Umm Salamah said:
“I kept that prayer in mind, and when Abu Salamah died I pronounced the words of istirjaʿ and added, ‘O Allah, reward me for my calamity and grant me something better in its place.’ Then I turned to myself and asked, ‘Where could I ever find someone better than Abu Salamah?’
When my waiting-period ended, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sought permission to enter while I was tanning a hide. I rinsed the qiradh from my hands, gave him leave, and set before him a leather cushion stuffed with palm fibre. He sat on it and proposed marriage to me.
When he had finished speaking I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, it is not that I do not desire you, but I am a woman of intense jealousy; I fear that you might see something in me for which Allah would punish me. I am also an older woman, and I have dependent children.’
He replied, ‘As for the jealousy you mention, Allah will remove it from you. As for age, the same has happened to me as to you. And as for the children, your children are my children.’
She continued, ‘So I surrendered myself to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and Allah compensated me for Abu Salamah with someone better than him—the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’
Al-Tirmidhī and al-Nasāʾī (1) transmitted this report through the chain of Ḥammād ibn Salamah—Thābit—ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah—from his mother Umm Salamah—from Abu Salamah. Al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan gharīb. Another version is found in al-Nasāʾī (2) through Thābit—from Ibn ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah. Ibn Mājah (3) also related it from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah—Yazīd ibn Hārūn—ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Qudāmah al-Jumaḥī—from his father—from ʿUmar ibn Abī Salamah.
Ibn Isḥāq (4) said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then returned from Badr al-Mawʿid to Madinah, where he remained until Dhū al-Ḥijjah had passed. The polytheists performed that ḥajj; it was the year 4 AH.’
Al-Wāqidī (5) added: ‘In that same year—the fourth—the Messenger of Allah ﷺ ordered Zayd ibn Thābit to learn the script of the Jews.’
I say: It is authentically reported from him in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (6) that he said, ‘I mastered it in fifteen days.’ Allah knows best.
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