Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib

Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim was the father of the Prophet ﷺ Muhammad. Al-Raheeq al-Makhtum describes him as the best, most chaste and most beloved of Abd al-Muttalib's sons to him. He is the "sacrificed one" on whom the arrows fell and who was ransomed with a hundred camels ^{1 2}. He married Amina bint Wahb and died in Medina at the age of twenty-five ^{3 4}.

His mother was Fatima bint Amr ibn A'idh ibn Imran ibn Makhzum ibn Yaqzah ibn Murra, so his maternal kin were of Banu Makhzum ^{1 5}. He was one of the ten sons of Abd al-Muttalib that the book counts: al-Harith, al-Zubayr, Abu Talib, Abdullah, Hamza, Abu Lahab, al-Ghaydaq, al-Muqawwim, Dirar and al-Abbas ^{1 5}.

When Abd al-Muttalib's sons reached ten, and he knew that they would protect him, he told them of his vow, and they obeyed him. He wrote their names on arrows and gave them to the keeper of Hubal. The arrow fell on Abdullah ^{1 2}. His father took him, took the knife, and came with him to the Ka'ba to slaughter him. But Quraysh, especially his maternal kin of Banu Makhzum and his brother Abu Talib, stopped him ^{1 6}. On the advice of a soothsayer, arrows were cast between him and the camels, ten camels at a time, until the number reached a hundred. Then the lot fell on the camels, and they were slaughtered in his place. The details are in the vow and the lot of Abd al-Muttalib ^{3 2}. The book relates the Prophet's saying "I am the son of the two sacrificed ones", meaning Isma'il and his father Abdullah ^{3 7}.

Abd al-Muttalib chose for him Amina, daughter of Wahb ibn Abd Manaf ibn Zuhra ibn Kilab. She was then regarded as the most honourable woman of Quraysh in lineage and standing, and her father was the chief of Banu Zuhra in lineage and honour. Abdullah consummated the marriage with her in Mecca ^{3 4}.

Shortly after, Abd al-Muttalib sent him to Medina to buy dates for them, and he died there. It is also said that he went out as a merchant to Syria, came back with a Quraysh caravan, fell ill at Medina, and died there. He was buried in the house of al-Nabigha al-Ja'di, aged twenty-five ^{3 4 8}. According to most historians, his death came before the Prophet was born; some say it came two months after the birth ^{3 9}. Amina composed a lament for him, which the author describes as among the finest laments ^{3 10}. The details are in the death of Abdullah in Medina.

All he left behind was five camels, a flock of sheep, and an Abyssinian slave-girl named Baraka, known as Umm Ayman, who was the Prophet's nurse ^{3 11 12}.

• In the edition the museum read, the book Mukhtasar Sirat al-Rasul is sometimes attributed to "Shaykh Abdullah" and sometimes to "Shaykh Abdullah al-Najdi". It is one book.
• The book does not give the year of his birth or of his death. What is in the data card is an approximation derived from his age at death and from the Year of the Elephant.