When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away, he was mourned in a poem that we have cited earlier (1)—the poem in which he says (2):
from the al-wāḍh metre
I lay awake, my night refusing to depart,
For the night of one struck by calamity is endlessly long.
My tears have brought me solace, yet that is but little
Compared with the affliction that has befallen the Muslims.
Great—indeed, magnificent—was our loss
On the evening it was said, “The Messenger has been taken.”
We have been deprived of the revelation sent among us,
Which Gabriel would bring morning and evening.
They relate that Abū Sufyān performed the ḥajj, and when his head was shaved the barber cut off a wart he had, whereupon he fell ill and never recovered; he died after (3) his return to Madinah, and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb led his funeral prayer. It is also said that his brother Nawfal died four months before him, and Allah knows best.
Abū al-Haytham ibn al-Tayyihān (4)—Mālik ibn Mālik ibn ʿAsal ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlam ibn ʿĀmir ibn Zaʿūr ibn Jusham ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Khazraj ibn ʿAmr ibn Mālik ibn al-Aws, an Awsī man of the Anṣār—was present at the Pledge of ʿAqabah as a naqīb, fought at Badr and every subsequent battle, and died in 20 AH; others say 21 AH. Another report holds that he fought at Ṣiffīn alongside ʿAlī; Ibn al-Athīr considers this the more common view. Our teacher (5) has mentioned him here, and Allah knows best.
Zaynab bint Jaḥsh (6) ibn Riʾāb al-Asadiyyah, of the clan of Asad Khuzaymah, was the first of the Mothers of the Believers to pass away. Her mother was Ummaymah bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. Her given name had been Barra, but the Messenger of Allah renamed her Zaynab; her teknonym was Umm al-Ḥakam. She is the one whom Allah Himself wedded to the Prophet, and she used to pride herself (7) over the other wives of the Prophet ﷺ, saying, “Your families gave you in marriage, whereas Allah married me from above the heavens.” (8)
Allah the Exalted said: “So when Zayd had finished with her, We married her to you” (al-Aḥzāb 33:37). She had previously been the wife of his freedman Zayd ibn Ḥārithah. When Zayd divorced her, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ married her. It is said that this occurred in 3 AH; others say 4 AH, which is the better-known view. And it is also said