Prophet Muhammad’s [ﷺ] Birth and Forty years prior Prophethood

About His Birth, The Detailed Information. 

Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), the Master of Prophets, was born in Bani
Hashim lane in Makkah on Monday morning, the ninth of Rabi‘ Al-Awwal, the same
year of the Elephant Event, and forty years of the reign of Kisra (Khosru
Nushirwan), i.e. the twentieth or twenty-second of April, 571 A.D., according
to the scholar Muhammad Sulaimân Al-Mansourpuri, and the astrologer Mahmûd
Pasha. 

Ibn Sa‘d reported that Muhammad’s mother said: 

When he was born, there was a light that issued out of my pudendum and lit
the palaces of Syria.

Ahmad reported on the authority of ‘Arbadh bin Sariya something similar to
this. 

It was but controversially reported that significant precursors accompanied
his birth: fourteen galleries of Kisra’s palace cracked and rolled down, the
Magians’ sacred fire died down and some churches on Lake Sawa sank down and
collapsed. 

His mother immediately sent someone to inform his grandfather ‘Abdul-Muttalib
of the happy event. Happily he came to her, carried him to Al-Ka‘bah, prayed
to Allah and thanked Him. ‘Abdul-Muttalib called the baby Muhammad, a name not
then common among the Arabs. He circumcised him on his seventh day as was the
custom of the Arabs. 

The first woman who suckled him after his mother was Thuyebah, the concubine
of Abu Lahab, with her son, Masrouh. She had suckled Hamzah bin
‘Abdul-Muttalib before and later Abu Salamah bin ‘Abd Al-Asad
Al-Makhzumi. 

All About His Babyhood.

It was the general custom of the Arabs living in towns to send their children
away to bedouin wet nurses so that they might grow up in the free and healthy
surroundings of the desert whereby they would develop a robust frame and
acquire the pure speech and manners of the bedouins, who were noted both for
chastity of their language and for being free from those vices which usually
develop in sedentary societies. 

The Prophet (Peace be upon him) was later entrusted to Haleemah bint Abi
Dhuaib from Bani Sa‘d bin Bakr. Her husband was Al-Harith bin ‘Abdul ‘Uzza
called Abi Kabshah, from the same tribe. 

Muhammad(Peace be upon him) had several foster brothers and sisters, ‘Abdullah
bin Al-Harith, Aneesah bint Al-Harith, Hudhafah or Judhamah bint Al-Harith
(known as Ash-Shayma’), and she used to nurse the Prophet (Peace be upon him)
and Abu Sufyan bin Al-Harith bin ‘Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet’s cousin. Hamzah
bin ‘Abdul-Muttalib, the Prophet’s uncle, was suckled by the same two wet
nurses, Thuyeba and Haleemah As-Sa‘diyah, who suckled the Prophet (Peace be
upon him). 

Traditions delightfully relate how Haleemah and the whole of her household
were favoured by successive strokes of good fortune while the baby Muhammad
(Peace be upon him) lived under her care. Ibn Ishaq states that Haleemah
narrated that she along with her husband and a suckling babe, set out from her
village in the company of some women of her clan in quest of children to
suckle. She said: 

It was a year of drought and famine and we had nothing to eat. I rode on a
brown she-ass. We also had with us an old she-camel. By Allah we could not
get even a drop of milk. We could not have a wink of sleep during the night
for the child kept crying on account of hunger. There was not enough milk in
my breast and even the she-camel had nothing to feed him. We used to
constantly pray for rain and immediate relief. At length we reached Makkah
looking for children to suckle. Not even a single woman amongst us accepted
the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) offered to her. As soon as they
were told that he was an orphan, they refused him. We had fixed our eyes on
the reward that we would get from the child’s father. An orphan! What are
his grandfather and mother likely to do? So we spurned him because of that.
Every woman who came with me got a suckling and when we were about to
depart, I said to my husband: “By Allah, I do not like to go back along with
the other women without any baby. I should go to that orphan and I must take
him.” He said, “There is no harm in doing so and perhaps Allah might bless
us through him.” So I went and took him because there was simply no other
alternative left for me but to take him. When I lifted him in my arms and
returned to my place I put him on my breast and to my great surprise, I
found enough milk in it. He drank to his heart’s content, and so did his
foster brother and then both of them went to sleep although my baby had not
been able to sleep the previous night. My husband then went to the she-camel
to milk it and, to his astonishment, he found plenty of milk in it. He
milked it and we drank to our fill, and enjoyed a sound sleep during the
night. The next morning, my husband said: “By Allah Haleemah, you must
understand that you have been able to get a blessed child.” And I replied:
“By the grace of Allah, I hope so.” 

