Zayd ibn harithah biography

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “None of you have faith until I am more beloved to him than his children, his father, and all of the people.” [Bukhari]

This hadith always fascinated me and the story of Zayd ibn Harithah رضي الله عنه recently came up in one of our discussions.

His life is such an amazing physical manifestation of this hadith.

Who is Zayd? Zayd ibn Harithah was from the Qahtani branch of the Arabs from Yemen. Zayd's mother and father were from two different tribes that had a love-hate relationship: One day, Zayd's mother, Su'dah bint Tha'laba, took Zayd, who at the time was 7 or 8 years old, to her own tribe; and right at that time, it so happened that a small fight broke out between Zayd's father's and mother's tribes — and Zayd's distant relatives from his mother's side got so angry, they took Zayd, kidnapped him from his own mother, and sold him into slavery to get revenge at his fa