Muhammad (SAW) was first suckled by his mother for few days, and then suckled by Thuwaiba L-Aslamiya. It was a habit among the Arabs to give their children to the Bedouin women to be suckled and brought up in the desert. Thus, these Bedouin women would come to the urban areas to collect the children from the rich people so as to get better pay for their work. Muhammad (SAW) had no father and was not among the rich family, a woman called Halima bint Dhuayb As-Saadiya took him to her home. She carried him home not realizing that he was a blessed child. Her husband (Abu Khabsha) L-Harithy bin Abdul Aziz and his household, who submitted to Allah in Islam, were blessed for this.
Something very miraculous happened to Muhammad (SAW) when he was three years old, while he was playing with his mate (brother) who suckled together with him from Halima. The (brother) came running to Halima and said to her: “Two men wearing white robes took my Quraishy brother lay him down and cut open his stomach.”
When Halima heard this, she quickly went out with her husband to look for the boy and found him pale with fear. They asked him what was the matter. He said: “There were two men wearing white robes, one of them said, ‘Is he the one?’ then the second one said, ‘Yes he is the one.’ So they took me and lay me down then cut open my tummy and took something out, I do not know what it was, after that they went away.” So, Halima got scared and decided to take him back to his mother.
The two were Angels who came to take the influence of Satan from his heart and to cleanse him. They took his heart out washed it with water from Zamzam then put it back again. The same incident took place when he was forty years old.
When Halima took him back to his mother and told her the story, Muhammad’s (SAW) mother said: “Really this child has a lot of strange things. When I was pregnant, I saw a very bright light, which flooded all the palaces of Busra in Shaam. I also did not feel any heaviness during the pregnancy, and when he was born he kept his hands down as if in prostration and also raised his head looking up to the sky.”
After he was returned to his mother, she took him to visit his father’s maternal uncles in Madina. On their way, back his mother died in a town called Abha, which is between Makah and Madina and was buried there. He was six years then. After the death of his mother, a woman by the name of Um Ayman, brought him up and his grandfather was the one who was looking after him. When he was eight years old, his grandfather also died, and was taken by his paternal Uncle Abu Taalib to be brought up in his house. Abu Taalib was not among the rich people, but Allah gave him enough to live on.
Muhammad (SAW) was different from the children of his age in that none of the daily things or games that would normally keep children of his age busy bothered him. Whenever he sat down to eat with his cousins, he would sit far back and his hand would not reach for the food in greediness; and whatever he got, satisfied him.
When he reached the age of twelve years, his uncle took him on a business trip to Shaam. This was his first trip, and they did not prolong the trip. When they reached Busra near Syria, a town where there were Jews from the people of Taimaa, they stopped. One learned man of the Christian faith by the name of Bahyra who was there in the town, asked the people who were with the caravan of Abu Taalib if there came a Prophet among the Arabs as mentioned in the Tawraat and Injil. They said that to their knowledge no one had come yet.
Bahyra made a big feast and invited the Quraishy, thus all the people attended except Muhammad (SAW), as he was considered too young to mix with the elders. When Bahyra missed him in his party, he requested that he be brought to him. He looked at him and noticed that the boy had all the signs that he knew from his researches regarding the Prophet who is to come. He took a look at his back and there he found two scar-like marks on his shoulder blades. Bahyra told Abu Taalib and advised him to take the boy home as quickly as possible and to be careful with the Jews, and said: “Your nephew is very elite and very holy, take very good care of him.”
Thus, Abu Taalib took him back to Makah.
When Muhammad (SAW) reached the age of twenty-five, he again went on a business trip to Shaam. The word got around about his honesty in his dealings (people used to call him LAmin, the honest). There was a lady by the name of Khadija bint Khuwaylid Ssadiyah (RAA)1, who was among the most respectable ladies of the Quraishy. She was a very clever business lady who used to hire people and give them goods to take to Shaam and sell for her. When she came to know about a man who was very honest, she sent for him and asked him if he would work for her. Muhammad (SAW) agreed, and he traveled with one of Khadija’s servants by the name of Maysara, to Shaam, sold the goods and returned.
After their return, Maysara told her lady about the good qualities of this man and how he dealt with the business. When Khadija (RAA) saw the amount of profit that she had received from him, she sent for him. When he came to her, she asked him to marry her. It is not a usual custom among the Arabs for a lady to ask a man to marry her; in this case Khadija (RAA) felt that it would be nice to have an honest man to look after her business. The man would better be a husband who would protect her and look after her interests.
Khadija (RAA) was forty years old, fifteen years older than him, and was divorced. Muhammad (SAW) told his uncle about this. Abi Taalib then went to Khadija’s uncle, Amru bin Asad and officially asked him for his niece’s hand in marriage to Muhammad (SAW). He married her and had from her two boys, Al-Qasim and Abdulla and four girls, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Um Kulthum and Fatma (RAA). The two boys did not survive.
Muhammad (AS) was an orphan and poor. When he was in the desert at Halima’s house, as a boy, he was a shepherd. He also worked as shepherd after his return to Makah from Halima’s house. This is really Allah’s wisdom; if you look closely, you will see that most of the Prophets [e.g. Ibrahim, Yusuf, Musa and Issa (AS)] were all shepherds before becoming Prophets. Had they been from the rich families, they would have been bothered by the worldly affairs and would not have been able to concentrate with their mission.
Muhammad (SAW) was well mannered; honest with no bad habits that made people sin. His people used to call him Asaadiq L-Amin, meaning the truthful the honest. Allah had protected him from his childhood from any bad habits that corrupt. One day he was explaining what had happened to him and said: “I asked my colleague to look after my heard, I then went to Makah and entered one of the entertainment houses where there was dancing and singing, so that I could enjoy myself. I stayed for a while, but Allah wanted to protect me from corruption, so before I realized it I slept throughout the night and when I woke the sun was up and the place closed.”
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1RAA—Radhiya Allahu Anhu Allah is pleased with him/her
Reference: The Twenty Five Prophets
By: Sheikh Nasser bin Issa bin Saeed Al Kindi
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