on Monday morning, the ninth of Rabi' Al-Awwal, the same year of the
Elephant Event, and forty years of the reign of Kisra
)KhosruNushirwan(, i.e. the twentieth or twenty-second of April, 571
A.D., according to the scholar Muhammad Sulaimân Al-Mansourpuri.
Ibn Sa'd reported that Muhammad's mother said: "When he was born,there
was a light that issued out of my pudendum )genital organs( and lit
the palaces ofSyria." Ahmad reported on the authority of 'Arbadh Ibn
Sariya something similar to this.
It was but controversially reported that significant precursors
accompanied his birth: fourteen galleries of Kisra's palace cracked
and rolled down,the Magians' sacred fire died down and some churches
onLakeSawasank down and collapsed.
His mother immediately sent someone to inform his grandfather
'Abdul-Muttalib of the happy event. Happily he came toher, carried him
to Al-Ka'bah, prayed to Allaah and thanked Him. 'Abdul-Muttalib called
thebaby Muhammad, a namenot then common amongthe Arabs.
The first woman who suckled him after his mother was Thuyebah, the
freed slave of Abu Lahab, with her son, Masrouh. She had suckledHamzah
Ibn 'Abdul-Muttalib before, and laterAbu Salamah Ibn 'Abd Al-Asad
Al-Makhzumi.
Babyhood:
It was the general customof the Arabs living in towns to send their
children away to bedouin wet nurses so that they might grow up in the
free and healthy surroundings of the desert whereby they would develop
a robust frame and acquire the pure speech and manners of the
bedouins,who were noted both forpurity of their language and for being
free from those vices which usually develop in sedentary societies.
The Prophetwas later entrusted to Haleemah bint Abi Dhuaib from Bani
Sa'd Ibn Bakr. Her husband was Al-Harith Ibn 'Abdul 'Uzza called Abi
Kabshah, from the same tribe.
Muhammadhad several foster brothers and sisters, 'Abdullah Ibn
Al-Harith, Aneesah bint Al-Haarith, Hudhafah or Judhamah bint
Al-Haarith)known as Ash-Shayma'(, and she used to nurse theProphetand
Abu Sufyan Ibn Al-Haarith Ibn 'Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet's cousin.
HamzahIbn 'Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet's uncle, was suckled by the
same two wet nurses, Thuyeba and Haleemah As-Sa'diyah, who suckled the
Prophet.
Traditions relate how Haleemah and the whole of her household were
favoured by successive strokes of good fortune while the baby
Muhammadlived under her care. Ibn Ishaq states that Haleemah narrated
that she, along with her husband and a suckling babe, set out from her
village in the company of some womenof her clan in quest of children
to suckle. She said:
It was a year of drought and famine and we had nothing to eat. I rode
on a brown she-ass. We also had with us an old she-camel. By Allaah we
could not get even a drop of milk. We could not have a wink of sleep
during the night for the child kept crying on account of hunger.
Therewas not enough milk in my breast and even the she-camel had
nothing tofeed him. We used to constantly pray for rain and immediate
relief. At length we reached Makkah looking for children to suckle.
Not even a single woman amongst us accepted the Messenger of
Allâhoffered to her. As soon asthey were told that he was an orphan,
they refused him. We had fixed our eyes on the reward that we would
get from the child's father. An orphan! What are his grandfather and
mother likely to do? So we spurned him because of that. Every woman
who came with me got a suckling and when we were about to depart, I
said to my husband: "By Allâh, I do not like to go back along with the
other women without any baby. I should go to that orphan and I must
take him." He said,"There is no harm in doing so and perhaps Allaah
might bless us through him." So I went and took him because there was
simply no other alternative left for me but to take him. When I lifted
him in my arms and returned to my place I put him on my breast and to
my great surprise, I found enough milk in it. He drank to his heart's
content, and so did his foster brother andthen both of them went to
sleep although my baby had not been able to sleep the previous night.
My husband then went to the she-camel to milk it and, to his
astonishment, he found plenty of milk in it. He milked it and we drank
to our fill, and enjoyed a sound sleep during the night. The next
morning, my husband said: "By Allaah Haleemah, you must understand
that you have been able to get a blessed child." And Ireplied: "By the
grace of Allaah, I hope so."
The tradition is explicit on the point that Haleemah's return journey
and her subsequent life, as long as the Prophetstayed with her, was
encircled with a halo of good fortune. The donkey that she rode when
she came to Makkah was lean and almost foundered; it recovered speed
much tothe amazement of Haleemah's fellow travellers. By the time they
reached the encampments in the country of the clan of Sa'd, they found
the scales of fortune turned in their favour. The barren land sprouted
forth luxuriant grass and beasts came back to themsatisfied and full
of milk. Muhammadstayed with Haleemah for two years until he was
weaned as Haleemah said:
We then took him back to his mother requesting her earnestly to have
himstay with us and benefit by the good fortune and blessings he had
broughtus. We persisted in our request which we substantiated by our
anxiety over the child catching a certain infection peculiar to
Makkah. At last, we were granted our wish and theProphetstayed with
usuntil he was four or five years of age.
When, as related by Anas in Sahih Muslim, Gabriel came down and ripped
his chest open and took out the heart. He then extracted a blood-clot
out of it and said: "That was the part of Satan in thee." And then he
washed it with the waterof Zamzam in a gold basin. After that the
heartwas joined together and restored to its place. The boys and
playmates camerunning to his mother, i.e. his nurse, and said:"Verily,
Muhammadhasbeen murdered." They allrushed towards him and found him
all right only his face was white.
After this event, Haleemah was worried about the boy and returned him
to his mother with whom he stayed until he was six.
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