—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and he became afraid because of it, she said to him:
“Never! By Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You maintain ties of kinship, speak the truth, bear the burdens of the helpless, provide for those who have nothing, honor the guest, and assist those afflicted by calamity in a just cause.” (1)
Khadīja, the Mother of the Believers—may Allah be pleased with her—was more discerning and knowledgeable than the Jahmiyya. She understood that Allah would not disgrace someone whom He had endowed with these noble qualities, encompassing justice and benevolence, for the Lord’s wisdom precludes that.
In the view of these people, however, this cannot be known. Rather, He may disgrace someone of such character, and even the worst of men—such as Abu Jahl and others—may be made a prophet. For this reason, al-Māzirī (2) and others objected to Khadīja’s reasoning, just as they objected to Heraclius’s inference in the well-known hadith of Abū Sufyān, when he asked about the qualities of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. (3)
(1) This hadith was cited previously at 2/419–420.
(2) H, R, and Y read: “al-Māzinī.” He was Abū Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Umar al-Tamīmī al-Māzirī, a hadith scholar and Mālikī jurist. His attribution derives from Māzar in Sicily. He was born in 453 AH and died in 536 AH. His works include *al-Kashf wa-l-Inbā fī al-Radd alā Ihyā al-Ghazālī*. See his biography in *Wafayāt al-Ayān*, 3/413; Ibn Farhūn, *al-Dībāj al-Mudhahhab*, pp. 279–281; *Shadharāt al-Dhahab*, 4/114; *al-Ibar*, 4/100–101; *al-Alām*, 7/164; and *Sīrat al-Ghazālī*, pp. 72–73, 79–81, 109–110, and 112–121.
(3) This hadith was cited previously at 4/434. The hadith concerning Heraclius and Abū Sufyān—reported by Ibn Abbās from Abū Sufyān, may Allah be pleased with them—appears in several places in *Sahīh al-Bukhārī*, including 1/4–6 (*The Book of the Beginning of Revelation*, chapter “Abū al-Yamān Narrated to Us”). For the other occurrences, see Dr. al-Bughā’s edition, hadith nos. 51, 2535, 2650, 2738, 2778, etc. It also appears in *Sahīh Muslim*, 3/1393–1397 (*The Book of Jihad and Expeditions*, chapter “The Prophet’s Letter to Heraclius”), and in *al-Musnad* (al-Maārif ed.), 4/110–114. Ahmad Shākir, may Allah have mercy on him, states (p. 110): “It was also narrated by Muslim in *al-Maghāzī*, Abū Dāwūd in *al-Adab*, al-Tirmidhī in *al-Istidhān*, and al-Nasāī in *al-Tafsīr*. Ibn Mājah did not include it, as al-Qastalānī stated in his commentary on *Sahīh al-Bukhārī*, 1/70.”