The Life of Muhammad

by M. Husayn Haykal

  The Marriage of ‘Abdullah and Aminah

  ‘Abd al Muttalib was seventy years old or more when Abraha arrived in Makkah to destroy the ancient house. His son ‘Abdullah was twenty-four years of age and was hence ready for marriage. His father chose for him Aminah, daughter of Wahb ibn ‘Abd Manaf ibn Zuhrah, the chief of the tribe of Zuhrah as well as its eldest and noblest member. ‘Abd al Muttalib took his son and went with him to the quarter of the tribe of Zuhrah. There, he sought the residence of Wahb and went in to ask for the hand of Wahb’s daughter for his son. Some historians claim that ‘Abd al Muttalib went to the residence of Uhayb, uncle of Aminah, assuming that her father had passed away and that she was under the protection of her uncle. On the same day that ‘Abdullah married Aminah, his father ‘Abd al Muttalib married a cousin of hers named Halah. It was thus that the Prophet could have an uncle on his father’s side, namely Hamzah, of the same age as he.

  As was the custom in those days, ‘Abdullah lived with Aminah among her relatives the first three days of the marriage. Afterwards, they moved together to the quarter of ‘Abd al Muttalib, and soon he was to be called on a trading trip to al Sham. When he left, Aminah was pregnant. A number of stories circulated telling of ‘Abdullah’s marriage with other women besides Aminah and of many women’s seeking to marry ‘Abdullah. It is not possible to ascertain the truth of such tales. What is certainly true is that ‘Abdullah was a very handsome and strong young man; and it is not at all surprising that other women besides Aminah had wished to marry him. Such women would have at least temporarily given up hope once ‘Abdullah’s marriage to Aminah was announced. But who knows! It is not impossible that they may have waited for his return from al Sham hoping that they might still become his wives along with Aminah. ‘Abdullah was absent for several months in Gaza. On his way back he stopped for a longer rest at Madinah, where his uncles on his mother’s side lived, and was preparing to join a caravan to Makkah when he fell ill. When the caravan reached. Makkah his father was alerted to ‘Abdullah’s absence and disease. ‘Abd al Muttalib immediately sent his eldest son al Harith to Madinah in order to accompany ‘Abdullah on the trip back to Makkah after his recovery. Upon arriving at Madinah, however, al Harith learned that ‘Abdullah had died and that he had been buried in Madinah a month after the start of that same caravan to Makkah. Al Harith returned to Makkah to announce the death of ‘Abdullah to his aged father and his bereaved wife Aminah. The shock was tremendous, for ‘Abd al Muttalib loved his son so much as to have ransomed him with a hundred camels, a ransom never equaled before.

  ‘Abdullah left five camels, a herd of sheep, and a slave nurse, called Umm Ayman, who was to take care of the Prophet. This patrimony does not prove that ‘Abdullah was wealthy, but at the same time it does not prove that he was poor. Furthermore, ‘Abdullah was still a young man capable of working and of amassing a fortune. His father was still alive and none of his wealth had as yet been transferred to his sons.

  The Birth of Muhammad (570 C.E.)

  There was nothing unusual about Aminah’s pregnancy or delivery. As soon as she delivered her baby, she sent to ‘Abd al Muttalib, who was then at the Ka’bah, announcing to him the birth of a grandson. The old man was overjoyed at the news and must have remembered on this occasion his loved one ‘Abdullah. He rushed to his daughter-in-law, took her newborn in his hands, went into the Ka’bah and there called him “Muhammad.” This name was not familiar among the Arabs, but it was known. He then returned the infant to his mother and awaited by her side for the arrival of wet nurses from the tribe of Banu Sa’d in order to arrange for one of them to take care of the new born, as was the practice of Makkan nobility.

