The parents of the Prophet Mohamed: Abd Allah and Amina

“The light that was with you yesterday has left you. » The day before, near the Kaaba, a woman offered herself to ʿAbd Allâh, the future father of the Prophet Mohamed. In the meantime, he married Âmina, and Âmina is expecting a child. What this woman saw in her face, it is said, has disappeared.

The son saved from sacrifice

ʿAbd al-Muttalib¹ is the ruler of Mecca and the grandfather of the Prophet Mohamed. Years ago, he made a wish. If God gives him ten sons, and they grow up enough to defend him, he will sacrifice one of them to God, near the Kaaba.

The ten sons are there. The fate designates ʿAbd Allâh. To save him, lots are drawn between him and camels, until the lot falls on the camels. A hundred camels are slaughtered in his place².

ʿAbd Allâh is spared. ʿAbd al-Muttalib leaves holding his hand.

The woman near the Kaaba

On the way, it is claimed, they pass a woman. She is from the Banû Asad clan³from the tribe of Quraysh⁴. She is the sister of Waraqa ibn Nawfal⁵. She stands near the Kaaba⁶.

She looks at the face of ʿAbd Allâh. “ Where are you going, ʿAbd Allâh? » she asks him.

“ With my father », he replies.

“ I will give you as many camels as were slaughtered for you. Unite with me now. »

“ I am with my fatherhe replies. I can neither disobey him nor leave him. »

Marriage with Âmina

ʿAbd al-Muttalib takes his son to Wahb ibn ʿAbd Manâf. Wahb was at this time the leader of the Banû Zuhra⁷by birth as well as by rank.

Wahb gives ʿAbd Allâh his daughter in marriage: Âmina bint Wahb⁸. She is then, says the text, the best woman of Quraysh by birth and by rank⁹.

His mother and grandmothers also belong to great Quraysh families: Ibn Hisham gives the lineage.

“I don’t need you anymore”

It is claimed that ʿAbd Allâh united with Âmina as soon as the marriage was concluded, on the spot. Âmina then conceives the Prophet Mohamed.

Then ʿAbd Allâh leaves her house. He returns to see the woman who had offered herself to him.

“ Why don’t you offer me today what you offered me yesterday? » he asks her.

“ The light that was with you yesterday has left youshe replies. Today I don’t need you anymore¹⁰. »

This woman, the story explains, had heard her brother Waraqa ibn Nawfal speak of a coming prophet. Waraqa became a Christian and studied the scriptures¹¹. He said there would be a prophet among this people¹².

Another version: the mud mark

Ibn Ishaq¹³the author of this story, reports another version. His father passed it on to him.

According to this version, ʿAbd Allâh has another wife besides Âmina¹⁴. One day he worked the land, clay that belonged to him. He still bears the marks. He goes to find this other wife and asks her to unite with him.

She is slow to respond. She saw traces of mud on him.

ʿAbd Allah leaves. He performs his ablutions and washes the clay that covered him. Then he leaves to go to Âmina’s house.

On the way, he passes this wife. This time, it’s her who calls him. He refuses. He goes to Âmina and unites with her. Âmina conceives Mohamed.

A white spot between the eyes

Later, ʿAbd Allâh passes in front of this wife again. “ Do you want me? » he asks her.

“ Noshe replies. When you walked past me, you had a white spot between your eyes. I called you, and you refused. You went to Âmina’s house, and she took it away. »

This wife, it is claimed, recounted the scene thus: “ He walked past me with a white spot between his eyes like a horse’s.¹⁵. I called him, hoping that this mark would pass through me. He refused. He went to Amina, and she conceived the Messenger of God. »

Thus, concludes Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet was by his birth at the very heart of his people¹⁶. And he was the noblest, on his father’s side as well as on his mother’s side.

A chestnut Arab horse marked with white on the forehead: what the Arabic calls the ghurra, the white spot on the forehead, to which the story compares the mark seen on the face of ʿAbd Allâh. Photograph of “Baden de”, 2014, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What we say to Âmina

It is claimed, from what people say, and God knows best, that Amina bint Wahb, the mother of the Prophet, related this.

When she was pregnant with him, people came to her. He was told: “ You carry the master of this people. When he comes into the world, say: “I place him under the protection of the One, against the evil of all envious people.” Then call him Mohamed¹⁷. »

During this pregnancy, Âmina also saw a light coming out of her¹⁸. In its light, she saw the palaces of Busra¹⁹in the land of Sham, Syria²⁰.

Black and white view of Bosra from the citadel: basalt stone houses, Roman columns and towers in the distance, on a plain — Bosra, ancient Busra, in the south of present-day Syria, seen from its citadel in 1938: basalt houses, columns of the ancient city and, in the distance, towers. Photograph from the Matson Collection (Library of Congress), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The death of ʿAbd Allah

ʿAbd Allâh, the father of the Prophet, did not live long. He dies while Âmina is still pregnant with the child²¹.

The birth of the Prophet Mohamed is recounted in an upcoming episode of the series.

