Seerah
2. The young Muhammad
Orphan, shepherd, trader
5 min, Intro
Before revelation, the Prophet ﷺ lived forty years as an ordinary Makkan. Orphaned young. Raised by family. A shepherd and a trader. And known for his honesty.
Draft written with AI help: awaiting scholar review
The thread
A boy in Makkah loses his father, his mother and his grandfather while still a child. His uncle raises him. He grows into the man the town calls the trustworthy. He marries Khadijah. And as forty approaches, he starts climbing to a cave, to sit alone with what troubles him about Makkah.
Three losses, and an uncle who stayed
The story starts with a loss, before he is even born. His father, 'Abdullah, dies before his birth. As was the custom for Makkan families, the baby spends his early years with a foster mother, Halimah, among a desert tribe. Then he comes back to his mother, Aminah. She dies when he is about six.
Next his grandfather, 'Abd al-Muttalib, cares for him. Two years later he dies too. So the boy goes to his uncle, Abu Talib. Abu Talib raised him, and protected him for decades. Yet he never accepted Islam himself.
أَلَمۡ يَجِدۡكَ يَتِيمࣱا فَـَٔاوَىٰ ٦ وَوَجَدَكَ ضَآلࣱّا فَهَدَىٰ ٧ وَوَجَدَكَ عَآئِلࣱا فَأَغۡنَىٰ ٨
6 Did He not find you an orphan then take good care of you? 7 Did He not find you unguided then guide you? 8 Did He not find you in need then enrich you?
Loss came early to the Prophet ﷺ. So did the care of family.
Al-Amin: the man the town trusted
The orphan raised by Abu Talib became a shepherd. Later a merchant, travelling with caravans to Syria. And the people of Makkah gave him a nickname: al-Amin, the trustworthy.
How far did that trust go? Around 605 the Ka'bah is rebuilt. The clans nearly come to blows over one honour: who will set the sacred Black Stone back in place. They agree to let the next man to enter decide. It is Muhammad.
He places the stone on a cloak, and has a leader of each clan lift a corner. Then he sets it in place himself.
Muhammad settled a feud by letting every clan carry the Black Stone together.
Khadijah
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was a wealthy, respected Makkan merchant. She hires Muhammad to take her goods to Syria. His honesty strikes her, and his character. So she proposes marriage. He accepts.
They had six children, though both of their sons died in infancy. He took no other wife while she lived. And long after her death, he still spoke of her with deep love.
His first and deepest marriage was to an older, successful woman.
A troubled man on the mountain
By now he has a wife, a trade and a good name. And yet, as he approaches forty, he takes to spending days at a time in the cave of Hira, on the Mountain of Light outside Makkah. Reflecting. Alone.
What was on his mind? The town around him. Makkah was prosperous. But orphans and the poor were neglected, and he had been an orphan himself. Girls were sometimes buried alive. And the Ka'bah was crowded with idols. The man who would bring Islam was, first, a man disturbed by his society.
Before the message, there was a man who would not look away.