They turned back without continuing their journey to meet the fortune-teller. Zamzam remained the sole property of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and his offspring. They in turn continued to use it to provide water for pilgrims.
Many years passed and ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib had his dearest wish fulfilled: he now had ten sons, all of them adults. In addition, he had six daughters. In all, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib had five wives.
One day, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib summoned all his sons to tell them about his pledge to God, which he had made while he was digging Zamzam. He said it was time he fulfilled this pledge by sacrificing one of them to God next to the Kaʿbah. They all expressed their readiness to submit themselves to be sacrificed. It was then a matter of choosing one of them. He suggested that they followed the Arab custom: have a toss between them administered by the man in charge of the Kaʿbah. They all went to him for the toss.
ʿAbdullāh was the youngest of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s sons. He was also the dearest one to him. He was a young man of great promise, mild temperament, very sociable, not given to wild practices and, at the same time, he was a man of high moral values. All these qualities endeared him even more to his father. The old man therefore thought that if ʿAbdullāh could be spared, the pain of sacrificing one of his other children would be a little less.
The toss, however, came out against ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s desire: it was ʿAbdullāh who had to be sacrificed. By that time, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was a very old man and had been the chief of Makkah for a great many years. He had no hesitation in fulfilling his pledge. He took his son by the hand, and took his knife and went to the mosque to sacrifice him. One of ʿAbdullāh’s sisters tried to pull him away. She was shouting and screaming, appealing to the Quraysh to save him. She cried and screamed and appealed. A number of Quraysh men were moved to act. They went straight to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and said to him: “You shall not slaughter him until all alternatives have been explored.” When ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib protested that it was a pledge he had made to God and there was no choice for him in the matter, they pointed out the serious danger which they saw his action would bring. They told him: “You are our leader. You are well respected in the whole of Arabia. If you were to sacrifice your son now, your action would be imitated by others. Many a man would bring his son here to slaughter him. That is bound to weaken us and cause havoc in our society.” Al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAbdullāh, who belonged to the same clan as ʿAbdullāh’s mother, said to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: “Only when we have determined that there is absolutely no alternative may you sacrifice him. If it is possible to pay a large ransom for him we will certainly pay it, no matter how large it is.” Some men from the Quraysh counselled ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib to wait until he had seen a woman fortune-teller in Yathrib who was known to have contacts with the jinn. If she could find a way out of the problem, he would spare his son. If not, he could still fulfil his pledge.
When the fortune-teller was well apprised of the story she asked ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and his companions to wait for a while until she had referred to her jinni. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was praying God all the time to spare his son. Although he could not see how that might be done, he still held to his faint hope that a solution could be found. It was not long before the woman found that solution for him. She asked him how much they paid as blood money for someone who was killed accidentally. They replied that they gave ten camels. She said to them: “Go back to your town and arrange a draw to be made between your man [meaning ʿAbdullāh] and ten camels. If the draw comes out against the man, add ten more camels. Continue to do so as long as the draw comes out against him. When the draw shows that the camels are accepted, this means that your God has accepted the offering and spared your man. You slaughter those camels as a ransom for him.”
One Life Spared
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and his companions went back to Makkah happy with this solution. When the draw was made, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib stood up praying God to spare his son. Every time the draw was made, it came out against ʿAbdullāh, but they increased the camels ten by ten. When there were a hundred camels, the draw indicated that the camels should be slaughtered. All this time ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was praying and appealing to God to spare his son. When he was told the news, he wanted to make sure. He asked the man who supervised the draw to repeat it three times. Each time it came out with the same result. The camels were brought forward and slaughtered, and left for everybody to come and take what they needed of their meat.8
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was extremely happy when his son’s life was spared. He felt that his youngest son was reborn. Like every loving father, he wanted to do his best to make his son happy. He therefore took immediate steps to arrange ʿAbdullāh’s marriage. He went to Wahb ibn ʿAbd Manāf, chief of the clan of Zuhrah, and proposed that ʿAbdullāh should be married to his daughter, Āminah. The proposal was accepted, and only a few days later the marriage was celebrated.9
It was a happy marriage; both partners soon became very fond of each other. They seemed to have hit the right note from the first day and suited each other extremely well. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib wanted his children to acquire all the practical experience which was available in their society. He advised his youngest son to join the trade caravan which was about to travel to Syria that summer. Although Āminah did not like the idea of being separated from her husband so soon after their marriage, she realized that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib wanted only what was good for his son. As ʿAbdullāh was about to start on his journey, Āminah broke to him the happy news that she was pregnant. He then set off on his journey with his thoughts firmly centred around his wife, cherishing the hope of a bright and a happy future.
The trip was very hard on the young man. Travelling in the desert in the blazing summer sun did not suit his constitution. Although he was still a young man in his early twenties, full of vigour, he contracted some sort of disease which sapped his strength, yet he had no choice but to travel with the caravan. On the way back, his illness gradually got worse. His condition cried out for proper treatment. When the caravan arrived in Yathrib (later to be known as Madinah) it was obvious to all that ʿAbdullāh needed to be nursed. He therefore stayed behind to be looked after by his cousins of the clan of al-Najjār.
When the caravan arrived in Makkah, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was alarmed not to see his son with them. Informed that he had been left to spend a few days in Yathrib to regain his strength before continuing his journey, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib dispatched his eldest son, al-Ḥārith, to help his brother on the journey home. On arrival in Yathrib, al-Ḥārith was given the sad news that ʿAbdullāh was dead.10
The tragic news was too much for ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib in his extreme old age, and for Āminah, the youthful bride now expecting her fatherless baby. Yet ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib could not but reflect that ʿAbdullāh was spared only for his life to be prolonged by a few months. It seemed that it was his destiny to live only for Āminah’s pregnancy to take place. Little did he know that Āminah’s baby was to be the last Messenger God would send to mankind.
A Campaign to Destroy the Kaʿbah
Meanwhile, a very serious event took place in Arabia that year. It affected all the Arabs and their faith, and remained so vivid in their minds that they used to date other events by reference to it. At that time, the Arabs had no specific calendar to date their events. When something very serious took place in their lives, they referred to it as a date mark.
The various reports on this event which have come to us mention that after the Abyssinians had expelled the Persians from Yemen and established their own rule there, the Abyssinian governor of Yemen, Abrahah, built a superbly luxurious church in this area, giving it the name of the Abyssinian emperor at the time. He did this after he had witnessed the love and enthusiasm of Yemeni Arabs – the same as those felt all over the Arab land – for the Kaʿbah, the sacred mosque at Makkah. His aim in building it was to make the Arabs forsake their
