Pernikahan dengan Khadijah bint Khuwaylid

The marriage of Muhammad ibn Abdullah ﷺ to Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was arranged when he was approximately twenty-five years old and she approximately forty — though some narrations give different ages for Khadijah, ranging from twenty-eight to forty-five. She was a wealthy and respected Meccan businesswoman, twice-widowed, who had initiated the proposal after observing the Prophet's character through his conduct of her trading caravan to Syria and through her servant Maysarah's detailed report. The mahr (marriage gift) was twelve ounces of gold or twenty young camels — provided with assistance from his uncle Abu Talib — and Abu Talib gave the traditional marriage speech at the ceremony. Khadijah's decision to propose was socially unconventional: she was older, more established, and more wealthy than her prospective husband; in ordinary Meccan convention, the man's family would approach the woman's. But Khadijah acted on her own assessment and the report she had received. The union that resulted was one of extraordinary devotion. For twenty-five years — until Khadijah's death in the tenth year of prophethood — the Prophet ﷺ took no other wife. They had six children: the sons al-Qasim and Abdullah (both died in infancy) and the daughters Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah al-Zahra, through whom the prophetic lineage continued. The marriage's deepest significance lies in what happened at the moment of the first revelation. When the Prophet ﷺ returned from Cave Hira trembling with the first experience of divine revelation, it was Khadijah who wrapped him in a cloak, calmed him, and immediately declared her belief without hesitation or doubt. Her affirmation — "By Allah, Allah will never humiliate you" — followed by her enumeration of his noble qualities, was simultaneously the first declaration of faith and a profound testimony of who he was. The Prophet ﷺ said of her: "She believed in me when people called me a liar. She supported me with her wealth when people withheld from me. Allah provided me children through her when none others gave me children." He continued to speak of her with deep love throughout his life, honoring her friends and memory long after her death.