ZAID IBN AL-HARIS. زيد بن الحارس
Muhammad’s freedman and adopted son. Muhammad having seen and admired Zaid’s wife Zainab, her husband divorced her. The relations of the ancient Arabs to their adopted children were very strict, and Muhammad’s marriage with the divorced wife of his adopted son occasioned much scandal amongst his contemporaries. A revelation was consequently produced which revoked the inconvenient restrictions.
Surah xxiii. 37: “And when Zaid had settled the necessary matter of her divorce, we did wed her to thee, that it might not be a crime in the faithful to marry the wives of their adopted sons, when they have settled the necessary affair concerning them.”
Zaid was slain at the battle of Mutah as he carried the standard of Islam, A.H. 8.
Based on Hughes, Dictionary of Islam
