Zayd ibn al-Khattab

ProfileZayd ibn al-Khattab

Zayd (may Allah be pleased with him) was the son of al-Khattab, and the older brother of Umar by about a year. According to the early biographies, he was a very tall man, darker than Umar and just as imposing, so that when a group was coming from far off, he was the one you could pick out. He was a man of few words, and apart from the day the Prophet ﷺ died, the words recorded from him are from battle. According to the early biographies, Zayd's father al-Khattab was a harsh man who beat his sons, and Zayd, as the eldest, took the worst of it. Their sister Fatimah and her husband Sa'id ibn Zayd were among the first Muslims. Umar had another brother, through his mother, who did not become a Muslim, and Umar kept good relations with him.

According to the early biographies, Zayd accepted Islam before Umar did, and emigrated to Madinah before him. In Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ paired him with a man of the Ansar of a similar quiet nature, and he stayed with the Prophet ﷺ in his battles, fighting at Badr, Uhud, the Trench, and at Hudaybiyyah, where he took the pledge under the tree. According to the early biographies, he was one of those who never left the Prophet's ﷺ side, even when the Muslims were scattered at Uhud. In one of the early battles he fought without armour, and when Umar saw this and offered him his own, Zayd gave it back and said that he wanted martyrdom as Umar did, so the two fought without armour. According to the early biographies, his wife was the daughter of one of the Prophet's ﷺ staunch opponents.

According to the early biographies, when the Prophet ﷺ died and Umar stood in the mosque, saying that he was not dead, the people wept and said that they wished they had died before him. Zayd said that he did not wish it, because he wanted to believe in the Prophet ﷺ after his death as he had believed in him in his life. Abu Bakr then sent the army against the false prophet Musaylimah at Yamamah in 12 AH, and Zayd carried the banner. According to the early biographies, he met in single combat a man who knew the Quran and had left Islam for Musaylimah, and killed him, which shook the other side. When the Muslims were pressed hard by an army many times larger, Zayd advanced into its midst calling for the men, and asked Allah to forgive him for the retreat of his companions, and said that he was innocent of what Musaylimah and his men had done. He was killed, and the banner fell from his hand, and Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhayfah, took it up and was killed after him.

According to the early biographies, the Muslims won, after heavy losses, and the news reached Madinah before the army. Umar was out waiting for his brother, and when he saw the army and not Zayd, he wept. He told his son Abdullah that he should have died before Zayd, and asked how he could be alive while Zayd was dead, and told him he did not want to see his face. Abdullah answered that he had asked Allah for martyrdom before his uncle, but his own soul had held him back, and that Zayd had gone forward, and Allah had honoured him with it. Umar said afterwards that Zayd had beaten him in two good things, Islam and martyrdom, and, in another report, in the Hijrah too. According to the early biographies, he said that whenever the east wind blew, he could smell Zayd in it. Umar was not a man known for mourning, and this was his mourning for no one else. According to the early biographies, a man who had gone half blind from weeping for his own brother told Umar that if his brother had died as Zayd had, he would not have grieved so, and Umar said that no one had comforted him better than that. According to the early biographies, when Umar was once shown the man who had killed Zayd, who had since become a Muslim, he told him that he had hurt him, and that the wind never blew without him remembering his brother. The man said that Allah had honoured Zayd by his hand and had not disgraced him by Zayd's hand, and Umar accepted his repentance.

According to the early biographies, Zayd left a son, Abd ar-Rahman, who was a small boy when the Prophet ﷺ died, and was brought up in Umar's house. When Umar saw a man insult the name Muhammad while abusing the boy, he changed the boy's name so that the Prophet's ﷺ name would not be used against him. According to the early biographies, Zayd was buried at Yamamah, in a grave that later had a large dome built over it.

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