The Orphan's Carer

Barakah was an Abyssinian slave in the household of 'Abd Allah, the Prophet's father. When 'Abd Allah died before his son was born, she remained to care for the child Muhammad ﷺ and for his mother Aminah.

The sources say that when Muhammad ﷺ was about six, Aminah took him to Madinah to visit her relatives, with Barakah accompanying them. On the way home Aminah fell ill and died at al-Abwa', and it was Barakah who brought the orphan back to Makkah, to his grandfather 'Abd al-Muttalib.

From then she was the nearest thing he had to a mother. He would later say, in the words reported by Ibn Sa'd, that she was his mother after his mother. After the Prophet ﷺ married Khadijah, he freed her.