The first believer
Khadija bint Khuwaylid (a) was the first person to accept the message of the Prophet (s), the wife of twenty-five years in whose lifetime he took no other, and the mother of his surviving children. When he came down from Hira shaken by the first revelation it was she who reassured him; when the Quraysh turned on him she spent her fortune on the community, and she went with Banu Hashim into the three-year boycott in the ravine of Abu Talib, though she was by then an old woman used to comfort.
Death
The boycott broke her health. She died on 10 Ramadan in the tenth year of the mission, weeks after Abu Talib, and the Prophet (s) called the year the Year of Sorrow. He buried her himself at al-Ma'la on the hill of al-Hajun, descending into the grave to lay her in it. Years later, in Madinah, he still spoke of her as the one who believed when others disbelieved and gave when others withheld, and honoured her friends for her sake.
Why she is remembered
Through her daughter Fatima (a) she is the grandmother of the Imams, and the Shia count her among the four best women of the world with Fatima, Maryam and Asiya. Her death is mourned on 10 Ramadan with recollections of her life and gifts.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed under Research & books; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.
