So what can she boast over you?" Then he said, "Fear Allah, Hafsah" (Jami' al-Tirmidhi 3894). He did not ask Safiyyah to hide or apologise for her lineage. He named it as her honour — Harun was her forefather and Musa her forefather's brother — and he corrected the one who had wounded her.
The Prophet ﷺ turned the very thing Safiyyah was mocked for into her honour, and did not let the hurtful word pass uncorrected.
How do you respond when someone is belittled for where they come from?
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi 3894 Graded by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir: Sahih · Al-Albani: Sahih · Bashar Awad Maarouf: Hasan Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: Isnaad SahihSahih
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi 3892Graded by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir: Daif Isnaad · Al-Albani: Daif Isnaad · Zubair Ali Zai: DaifDa'if
- Ibn Hajar, al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-SahabahHistorical 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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