A Boy in the Prophet's House ﷺ

'Ali was born in Makkah about ten years before the revelation began, the son of Abu Talib, the uncle who had raised the orphaned Muhammad ﷺ. When a hard year of drought fell on Quraysh and Abu Talib, with his many children, was struggling, the Prophet ﷺ took young 'Ali into his own household to lighten his uncle's burden. So 'Ali grew up under the Prophet's ﷺ roof, with Khadijah as a second mother.

When the revelation came, 'Ali was still a boy of about ten, and he believed. The scholars reconcile the reports about who was "first" by saying: the first woman was Khadijah, the first free man Abu Bakr, the first freed slave Zayd ibn Harithah, and the first child 'Ali.

Ibn Ishaq reports that Abu Talib once came upon his nephew and his son praying together in a valley outside Makkah. When 'Ali told his father that he believed in Allah and His Messenger and followed him, Abu Talib — who never embraced Islam himself — told him that Muhammad would only call him to good, so he should stay with him.