Halimah as-Sa'diyyah

ProfileHalimah as-Sa'diyyah

Halimah (may Allah be pleased with her) was the daughter of Abu Dhu'ayb, of the Banu Sa'd, a branch of the Hawazin who lived in the highlands about seventy kilometres south of Ta'if. They were known across Arabia for the purity of their Arabic. Her name comes from hilm, which means gentleness and patience. Her husband was al-Harith ibn Abd al-Uzza, known as Abu Kabshah. According to the early biographies, their children included a daughter, ash-Shayma, a baby son the same age as the Prophet ﷺ, usually named Abdullah, and another daughter, Anisah.

According to the early biographies, the women of the Banu Sa'd came to Makkah once a year to take the babies of the noble families, who sent them to the desert to be nursed and to grow up away from the diseases that travellers brought home. The women chose their babies for a reward, either money from a rich family or favour from a family that was likely to rule. That year was a year of famine. Halimah told the story in her own words: her family was the poorest of the Banu Sa'd, her old donkey could hardly walk, her she-camel gave no milk, and her own baby cried all night with hunger. The baby Muhammad ﷺ was held out by his mother, and every woman said that an orphan would bring her nothing. Halimah did not want to go home with nothing, so she told her husband she would take him, and said, "Perhaps Allah will put some good in him." He agreed.

According to the early biographies, from the moment she took him in her arms her breasts filled with milk, enough for him and for her own son, and the she-camel gave milk again. On the road home her donkey went ahead of the others, and her husband told her that she had taken hold of something blessed. The flocks came back full from the driest ground in the land. According to the early biographies, he lived with her for two years, and when she brought him back to Aminah she asked to keep him a little longer, because of the blessing she had seen. Aminah agreed. He played with her son Abdullah, and ash-Shayma, his foster sister, helped to care for him.

Anas told that Gabriel came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was playing with the other boys. He took hold of him, laid him on the ground and opened his chest, and took out the heart. He took from it a clot and said, "This was the share of Satan in you," and washed the heart in a golden basin with Zamzam water, and joined it together and put it back. The boys ran to his mother, that is, his nurse, and said, "Muhammad has been killed." They hurried to him, and his colour was changed. Anas said that he had seen the mark of the stitching on his chest (Sahih Muslim).

According to the early biographies, her husband said to her that he was afraid the boy had been struck by something, and they took him back to Aminah, earlier than they had agreed. He was about four or five. Halimah went back to the desert, and the Prophet ﷺ did not forget her. According to the early biographies, in a year of famine she came to Makkah, and he told Khadijah, who gave her forty sheep and a camel. The Prophet ﷺ was also nursed by Thuwaybah, the freed slave of Abu Lahab (Sahih al-Bukhari).

When the Hawazin came to him after Hunayn, they asked him for their captives and their property, and he gave them the choice, and they chose their captives, and he returned them (Sahih al-Bukhari; Sunan Abi Dawud, graded sahih). According to the early biographies, one of them reminded him that the women in the captives' enclosures included his foster-aunts, who had nursed him. Sunan Abi Dawud also reports, with a chain graded weak by al-Albani, that Abu at-Tufayl, then a boy, saw the Prophet ﷺ dividing meat at al-Ji'ranah, and a woman came, and he spread his cloak for her to sit on, and when he asked who she was, the people said she was his foster-mother. According to the early biographies, he said, "Welcome, my mother." Another report in the same book, also weak, says that his foster-father came, then his foster-mother, and last his foster-brother, and that he spread his garment for each, and stood up for the brother.

According to the early biographies, Halimah, her husband and her children accepted Islam, as the Hawazin did after Hunayn. A grave in al-Baqi is shown as hers, though some historians place it in her own village. She had come to Makkah with nothing and was given a blessing she could not explain, and late in her life she was given a greater one.

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