She was a Quraish lady of good fortune, the daughter of K͟huwailid, who was the great grandson of Quṣaiy. Before she married Muḥammad, she was a widow who had been twice married, and had borne two sons and a daughter. Upon her marriage with Muḥammad, she had attained her fortieth year, whilst he was only twenty-five years of age. She continued to be his only wife until the day of her death. She died December, A.D. 619, aged 65; having been his counsellor and support for five-and-twenty years. She had borne Muḥammad two sons and four daughters: al-Qāṣim, and ʿAbdu ʾllāh, also called at̤-T̤aiyib and at̤-T̤āhir, Zainab, Ruqaiyah, Fāt̤imah, and Umm Kuls̤ūm. Of those, only Fāt̤imah survived the Prophet, and from her and her husband ʿAlī are descended that posterity of Saiyids who are the subjects of such frequent petitions in the k͟hut̤bahs and the liturgical prayers in all parts of the Muḥammadan world.

Muḥammad ever retained his affection for K͟hadījah. ʿĀyishah said: “I was never so jealous of any one of the Prophet’s wives as I was of K͟hadījah, although I never saw her. The Prophet was always talking of her, and he would very often slay goats and cut them up, and send pieces of them as presents to K͟hadījah’s female friends. I often said to him, ‘One might suppose there had not been such another woman as K͟hadījah in the world!’ And the Prophet would then praise her and say she was so and so, and I had children by her.” (Mishkāt, book xxix. ch. xxii.)

According to a traditional saying of Muḥammad, K͟hadījah, Fāt̤imah, the Virgin Mary, and Āsiyah the wife of Pharaoh, were the four perfect women. (Mishkāt, book xxiv. ch. xxix. pt. 2.) [[MUHAMMAD].]

K͟HAFĪ (خفى‎). “Hidden.” A term used in works on exegesis for that which is hidden in its meaning, as compared with that which is obvious. [[QURʾAN].]

K͟HAIBAR (خيبر‎). A rich and populous valley, eight stages from al-Madīnah, inhabited by Jews. It is celebrated in the history of Islām as the scene of one of Muḥammad’s expeditions, A.H. 7, when the chief Kinānah was slain and the whole valley conquered. (See Muir’s Life of Mahomet, new ed., p. 388 seqq.)

Here the Prophet instituted mutʿah, or temporary marriage [[MUTʿAH].] Here were the special orders regarding clean and unclean animals promulgated. Here Muḥammad married Ṣafīyah, the widow of the chief of K͟haibar. Here Zainab, the sister of the warrior Marhab, who had lost her husband, her father, and her brother in battle, tried to poison the Prophet with a poisoned kid. The campaign of K͟haibar, therefore, marks an epoch in the Prophet’s history. [[MUHAMMAD].]

K͟HAIRĀT (خيرات‎). The Plural of K͟hair. “Charity; good deeds.” The word occurs in the Qurʾān in its singular form (k͟hair), but in modern theological works it is more frequently used in its plural form.

K͟HAIRU ʾL-QURŪN (خير القرون‎). The best generations. A term used for the first three generations of Muslims from the time of the Prophet. Muḥammad is related to have said there would be three virtuous generations, the one in which he lived and the two following it.

K͟HALFĪYAH (خلفية‎). A sect of Muslims founded by K͟halfu ʾl-K͟hārijī, who maintained, contrary to the general belief, that the children of idolators will be eternally damned.

K͟HĀLID (خالد‎). Son of al-Walīd. The famous Muḥammadan general. He fought against Muḥammad at Uḥud and defeated the Muslim army. The Prophet married Maimūnah, who was an aunt to K͟hālid, a lady fifty-one years of age, and soon afterwards K͟hālid himself embraced Islām and became one of its most powerful champions. He led the Bedouin converts in the advance on Makkah, and was present as one of the chief leaders of the Muslim army at the battle of Ḥunain, and subsequent expeditions. In the reign of Abū Bakr, he murdered Mālik Ibn Nuwairah, an eminent Arab chief, and married his widow. The murder greatly displeased the K͟halīfah Abū Bakr, and he would have ordered K͟hālid to be put to death, but ʿUmar interceded for him. He afterwards took the lead in various expeditions. He invaded al-ʿIrāq and Syria, took Bustrah, defeated the Christians at Ajnadin, commanded the Muslim army at Yarmūk, and subdued the country as far as the Euphrates. After the taking of Damascus, he was recalled by ʿUmar, and sent to Ḥimṣ and Baʿlabakk. He died at Ḥimṣ A.H. 18, A.D. 639.