2 of 2 · c. 574 CE · around age four · The lands of Banu Sa'd
Halimah al-Sa'diyyah
The Day the Children Ran
When the boy was weaned, Halimah took him back to his mother Aminah, but, the biographers report, she pleaded to keep him longer, and Aminah agreed. So he grew up in the open desert among his foster brothers and sisters.
Anas ibn Malik reports that one day, while the boy was playing with other children, Jibril came, laid him down, opened his chest, took out his heart and removed a clot from it, saying, "This is Satan's share of you." He washed it in a golden basin with the water of Zamzam and returned it. The children ran to his foster mother crying that Muhammad had been killed, and they found him safe but pale (Sahih Muslim 162). The hadith speaks of "his mother, meaning his nurse" without naming her; the biographers identify her as Halimah.
Ibn Ishaq reports that Halimah and her husband were frightened by what had happened and soon brought the boy back to his mother in Makkah. Many scholars see in this event a meaning of Allah's words: ﴿أَلَمْ نَشْرَحْ لَكَ صَدْرَكَ﴾ (“Did We not expand for you your chest?”) (94:1).
Halimah's love was tested by fear, and she chose what she thought safest for the child, even when it meant giving him up.
Have you ever had to let go of something you loved because it was best for it?
- Sahih Muslim 162 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Qur'an 94:1
- Ibn Hisham, al-Sirah al-NabawiyyahHistorical report
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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