The Shepherd of Ajyād

When the Prophet ﷺ was a young man he took up the first work of his life: tending sheep. He said, as recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī:

مَا بَعَثَ ٱللَّهُ نَبِيًّا إِلَّا رَعَى ٱلْغَنَمَ

"Allah never sent a Prophet but that he herded sheep." His Companions, surprised, asked, "Even you, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "Yes, I used to tend the flocks of the people of Mecca for a few qarārīṭ (قَرَارِيط)," the smallest of coins.

He herded in the valley of Ajyād, near the Sanctuary. In a report in Musnad Aḥmad he said that Musa was sent as a Prophet while a shepherd, and Dawud was sent while a shepherd, "and I too tended sheep, in Ajyād." And his shepherd's eye never left him: years later, seeing men with their flock, he counselled them which branches of the arāk (أَرَاك) tree were best for the animals, and when they marvelled that he knew, he told them he had once been a shepherd.

This tenderness toward animals stayed with him. A camel once came to him groaning, its eyes streaming; the Prophet ﷺ soothed it, then called for its owner and said, "This beast has complained to me that you starve it and overwork it. Fear Allah concerning these animals that Allah has placed in your charge" (Sunan an-Nasāʾī).

And he taught that honest labour is no shame but a thing of honour: "No one has ever eaten food better than that which he eats from the work of his own hands; and the Prophet of Allah Dawud would eat from the work of his own hands." So the Prophet ﷺ began at the very bottom, the most menial, lowest-paid toil in Mecca, and rose to be the Messenger of Allah. Of those beginnings Allah said in Sūrat aḍ-Ḍuḥā:

أَلَمْ يَجِدْكَ يَتِيمًا فَآوَىٰ، وَوَجَدَكَ ضَالًّا فَهَدَىٰ، وَوَجَدَكَ عَائِلًا فَأَغْنَىٰ

"Did He not find you an orphan and shelter you, and find you lost and guide you, and find you in need and enrich you?" (aḍ-Ḍuḥā 93:6-8).