Halimah al-Sa'diyah ( ar, حليمة السعدية), was the foster-mother of the

Islamic prophet Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets ar ...

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mon ...

. Halimah and her husband were from the tribe of Sa'd b. Bakr, a subdivision of

Hawazin ) , type = Qaysi , image = Hawazin Flag (20).png , image_size =170px , alt = , caption = Banner of the Hawazin at the Battle of Siffin , nisba = , location = , descended = Hawazin ibn Mansur ib ...

(a large North Arabian tribe or group of tribes).

Relationship with Muhammad

Aminah bint Wahb, the mother of

, was waiting for the arrival of the

Banu Sa'd The Banu Sa'd ( ar, بنو سعد / ALA-LC: ''Banū Saʿd'') was one of the leading royal tribes of Arabia during the Islamic prophet Muhammad's era. They were a subgroup of the larger Hawazin tribal confederation. They had close family relation ...

; the women within the tribe of the Banu Sa'd were foster mothers. They would take the children of

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow v ...

to the desert and teach them classical Arabic and other skills; in return, they would receive a

salary A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. F ...

from the family of the child in Mecca. Halimah's husband was al-Harith bin Abdul Uzza. Her son was named Abdullah, while the daughters were named Unaysa and Hudhafa. While traveling to Mecca, she was unable to feed her child because her she-camel stopped lactating. In Mecca, all those looking for foster children rejected taking care of the

orphan An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...

Muhammad because they feared not getting paid on account of his father being dead. Halimah felt sad that every woman in her tribe had received a child except her. So she told her husband al-Harith: "By God, I do not like the idea of returning with my friends without a child; I will go and take that orphan." Her husband agreed. Immediately after accepting him, blessing came to her and her family. Her husband's flock during a time of great famine was healthy and producing milk while the rest of the people's flocks were dying. When he was two years old, Halimah took him to Aminah and insisted that she let him remain with her, to which she relented. A strange and mysterious event happened a few months later. Muhammad's foster brother was playing with him, then suddenly Halimah and her husband saw their son (Muhammad's foster brother) who came running back and shouted: "two men dressed in white grabbed my brother and cut his chest." So then Halimah and Al-Harith ran to Muhammad and found him pale-faced. When they asked him what happened, he said: "Two men came and opened my chest and took a portion of it". After this event, she gave up fostering him and informed his mother about what had happened. She later accepted Islam after the

Battle of Hunayn :''This is a sub-article to Muhammad after the conquest of Mecca.'' The Battle of Hunayn ( ar, غَزْوَة حُنَيْن, Ghazwat Hunayn) was between the Muslims of Muhammad and the Bedouins of the Qays, including its clans of Hawazi ...

Death

She died in 9 A.H. and her grave lies in

Jannatul Baqi ''Jannat al-Baqīʿ'' ( ar, ٱلْبَقِيْع, "The Baqi'") is the oldest and the first Islamic cemetery of Medina in the Hejazi region of present-day Saudi Arabia. It is located to the southeast of the Prophet's Mosque, which contains the gr ...

, Medina. The remains of the place she used to live in and where Muhammad grew up still stand today.

Family tree

* * indicates that the marriage order is disputed * Note that direct lineage is marked in bold.

References

External links

* * http://www.gulfson.com/vb/f136/t13052/ Women companions of the Prophet 7th-century women Hawazin Year of birth unknown Year of death missing Wet nurses Burials at Jannat al-Baqī {{islam-bio-stub

Relationship with Muhammad

Death

Family tree

See also

References

External links