Sawdah bint Zam'ah

Sawdah was born and raised in Mecca in Pre-Islamic Arabia. There is a disagreement as to when she was born.[1] According to one source, when she was married to Muhammad, her age was around 50, other sources claim her age during the marriage to be around 40 to 55 years old, which would only narrow her birthday to around 566-580 CE.[2][3] Her father, Zam'ah ibn Qays, was from the Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy clan of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Her mother, Al-Shamus bint Qays, was from the Najjar clan of the Khazraj tribe in Madina.[4] Not much is known about her early life before Islam.

She married As-Sakran ibn Amr, who was one of the early converts to Islam.[4] They had at least one son, Abdur Rahman ibn as-Sakran, who much later died in the Battle of Jalula in 637 against the Sassanids.[5]

Soon after Khadija's death, Muhammad married Sawdah in the same month of Ramadan of the 10th year after the start of his prophethood.[8] Sawdah was hesitant to accept at first, as she already had six children and feared that they would disturb Muhammad. But Muhammad convinced her by saying, “The best women ever to have ridden the backs of camels are the virtuous women of the Quraysh, who are the most affectionate toward small children and the most excellent in doing good to their husbands when they [the women] are wealthy.”[9]

When Sawdah became old, some time after Muhammad's marriage to Umm Salama,[10] it was reported that he was afraid he couldn’t treat every one of his wives fairly without hurting them, despite that he tried his best to. He decided to divorce Sawdah in concern of hurting her. But Sawdah stopped him in the street and begged him to take her back by offering to give up her turn for his conjugal visits at night to Aisha, of whom he was very fond.[11] Sawdah pleaded that she was old anyway and did not care for men; her only wish was to be resurrected as the prophet's wife on the day of judgment. Muhammad felt empathy and agreed, and Qur’an 4:128–9 was revealed. Other traditions, on the other hand, hold that Muhammad did not truly repudiate her but that she was afraid he would, and it was not repudiation that was being considered in the verse revelation but rather some kind of compromise on the divorce so long as she could remain his wife in name.[12]

After the death of prophet Muhammad, Sawdah along with other wives received a gift of money annually from the Caliphate, which she spent on charity. She, Aisha, Hafsa, and Safiyya always remained very close.[6] She lived a long life and died in 54 AH in Medina, where she was buried in Jannat-al-Baqi.[13] Ibn Sa'd puts her date of death to the year 674.[14] After her death, Muawiyah I, the reigning first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, bought her house in Medina for 180,000 dirhams. According to other sources, she died in Medina towards the end of caliph 'Umar's reign in 22 AH, 644 CE.[8][15]

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