The Role of Khadijah bint Khuwaylid

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was a respected and successful businesswoman in Mecca before she became the Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ first wife. She employed him to lead a trading caravan on her behalf, and impressed by his honesty and character, she proposed marriage to him — he was twenty-five, she was forty, and by most accounts theirs was a monogamous marriage that lasted around twenty-five years, until her death. When Muhammad ﷺ returned home shaken after receiving the first revelation in the Cave of Hira, it was Khadijah who comforted him, believed him without hesitation, and became the first person to accept Islam. She used her financial resources to support the small, persecuted early Muslim community in Mecca during the years of boycott and hardship that followed. The Prophet ﷺ spoke of her with deep affection for the rest of his life, and traditional accounts describe him as visibly moved whenever she was mentioned even long after her death. Several of his children, including his daughter Fatimah, were born to Khadijah. She is remembered in Islamic tradition as a model of steadfast support, financial independence, and unwavering early faith at the moment Islam most needed it.