In the Desert of Banu Sa'd

After his birth the Prophet ﷺ was given, as was the custom of the noble Quraysh, to be nursed and raised among the Bedouin. The tribe most sought for this was the Banū Saʿd ibn Bakr, renowned for the purity of their Arabic. The Prophet ﷺ himself said of his beginnings:

أَنَا دَعْوَةُ أَبِي إِبْرَاهِيمَ، وَبُشْرَى أَخِي عِيسَى، وَٱسْتُرْضِعْتُ فِي بَنِي سَعْدِ بْنِ بَكْرٍ

"I am the supplication of my father Ibrahim, and the glad tidings of my brother ʿĪsā, and I was suckled among the Banū Saʿd ibn Bakr."

Ḥalīmah bint Abī Dhuʾayb as-Saʿdiyyah relates the story herself. She and her husband, in a year of grinding drought, had come with the other women of Banū Saʿd to Mecca seeking infants to nurse for the payment the wealthy families gave. One after another the women took their charges, but none would take the orphan whose father had already died, for what could an orphan's family pay? When the week was over, Ḥalīmah alone had found no child. Ashamed to return empty-handed, she said as much to her husband; and he said, "Take the orphan, perhaps Allah will bless us through him." So she took the Prophet ﷺ.

From the moment she did, the blessing came. Her breast, which had not been enough even for her own hungry infant, overflowed; the old she-camel that had given no milk filled her udders that night; and the worn mount that had lagged behind now outran them all. Her household, barren with drought, flourished. The two years of nursing passed, and Ḥalīmah, loath to part with such blessing, begged Aminah to let the boy stay longer in the clean desert air, and Aminah consented.

Years later, after the Conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ fought the Banū Saʿd at Ḥunayn; and among the captives a woman declared herself his sister. Brought before him, she said she was Shaymāʾ, the daughter of his foster-mother. He asked for a sign, and she reminded him of a bite he had given her on her back when she carried him as a baby. He knew her then, spread his cloak for her, honoured her with gifts, and set her free. And when Ḥalīmah herself came to him in his later years, he rose to greet her, laid down his own cloak (ridāʾ) for her to sit upon, and welcomed her as his mother. It is said that she accepted Islam.