Why the Quraysh Sent Their Children to the Desert

To the modern ear it is strange that a mother would hand her newborn to be raised away from home; yet among the noble families of Quraysh this was a cherished custom, a mark of rank, and it carried real wisdom.

First, health. Infant mortality was fearfully high, and disease spread where people crowded together; out in the open desert, with only one family near the child, his chances of surviving rose. Second, hardiness: Quraysh wished their children reared in an austere life so that, when they returned, the toil of Mecca would feel like ease, for children adapt to hardship as adults cannot. Third, discipline: away from the doting grandparents, uncles and aunts who spoil a child, he would be raised firmly. And fourth, most prized of all, the purity of the language. The Arabs held the speech of the towns to be corrupted by the tongues of foreign traders, while certain desert tribes preserved the old, unmixed Arabic. The most famed of these was the Banū Saʿd ibn Bakr, and it was to them that the Prophet ﷺ was given.

So when the Prophet ﷺ grew to be the most eloquent of the Arabs, given جَوَامِعُ ٱلْكَلِمِ, speech few in words yet vast in meaning, it was, in part, the fruit of those years in the desert of Banū Saʿd.