Khadijah · a Light

The first Muslim was a businesswoman of forty

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid ran a caravan trade in Makkah and hired Muhammad ﷺ to take her goods to Syria before she proposed marriage to him. When he came back from the cave of Hira shaking and asked to be covered, she did not ask him for evidence. She wrapped him, listened, and told him that Allah would never disgrace him, because he kept ties of kinship, carried the weak, gave to the poor, honoured the guest and helped people through hardship. Then she took him to her cousin Waraqah, a Christian scholar, for a second opinion. That order of operations, comfort first and verification afterwards, is preserved in the opening pages of Bukhari's collection.

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid · Makkah, c. 610 CE

Source · Bukhari 3