  Historians have disagreed about the year of Muhammad’s birth. Most of them hold that it took place in “the Year of the Elephant,” i.e. 570 C.E. Ibn ‘Abbas claims that Muhammad was born on “the Day of the Elephant.” Others claim that he was born fifteen years earlier. Still others claim that he was born a few days, months, or years, after “the Year of the Elephant.” Some even assert that Muhammad was born thirty years and others seventy years later than “the Year of the Elephant.” Historians have also differed concerning the month of Muhammad’s birth although the majority of them agree that it was Rabi‘ al Awwal, the third month of the lunar year. It has also been claimed that he was born in Muharram, in Safar, in Rajab, or in Ramadan. Furthermore, historians have differed as to the day of the month on which Muhammad was born. Some claim that the birth took place on the third, of Rabi‘ al Awwal; others, on the ninth; and others on the tenth. The majority, however, agree that Muhammad was born on the twelfth of Rabi‘ al Awwal, the claim of ibn Ishaq and other biographers. Moreover, historians disagreed as to the time of day at which Muhammad was born, as well as to the place of birth. Caussin de Perceval wrote in his book on the Arabs that after weighing the evidence, it is most probable that Muhammad was born in August, 570 C.E., i.e. “the Year of the Elephant,” and that he was born in the house of his grandfather ‘Abd al Muttalib in Makkah. On the seventh day after Muhammad’s birth, ‘Abd al Muttalib gave a banquet in honor of his grandson to which he invited a number of Quraysh tribesmen and peers. When they inquired from him why he had chosen to name the child Muhammad, thus changing the practice of using the ancestors’ names, ‘Abd al Muttalib answered: “I did so with the wish that my grandson would be praised by God in heaven and on earth by men.”

  Muhammad’s Nurses

  Aminah waited for the arrival of the wet nurses from the tribe of Banu Sa’d to choose one for Muhammad, as was the practice of the nobles of Makkah. This custom is still practiced today among Makkan aristocracy. They send their children to the desert on the eighth day of their birth to remain there until the age of eight or ten. Some of the tribes of the desert have a reputation as providers of excellent wet nurses, especially the tribe of Banu Sa’d. At that time, Aminah gave her infant to Thuwaybah, servant of Muhammad’s uncle Abu Lahab, who nursed him for a while as she did his uncle Hamzah later on, making the two brothers-in-nursing. Although Thuwaybah nursed Muhammad but a few days, he kept for her great affection and respect as long as she lived. When she died in 7 A.H. Muhammad remembered to inquire about her son who was also his brother-in-nursing, but found out that he had died before her.

  The wet nurses of the tribe of Banu Sa’d finally arrived at Makkah to seek infants to nurse. The prospect of an orphan child did not much attract them since they hoped to be well rewarded by the father. The infants of widows, such as Muhammad, were not attractive at all. Not one of them accepted Muhammad into her care, preferring the infants of the. living and of the affluent.

  Halimah, Daughter of Abu Dhu’ayb

  Having spurned him at first as her colleagues had done before her, Halimah al Sa’diyyah, daughter of Abu Dhu’ayb, accepted Muhammad into her charge because she had found no other. Thin and rather poor looking, she did not appeal to the ladies of Makkah. When her people prepared to leave Makkah for the desert, Halimah pleaded to her husband al Harith ibn ‘Abd al ‘Uzza, “By God it is oppressive to me to return with my friends without a new infant to nurse. Surely, I should go back to that orphan and accept him.” Her husband answered; “there would be no blame if you did. Perhaps God may even bless us for your doing so.” Halimah therefore took Muhammad and carried him with her to the desert. She related that after she took him, she found all kinds of blessings. Her herd became fat and multiplied, and everything around her seemed to prosper.

  In the desert Halimah nursed Muhammad for two whole years while her daughter Shayma’ cuddled him. The purity of desert air and the hardness of desert living agreed with Muhammad’s physical disposition and contributed to his quick growth, sound formation, and discipline. At the completion of the two years, which was also the occasion of his weaning, Halimah took the child to his mother but brought him back with her to the desert to grow up away from Makkah and her epidemics. Biographers disagree whether Halimah’s new lease on her charge was arranged after her own or Amin
ah’s wishes. The child lived in the desert for two more years playing freely in the vast expanse under the clear sky and growing unfettered by anything physical or spiritual.