The tradition is explicit on the point that Haleemah’s return journey and her
subsequent life, as long as the Prophet (Peace be upon him)stayed with her,
was encircled with a halo of good fortune. The donkey that she rode when she
came to Makkah was lean and almost foundered; it recovered speed much to the
amazement of Haleemah’s fellow travellers. By the time they reached the
encampments in the country of the clan of Sa‘d, they found the scales of
fortune turned in their favour. The barren land sprouted forth luxuriant grass
and beasts came back to them satisfied and full of milk. Muhammad (Peace be
upon him) stayed with Haleemah for two years until he was weaned as Haleemah
said: 

We then took him back to his mother requesting her earnestly to have him
stay with us and benefit by the good fortune and blessings he had brought
us. We persisted in our request which we substantiated by our anxiety over
the child catching a certain infection peculiar to Makkah. At last, we were
granted our wish and the Prophet (Peace be upon him) stayed with us until he
was four or five years of age. 

When, as related by Anas in Sahih Muslim, Gabriel came down and ripped
his chest open and took out the heart. He then extracted a blood-clot out of
it and said: 

That was the part of Satan in thee.

And then he washed it with the water of Zamzam in a gold basin. After that the
heart was joined together and restored to its place. The boys and playmates
came running to his mother, i.e. his nurse, and said:

Verily, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has been murdered.

They all rushed towards him and found him all right only his face was
white. 

About His Compassionate Mother

After this event, Haleemah was worried about the boy and returned him to his
mother with whom he stayed until he was six. 

In respect of the memory of her late husband, Amina decided to visit his grave
in Yathrib (Madinah). She set out to cover a journey of 500 kilometers with
her orphan boy, woman servant Umm Ayman and her father-in-law ‘Abdul-Muttalib.
She spent a month there and then took her way back to Makkah. On the way, she
had a severe illness and died in Abwa on the road between Makkah and Madinah.

Prophet Muhammad’s Meeting with Bahira, the Monk.

When the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) was twelve years old, he went
with his uncle Abu Talib on a business journey to Syria. When they reached
Busra (which was a part of Syria, in the vicinity of Howran under the Roman
domain) they met a monk called Bahira (his real name was Georges), who showed
great kindness, and entertained them lavishly. He had never been in the habit
of receiving or entertaining them before. He readily enough recognized the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) and said while taking his hand:

This is the master of all humans. Allah will send him with a Message which
will be a mercy to all beings.” Abu Talib asked: “How do you know that?” He
replied: “When you appeared from the direction of ‘Aqabah, all stones and
trees prostrated themselves, which they never do except for a Prophet. I can
recognize him also by the seal of Prophethood which is below his shoulder,
like an apple. We have got to learn this from our books.” He also asked Abu
Talib to send the boy back to Makkah and not to take him to Syria for fear
of the Jews. Abu Talib obeyed and sent him back to Makkah with some of his
men servants.

About The Sacrilegious wars

Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was hardly fifteen when the ‘sacrilegious’ wars —
which continued with varying fortunes and considerable loss of human life for
a number of years — broke out between Quraish and Banu Kinana on the one side
and Qais ‘Ailan tribe on the other. It was thus called because the inviolables
were made violable, the prohibited months being included. Harb bin Omaiyah, on
account of his outstanding position and honourable descent, used to be the
leader of Quraish and their allies. In one of those battles, the Prophet
(Peace be upon him) attended on his uncles but did not raise arms against
their opponents. His efforts were confined to picking up the arrows of the
enemy as they fell, and handing them over to his uncles.

Al-Fudoul Confederacy

At the conclusion of these wars, when peace was restored, people felt the need
for forming confederacy at Makkah for suppressing violence and injustice, and
vindicating the rights of the weak and the destitute. Representatives of Banu
Hashim, Banu Al-Muttalib, Asad bin ‘Abd Al-‘Uzza, Zahrah bin Kilab and Taim
bin Murra were called to meet in the habitation of an honourable elderly man
called ‘Abdullah bin Jada‘an At-Taimy to enter into a confederacy that would
provide for the above-mentioned items. The Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon
him) shortly after he had been honoured with the ministry of Prophethood,
witnessed this league and commented on it, with very positive words:

 I witnessed a confederacy in the house of ‘Abdullah bin Jada‘an. It
was more appealing to me than herds of cattle. Even now in the period of
Islam I would respond positively to attending such a meeting if I were
invited.

In fact, the spirit of this confederacy and the course of deliberations
therein marked a complete departure from the pre-Islamic tribal-pride. The
story that led to its convention says that a man from Zubaid clan came as a
merchant to Makkah where he sold some commodities to Al-‘As bin Wail As-Sahmy.
The latter by hook or by crook tried to evade paying for the goods. The
salesman sought help from the different clans in Quraish but they paid no heed
to his earnest pleas. He then resorted to a mountain top and began, at the top
of his voice, to recite verses of complaint giving account of the injustices
he sustained. Az-Zubair bin ‘Abdul-Muttalib heard of him and made inquiries
into the matter. Consequently, the parties to the aforesaid confederacy
convened their meeting and managed to force Az-Zubaidy’s money out of Al-‘As
bin Wa’il.