When 'Ubaydah had died after his single combat with 'Utbah at the beginning of the battle of Badr, he had left a widow who was very much younger than himself, Zaynab, the daughter of Khuzaymah. She was of a very generous nature, and already before the days of Islam she had been known as "the mother of the poor". A year after being widowed she was still unmarried, and when the Prophet ﷺ asked her to marry him she gladly accepted.

The Prophet ﷺ married her in 4 AH, she died 2 or 8 months later. Thus, Zainab bint Khuzaymah and Khadijah are the only two wives of the Prophet ﷺ to have died during his lifetime.

She was a woman of noble lineage and a widow who had been married twice before; both of her husbands were cousins of the Prophet ﷺ.