Fostering of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ by Halimah al-Sa'diyah

Noble families of the Quraysh had a custom of sending their newborns away from Makkah to be nursed and raised by women of the desert. There were several reasons for this. The desert protected children from the diseases of crowded towns, hardened them for a difficult life, and kept them from being spoiled by relatives. Above all, certain desert tribes were famous for speaking the purest and most fluent Arabic, free of the borrowed words of the city. The most famous of these tribes was Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr, and it was they who fostered the Prophet ﷺ.

Every year, the women of Banu Sa'd came to Makkah to take in infants of the Quraysh in return for payment. Halimah al-Sa'diyah and her husband were very poor. She had just had a baby son of her own, so she had milk to nurse another child. That year she came to Makkah hoping to find a newborn to nurse for two or three years.

Every other woman in her group found a child to foster, but Halimah did not. The only child left was the orphan whose father had died. The other women had passed him over, because they expected little payment from a family with no father. With nobody else left, Halimah agreed to take him.

At once, her household saw blessings. An old goat that had long stopped giving milk began to give milk again, and their old riding animal became the fastest of the whole group. Fostering usually lasted two years, but Halimah saw so many blessings that she wanted to keep him longer. The Prophet ﷺ's mother, Aminah bint Wahab, agreed, even though she could not pay as much as the other families were paying.