to go back to Makkah and return the young child to Āminah, his mother.
While Muhammad was playing with other children, the Angel Gabriel came and took him by the hand. He laid Muhammad down and opened his chest and abdomen, took out his heart and removed from it a black clot, which he threw away. As he did so, he said: “This is what Satan has in you.” He then washed Muhammad’s heart in a gold bowl full of iced water before putting it back in its place. He then sealed the incision and left him.
His suckling brother, Ḥalīmah’s son, ran to his mother to report that Muhammad was dead. She rushed to see him. She found him standing up but pale-faced. She asked him what had happened and he related what had been done to him by “two unknown men wearing white dresses”.
This incident disturbed Ḥalīmah a great deal. She sat several nights thinking about Muhammad and what had happened to him. Some reports suggest that she took him to a fortune-teller to find out the significance of what had happened. The authenticity of these reports is not beyond question. What is certain, however, is that Ḥalīmah felt that the safest course for her was to return the child to his mother. It was her husband who suggested this, expressing his fear that the boy might have been attacked by an evil spirit. “It is wiser to return him to his people now, before any bad consequences appear.”
Āminah was surprised to see Ḥalīmah bringing Muhammad back. She asked why, pointing out that Ḥalīmah had been so keen to keep him. Ḥalīmah said: “There is nothing wrong with him or us. We have discharged our task to the best of our ability. We thought he would be better off with you lest something should happen to him.” Āminah said that was not the full story, there must be something else. She kept pressing Ḥalīmah until the latter told her the story. Āminah said to her: “Do not fear Satan for this boy, for he is protected against him. This boy of mine will have a renowned future. I tell you that my pregnancy was the easiest ever experienced by any woman. One night when I was pregnant it seemed in my dream as if a light came out of me to light up the palaces of Syria. When I gave birth, he lifted his head to heaven. Leave him with me and go back to your people.”9
An authentic tradition points out that the same thing happened to the Prophet when he was fifty years old, one night while he was half-asleep. The angel made a long incision from the top of his chest right down to the end of his abdomen. He took out his heart and washed it in a gold bowl ‘full of faith’. He then put his heart back in its place.10
It is not easy to explain these two events in ordinary terms – the event itself was extraordinary. Moreover, the question of good and evil has nothing to do with the function of any part of the human body. It is clear that a spiritual interpretation of this question is much more relevant. Its understanding is beyond human ability.
A contemporary scholar, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazālī, suggests that Divine care would not leave a person like Muhammad to experience the petty temptations to which all human beings are liable. If we suppose that there are ‘waves’ of evil all around us and that the hearts of certain people pick up these waves very easily and are influenced by them, the hearts of Prophets, who are favoured with God’s care, do not receive these waves and are therefore not influenced by them. Hence, Prophets do not have to resist any downward tendency to sink into evil; they try to strengthen an upward tendency to purify themselves and their nations of evil.
In support of his argument, al-Ghazālī relates two authentic ḥadīths said by the Prophet on two different occasions, with more or less the same import. One ḥadīth was related by ʿĀ’ishah: the Prophet told her after she admitted that she was jealous of the Prophet’s other wives: “Your evil spirit has influenced you.” When she asked whether an evil spirit was always with her, the Prophet said: “Every human being has an evil spirit.” She asked whether this applied to him also. He said: “Yes, but God has helped me against him and he has accepted Islam.” That is, the evil spirit within the Prophet became an obedient one, and could not suggest any evil thought.11
It seems that the whole incident of opening the chest of the Prophet in his early childhood and again when he was fifty years old is indicative of the immunity God gave His chosen servant to keep him away from worldly temptations ever since he was a young boy.
A New Tragedy
Muhammad lived with his mother, who doted on him and looked after him as the most loving mother could look after the dearest of her children. It is worth noting that Āminah did not marry another man after her young husband died. This was quite unusual in Makkan society, where marriage to widows and divorcees was commonplace. Āminah had several qualities which recommended her to any suitor. Prominent among these was her noble birth, which was a very important factor in that society. Nevertheless, Āminah did not marry again. Perhaps she could not remove from her mind the thoughts of the events which preceded the tragedy of losing her husband. She had enough signs to indicate to her that her son was certain to play a great role. She probably thought that devoting herself to the upbringing of her child would give her all the satisfaction she needed.
It is in this light that we view her trip to Yathrib with her son, now six years of age, and his nurse, Umm Ayman. She wanted him to visit the clan of al-Najjār, his maternal uncles. When a man married into another tribe or clan, everyone in that clan or tribe would be considered an uncle to his children and grandchildren for the rest of time. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s mother belonged to the clan of al-Najjār and this is the reason for counting them as the Prophet’s uncles. More importantly, Āminah wanted her son to visit his father’s grave. Perhaps she thought that it was time for him to realize that his father was buried in Yathrib, a long way from Makkah.12
Muhammad and his mother stayed for a month in Yathrib, before starting their journey back. It was a very sad journey for the young boy. They had not travelled far before his mother fell ill. It was a quick and fatal illness. Although she had covered only a short distance from Yathrib, she could not return there, nor could she continue her journey back home. So the six-year-old Muhammad was now without both his parents. After Āminah had been buried where she died, at al-Abwā’, Muhammad continued his journey to Makkah with his nurse, Umm Ayman, his heart full of sorrow. He felt that nothing could replace for him the love and tenderness of his mother. To his last days he continued to remember Āminah, and to feel the pain of losing her.13
The Prophet continued to show his gratitude to all those women who took care of him in his childhood to the end of his days. He was so grateful to Thuwaybah, the first woman to suckle him immediately after he was born. When he conquered Makkah over sixty years later, he asked for her. When he learnt that she had died, he also enquired after her son whom she was suckling when he himself was born. He wanted to extend his kindness to him. But he was told that he also had died. Ḥalīmah visited him in Madinah. When she arrived he rose to receive her, shouting: “My mother! My mother!” He showed her all the gratitude of a loving and dutiful son. He was also kind to al-Shaymā’, Ḥalīmah’s daughter and his suckling sister. After the battle of Ḥunayn, in which the tribe of Hawāzin was defeated, al-Shaymā’ was taken prisoner by the Muslim soldiers. She made her relationship with the Prophet known to them, so they took her to him. He received her well and extended extra kindness to her before sending her back to her people with honour after giving her the opportunity to stay with him. It was her choice to go back.
Umm Ayman continued to be close to the Prophet for the rest of his life. He married her later to Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, the first man to become a Muslim, whom the Prophet loved more than anyone else. She gave birth to Usāmah, whom the Prophet loved as he loved no child besides his own.
After his mother’s death, Muhammad was in the care of his grandfather, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. Umm Ayman, a slave girl whose real name was Barakah, continued to look after him. She had belonged to his father and now she was his own. She loved him dearly – perhaps more so because she was fully aware of the fact
