Zayd—who was then eleven years old—was ordered by the Prophet ﷺ to learn the Jewish script so that he could read their correspondence to him, for the Prophet said, “I do not trust them.”
Ibn Saʿd relates: Zayd ibn Thabit begot Saʿid—after whom he was given his kunyah—and Saʿid’s mother was Umm Jamil.
Among Zayd’s other children were: Kharijah, Sulayman, Yahya, ʿUmarah, Ismaʿil, Asʿad, ʿUbadah, Ishaq, Hasnah, ʿAmrah, Umm Ishaq, and Umm Kulthum. The mother of all these was Umm Saʿd bint Saʿd ibn al-Rabiʿ, one of the warriors at Badr.
He also had Ibrahim, Muhammad, ʿAbd al-Rahman, and Umm Hasan from ʿAmrah bint Muʿadh ibn Anas.
By a female slave he fathered Zayd, ʿAbd al-Rahman, ʿUbayd Allah, and Umm Kulthum; and by another female slave he had Salit, ʿImran, al-Harith, Thabit, Safiyyah, Qaribah, and Umm Muhammad.
Al-Bukhari, Muslim, and al-Nasaʾi state that Zayd’s kunyah was Abu Saʿid. Others say it was Abu Kharijah, and Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddami held that he possessed both kunyahs.
Kharijah narrated from his father: “The Prophet ﷺ arrived in Madinah when I was eleven years old, and he instructed me to learn the writing of the Jews. I used to write for him and read aloud to him whenever they wrote to him.”
Ibn Abi al-Zinad transmitted—from his father, from Kharijah, from his father—who said: “I was brought to the Prophet ﷺ on his arrival in Madinah. People said, ‘Messenger of Allah, this boy is from the Banu al-Najjar and he has already recited seventeen surahs revealed to you.’ I recited them to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, which pleased him, and he said, ‘Zayd, learn for me the script of the Jews, for—by Allah—I do not trust them…’”} }}