Rayḥānah bint Zayd (RA)

Rayḥānah bint Zayd was a Jewish woman of the Banū Qurayẓah tribe who lived during the time of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ. Her name appears in the biographical and historical literature of the sīrah, particularly in connection with the events that followed the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq) and the subsequent surrender of Banū Qurayẓah in 5 AH/627 CE.

According to early Islamic sources, Rayḥānah was among those taken into Muslim custody after the defeat of Banū Qurayẓah. Reports preserved in works of sīrah and ḥadīth indicate that the Prophet ﷺ treated her with consideration and offered her a choice regarding her future status. Some narrations state that he invited her to embrace Islam and offered to marry her, while others report that she initially preferred to retain her ancestral faith and remained under his protection. Later traditions suggest that she accepted Islam, though details vary among the sources.

The precise nature of Rayḥānah’s relationship with the Prophet ﷺ has been the subject of scholarly discussion. Some early reports, including those attributed to Ibn Isḥāq, indicate that she remained in the Prophet’s household as a surriyyah (concubine). Other traditions, however, maintain that the Prophet ﷺ emancipated and subsequently married her. Al-Wāqidī relates, through a report attributed to Rayḥānah, that the Prophet ﷺ granted her freedom and thereafter married her, a narration cited by Ibn Saʿd in al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā. Likewise, Shiblī Nuʿmānī, in Sīrat al-Nabī, relying on al-Wāqidī’s account, accepts the view that Rayḥānah became one of the Prophet’s wives following her emancipation. Because the early sources preserve differing accounts, Muslim scholars and modern historians have reached varying conclusions regarding her status, and both interpretations continue to be represented in the historical literature.

Despite these uncertainties, the sources consistently portray Rayḥānah as a respected member of the Prophet’s household. Her account illustrates the complex social and legal circumstances that characterized relations between the Muslim community and the Jewish tribes of Madinah during the formative years of Islam. It also reflects broader discussions in Islamic historiography concerning captivity, manumission, marriage, and integration into the early Muslim society.

Most reports indicate that Rayḥānah died during the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ, around 10 AH/631 CE, and was buried in Jannat al-Baqīʿ in Madinah. Although relatively little is known about her later life, her story remains an important component of the sīrah tradition and contributes to the study of women associated with the Prophet’s household and the social history of early Islam.

## References

1 Ṣafī al-Raḥmān Mubārakpūrī, al-Raḥīq al-Makhtūm (Urdu) (Lahore: Maktabah al-Salafiyyah, 1995), 634-44. 2 Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār and Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām, Sīrat Ibn Hishām, Urdu trans. Syed Yāsīn ʿAlī Ḥusnī Niẓāmī (Lahore: Idārah Islāmiyāt, 1994), 2: 176. 3 Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, trans. Syed Muḥammad Ibrāhīm and Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān Ṣiddīqī (Karachi: Nafīs Academy, 1990), 2:377-81. 4 Shiblī Nuʿmānī and Syed Sulaimān Nadwī, Sīrat al-Nabī (Lahore: Maktabah Khalīl, 1990), 1: 201-202. 5 Qāḍī Muḥammad Sulaymān Salmān Manṣūrpūrī, Wa-mā arsalnāka illā raḥmatan li’l-ʿālamīn (Lahore: Progressive Books, 2022), 2: 113-14. 6 Hussain. Wives of the Prophet (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1983), 186. 7 ‘Abdul Kadir Hubaiti. “The Prophet and the Mothers of Faithful,” Journal Rebetat al-Alam al-Islami (Makkah) 7, no. 1 (1979): 32-35. 8 Roberto Tottoli, “Wives of the Prophet,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 5:556–562.