Notes

ʿAbd al-Muttalibson of Hashim, is the paternal grandfather of the Prophet Mohamed. In the 6th century, he was the leader of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Other episodes of the series tell how he found the well of Zamzam and how he faced Abraha, who came with his elephant to destroy the Kaaba. ↩
The redemption of ʿAbd Allâh : according to the Sira, ʿAbd Allâh was the favorite son of ʿAbd al-Muttalib. On the advice of a soothsayer, lots were drawn between him and ten camels, adding ten camels to each draw, until the lot fell on the camels, which then numbered a hundred. It is these hundred camels that the woman offers to give. A previous episode of the series tells this story. ↩
The Banû Asad (Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzâ): a clan of Quraysh. Khadîja, the first wife of the Prophet Mohamed, was from there. ↩
Quraysh : the tribe which dominates Mecca and guards the sanctuary of the Kaaba. The Prophet Mohamed came from there. ↩
Waraqa ibn Nawfal was a cousin of Khadîja. According to tradition, it was he who, years later, recognized in the first revelation received by Mohamed a message similar to that of Moses. ↩
The Kaaba is the cubic building at the center of the sanctuary in Mecca, towards which Muslims turn to pray. Before Islam, it was already the destination of a pilgrimage for the Arab tribes. See the Kaaba in our glossary. ↩
The Banû Zuhra : another clan of Quraysh. Several companions of the Prophet came from there, such as Saʿd ibn Abî Waqqâs and ʿAbd al-Rahmân ibn ʿAwf. Through his mother, the Prophet Mohamed was therefore linked to this clan. ↩
Amina bint Wahb : bint means “daughter of”. Âmina is the mother of the Prophet Mohamed. According to Sira, she died when he was six years old. ↩
Two weddings on the same day? According to a story attributed to Ibn ʿAbbas, which Ibn Kathîr quotes from Abû Nuʿaym, ʿAbd al-Muttalib also married, on the same occasion, a woman from the clan of Zuhra, Hâla, who gave him Hamza. Ibn Hisham, in his genealogy, gives Hâla, from the clan of Zuhra, as the mother of Hamza. This story fits with what biographers say: Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle, was only a few years older than him. ↩
Another woman, according to other accounts : Ibn Ishaq introduces this scene with “according to what is claimed”, and Ibn Kathîr takes up these stories with the same reservation. Sources do not agree on the identity of the woman. Ibn Kathîr also cites a story, attributed to Ibn ʿAbbâs, where it is a soothsayer from Tabâla, in the south-west of Arabia, named Fâtima bint Murr, from the tribe of Khathʿam: she had become Jewish and had read the Scriptures. ↩
The Scriptures : Arabic says al-kutub“the Books”, that is to say the writings of the Jews and Christians. Some men of Mecca, before Islam, had turned away from idols; Waraqa was one of them. See also the Injil, the Gospel, in our lexicon. ↩
“This people” : Arabic says hâdhihi al-umma“this community”, that is to say here the Arabs. The word umma will later designate the community of Muslims. See the umma in our glossary. ↩
Ibn Ishaq (died around 767) is the author of the first major biography of the Prophet. Ibn Hisham (died around 833) took it up and annotated: it is the Sira that this series follows. See the Sira in our glossary. ↩
The text does not give the name of this other wife of ʿAbd Allâh. In ancient Arabia, a man could have several wives. ↩
The white spot : Arabic says ghurrathe white spot that some horses have on their foreheads. Among the Arabs, it was considered a mark of beauty and nobility, and the word took on the figurative meaning of “brilliance”. In the first version, the woman speaks of “light” (nûr). ↩
“At the very heart of his people” : Arabic says awsat qawmihi nasaban“the most in the midst of his people by lineage”. Among the Arabs, being “in the middle” of one’s tribe meant being the best and noblest. ↩
Mohammed (Muhammad) means “one who is praised”, or “worthy of praise”. Ancient authors note that this first name was rare in Arabia before him. ↩
A word from the Prophet : Ahmad reports, according to al-ʿIrbâd ibn Sâriya, that the Prophet said to be “the prayer of my father Abraham, the announcement of Jesus, and the vision of my mother, who saw coming out of her a light which illuminated the palaces of Shâm”. Ahmad also reports it according to Abû Umâma, and Ibn Hibbân retained it in his collection. Al-Dhahabî judges his channel good; al-Albânî considers it authentic. Abraham’s prayer and Jesus’ announcement refer to the Koran (Koran 2, 129 and 61, 6). ↩
Busratoday Bosra, in the south of present-day Syria, near the Jordanian border. It was then a Byzantine city, the capital of the province of Arabia, and a stopover for caravans coming from Mecca. The Sira also places there, later, the meeting of young Mohamed with a Christian monk, Bahîrâ. Its ancient ruins are listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. ↩
Syria here designates the Shama region larger than modern-day Syria, which also included Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. It was then part of the Byzantine Empire. ↩
The death of ʿAbd Allah : Ibn Ishaq does not say here where or how he died. Other ancient authors, such as Ibn Saʿd, report that he died in Yathrib (the future Medina), returning from a trading trip to Gaza, in Shâm, with relatives of his paternal grandmother, and that he was buried there. According to another tradition, he died a few months after the birth of the Prophet. ↩

According to the Sira of Ibn Hisham (chapters “The woman who offered herself to ʿAbd Allâh, son of ʿAbd al-Muttalib” and “What was said to Âmina when she was pregnant with the Messenger of God”), itself taken from the biography of Ibn Ishaq. Story adapted into modern French: the chains of transmission and the genealogies have been removed; no facts were added to the story. The editorial notes provide context.

Cover image: the Roman ruins of Bosra, ancient Busra, in 2005, photograph by Heretiq (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons), adapted by Oumma.