[Abdel-rahman]

Chapter 8 - The Desert

It was traditional for the great Arab families to send their children to be nursed with the bedouin tribes in the desert. The desert offered a healthier environment for the children to grow up in as well as renewed the children's bond with the desert. The children also had an opportunity to learn the true Arabic, for a man's worth was measured by his elequance.

The tradition was that bedouin women would come into town and select children to take and nurse. They did not accept payment for their services, but were doing this out of the concept of ihsan. Ihsan is doing good or showing good to people, and in return people should show or do good back to you. This concept has been affirmed in Islam in the quran and hadith.

The tribe of Sa'd bin Bakr had a high reputation for their nurses. Aminah was in favor of trusting her new born son to one of their women. She, however, had no money, AbdulMuttalib was a man of more than 70 years old. His power and influence were decreasing, and the nurse that took the prophet would not expect any favors from the family while the child was growing up (as was the custom). Although the prophet was from a noble family, he was by far the poorest orphan. Aminah offered her son to all the women of the tribe but non would accept him.

Halima was a women of Bani Sa'd. She was the least fortunate of the nurses to the extent that she did not even have enough milk to feed her own son. She and her husband had very little and they came to mecca hoping of a good child so that the family could help them in their hardship. She could not find a child and was leaving mecca without one, but could not stand to go back to her people without child when all her friends had taken children. She told her husband that she would take this orphan in the hope that Allah SWT would bestow some grace upon them.

Upon accepting the child, strange things began to happen. She had traveled into mecca on an old wretched donkey that was behind all the other animals of the tribe. On the way back the donkey was the fastest out of all the animals. The women of Bani Sa'd were amazed that on the way in she was lagging behind and now she is at the front. As soon as Halima put the child to her breasts, they filled up with milk and the prophet and her own son drank their fill and slept.

Upon getting back to her people, she sends out her shepard's and goats, and despite being a year of drought, her animals came back full of milk. The other women of Bani Sa'd soon began to tell their own shephards to graze the sheep where Halima grazed her's. Despite this, their sheep came home without milk while Halima's always came home full of milk. This was the barakah of Allah (SWT) entering the tent of Halima and her husband, and this continued of 2 years until the prophet was weened.

Halima takes the child back to Aminah at 2 years, however, she has gotten attached to the prophet and wanted to keep him. This was not uncommon since the nurse is considered a second mother to the child, and the child would actually consider their nurse as a second mother. Aminah is finally persuaded to leave the child with his nurse. Halima takes the child back and after some time (when the prophet was 4 years old), her own son comes running in saying that something has happened to the Quraishi. She asks what happened, and he tells her that 2 men came and took a knife to him. A normal reaction of any mother at this point is to get her husband and go look for her son, which Halima did. She finds him standing, and enquirers as to what happened. He says:
"There came unto me two men, clothed in white, with a gold basin full of snow. Then they laid hold upon me, and splitting open my breast they brought forth my hear. This likewise they split open and took from it a black clot which they cast away. Then they washed my heart and my breast wit the snow."

The ice here is very significant. In open heart surgery, the heart is always in a bowl of ice. You have to keep it in ice so that it slows down the metabolic rate so the cells don't die. Another point not mentioned here is that they poured zamzam over the heart, which is traditionally a very salty well. Considering this event, 2 angels (sterile beings),
- splitting the chest,
- taking out the heart,
- washing it,
- putting it in ice (where will you get ice in the desert)
- putting it back

These are signs that the prophet went through open heart surgery at this age. There were 2 narrations, one stating that there were no traces on the child's chest, and one stating the traces of stitch marks left on the chest. The point was that neither child would take back their statements of what happened, and Halima is convinced that this event actually happened.

This post has been edited by Abdel-rahman: Jun 28 2005, 05:47 AM