  The Story of Splitting Muhammad’s Chest

  It was in this period and before Muhammad reached the age of three that the following event is said to have happened. It is told that Muhammad was playing in a yard behind the encampment of the tribe with Halimah’s son when the latter ran back to his parents and said, “Two men dressed in white took my Qurayshi brother, laid him down, opened his abdomen, and turned him around.” It is also reported that Halimah said, -“my husband and I ran towards the boy and found him standing up and pale. When we asked what happened to him, the boy answered, “Two men dressed in white came up to me, laid me down, opened my abdomen and took something I know not what away.” The parents returned to their tent fearing that the child had become possessed. They therefore returned him to Makkah to his mother. Ibn Ishaq reported a hadith issuing from the Prophet after his commission confirming this incident. But he was careful enough to warn the reader that the real reason for Muhammad’s return to his mother was not the story of the two angels but, as Halimah was to report to Muhammad’s mother later on, the fact that a number of Abyssinian Christians wanted to take Muhammad away with them once they had seen him after his weaning. According to Halimah’s report, the Abyssinians had said to one another, “Let us take this child with us to our country and our king, for we know he is going to be of consequence.” Halimah could barely disengage herself from them and run away with her protege. This story is also told by al Tabari, but he casts suspicion on it by reporting it first at this early year of Muhammad’s age as well as later, just before the Prophet’s commission at the age of forty.

  Orientalists and many Muslim scholars do not trust the story and find the evidence therefore spurious. The biographies agree that the two men dressed in white were seen by children hardly beyond their second year of age which constitutes no witness at all and that Muhammad lived with the tribe of Banu Sa’d in the desert until he was five. The claim that this event had taken place while Muhammad was two and a half years old and that Halimah and her husband returned the child to his mother immediately thereafter contradicts this general consensus. Consequently, some writers have even asserted that Muhammad returned with Halimah for the third time. The Orientalist, Sir William Muir, refuses even to mention the story of the two men in white clothes. He wrote that if Halimah and her husband had become aware of something that had befallen the child, it must have been a sort of nervous breakdown, which could not at all have hurt Muhammad’s healthy constitution. Others claim that Muhammad stood in no need of any such surgery as God had prepared him at birth for receiving the divine message. Dermenghem believes that this whole story has no foundation other than the speculative interpretations of the following Qur’anic verses

  “Had we not revived your spirit [literally, “opened your chest”] and dissipated your burden which was galling your back.”[Qur’an, 94:1-3]

  Certainly, in these verses the Qur’an is pointing to something purely spiritual. It means to describe a purification of the heart as preparation for receipt of the divine message and to stress Muhammad’s over-taxing burden of prophethood.

  Those Orientalists and Muslim thinkers who take this position vis-à-vis the foregoing tradition do so in consideration of the fact that the life of Muhammad was human through and through and that in order to prove his prophethood the Prophet never had recourse to miracle-mongering as previous prophets had done. This finding is corroborated by Arab and Muslim historians who consistently assert that the life of the Arab Prophet is free of anything irrational or mysterious and who regard the contrary as inconsistent with the Qur’anic position that God’s creation is rationally analyzable, that His laws are immutable, and that the pagans are blameworthy because they do not reason.

  Muhammad in the Desert

  Until the fifth year of his life Muhammad remained with the tribe of Banu Sa’d inhaling with the pure air of the desert the spirit of personal freedom and independence. From this tribe he learned the Arabic language in its purest and most classical form. Justifiably, Muhammad used to tell his companions, “I am the most Arab among you, for I am of the tribe of Quraysh and I have been brought up among the tribe of Banu Sa’d ben Bakr.” [“Most Arab among you” (Arabic, “a‘rabukum”) could well have been rendered “most eloquent among you.” To be an Arab, or “to arabize” means to speak forth eloquently in Arabic, without stammering or grammatical mistakes, and with literary beauty. Urubah or Arabness is always something which admits of many degrees, the more Arab being always the man in better command of the Arabic language, Arabic diction, style, letters and all forms of literary beauty. Ya’rub, (literally, “he arabizes” or “speaks eloquent Arabic”) was the n: me of the first Arab King, whom legend declares to be the first to have spoken in Arabic. As far as history goes, the Arabs have regarded the desert Arabic purer and more classical and beautiful than that of the towns; the tribes were graded in Urubah according to their racial purity as means for the preservation of the purity of Arabic. Hence, the Prophet’s statement. -Tr.]

