Khadijah died long vefore this happened . he could have amrried zaynab afterwards and still before the time he married her to zayd… and khadijah knew he is teh prophet of God if he wanted to marry and God authorized him to do so she wouldnt have had an issue. the verse i mentioned is teh verse you quoted.
But the fact remains that Mohammad did not have other wives while Khadijah was still alive. By activity I am quite involved in the minsitry of marriage and have seen how marriages work and broken, fidelities and adulteries. Mohammad who was poor and an orphan married Khadijah at such a young age that she could be his mother. Beside that she was her boss and employer. She was an influential and wealthy woman. Today one can only guess what kind of a marriage that may be.
By the time Khadijah died Mohammad was quite old already. The youth he had spent or rather deprived with an old Khadijah was quite consistent with what he did when he acquired many wives and concubines after she died. He made up for the lost time, so to speak. Now that he was free and powerful, he did what he could not do before.
This spurs my interest in his marriage to Zainab. So far the argument has not established that Mohammad did not desire Zainab. Even looking at the Quranic verses of 33 one find that they are self-serving to facilitate what he wanted to do, albeit Allah’s command aside.
I am no expert in Islam but when was these verses revealed, before or after Khadijah died?
**“33.37”: And when you said to him to whom Allah had shown favor and to whom you had shown a favor: Keep your wife to yourself and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; and you concealed in your soul what Allah would bring to light, and you feared men, and Allah had a greater right that you should fear Him. But when Zaid had accomplished his want of her, We gave her to you as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah’s command shall be performed.
“33.50”: O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war, and the daughters of your paternal uncles and the daughters of your paternal aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and the daughters of your maternal aunts who fled with you; and a believing woman if she gave herself to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to marry her – specially for you, not for the (rest of) believers; We know what We have ordained for them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess in order that no blame may attach to you; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. **