  These five years exerted upon Muhammad a most beautiful and lasting influence, as Halimah and her people remained the object of his love and admiration all the length of his life. When, following his marriage with Khadijah a drought occurred and Halimah came to visit Muhammad, she returned with a camel loaded with water and forty heads of cattle. Whenever Halimah visited Muhammad, he stretched out his mantle for her to sit on as a sign of the respect he felt he owed her. Shayma’, Halimah’s daughter, was taken captive by the Muslim forces along with Banu Hawazin after the seige of Ta‘if. When she was brought before Muhammad, he recognized her, treated her well, and sent her back to her people as she wished.

  The young Muhammad returned to his mother after five years of desert life. It is related that when Halimah brought the boy into Makkah, she lost him in the outskirts of the city. ‘Abd al Muttalib sent his scouts to look for him and he was found with Waraqah ibn Nawfal. [Waraqah ibn Nawfal was a hanif (an ethical monotheist of pre-Islamic times). He was the relation of the Prophet’s wife, Khadijah, from whom she sought advice regarding Muhammad’s reports about revelation. -Tr.] ‘Abd al Muttalib took his grandson under his protection, and made him the object of great love and affection. As lord of Quraysh and master of the whole of Makkah, the aged leader used to sit on a cushion laid out in the shade of the Ka’bah. His children would sit around that cushion, not on it, in deference to their father. But whenever Muhammad joined the group, ‘Abd al Muttalib would bring him close to him and ask him to sit on the cushion. He would pat the boy’s back and show off his pronounced affection for him so that Muhammad’s uncles could never stop him from moving ahead of them to his grandfather’s side.

  Orphanhood

  The grandson was to become the object of yet greater endearment to his grandfather. His mother, Aminah, took him to Madinah in order to acquaint him with her uncles, the Banu al Najjar. She took with her on that trip Umm Ayman, the servant left behind by her husband ‘Abdullah. In Madinah, Aminah must have shown her little boy the house where his father died as well as the grave where he was buried. It was then that the boy must have first learned what it means to be an orphan. His mother must have talked much to him about his beloved father who had left her a few days after their marriage, and who had met his death among his uncles in Madinah. After his emigration to that city the Prophet used to tell his companions about this first trip to Madinah in his mother’s company. The traditions have preserved for us a number of sayings, which could have come only from a man full of love for Madinah and full of grief for the loss of those who were buried in its graves. After a stay of a month in Yathrib, Aminah prepared to return to Makkah with her son and set out on the same two camels, which carried them thither. On the road, at the village of Abwa’ [A village located between Madinah and Jahfah, twenty-three miles south of Madinah. -Tr.
] Aminah became ill, died, and was buried. It was Umm Ayman that brought the lonely and bereaved child to Makkah, henceforth doubly confirmed in orphanhood. A few days earlier he must have shared his mother’s grief as she told him of her bereavement while he was yet unborn. Now he was to see with his own eyes the loss of his mother and add to his experience of shared grief that of a grief henceforth to be borne by him alone.

  The Death of ‘Abd al Muttalib

  The doubled orphanhood of Muhammad increased ‘Abd al Muttalib’s affection for him. Nonetheless, his orphanhood cut deeply into Muhammad’s soul. Even the Qur’an had to console the Prophet reminding him, as it were, “Did God not find you an orphan and give you shelter and protection? Did He not find you erring and guide you to the truth?” [Qur’an, 93:6-7] It would have been somewhat easier on the orphaned boy had ‘Abd al Muttalib lived longer than he did, to the ripe age of eighty when Muhammad was still only eight years old. The boy must have felt the loss just as strongly as he had felt that of his mother. At the funeral Muhammad cried continuously; thereafter, the memory of his grandfather was ever present to his mind despite all the care and protection which his uncle Abu Talib gave him before and after his commission to prophet hood. The truth is that the passing of ‘Abd al Muttalib was a hard blow to the whole clan of Banu Hashim, for none of his children had ever come to enjoy the respect and position, the power, wisdom, generosity, and influence among all Arabs as he had. ‘Abd al Muttalib fed the pilgrim gave him to drink, and came to the rescue of any Makkan in his hour of need. His children, on the other hand, never achieved that much. The poor among them were unable to give because they had little or nothing and the rich were too stingy to match their father’s generosity. Consequently, the clan of Banu Umayyah prepared to take over the leadership of Makkah, till then enjoyed by Banu Hashim, undaunted by any opposition the latter might put forth.