Amina bint Wahb

Abd al-Muttalib chose Amina bint Wahb ibn Abd Manaf ibn Zuhra ibn Kilab for his son Abd Allah. At that time she was counted the best woman of Quraysh in lineage and standing, and her father was the chief of Banu Zuhra in lineage and nobility. Abd Allah consummated the marriage in Mecca ^{1 2}. When news of his death reached her from Medina, she mourned him in an elegy which the author describes as among the finest elegies. In it she recalls the emptiness that the son of Hashim left in the open ground of the Batha, his answering the call of death, and that he was generous and very compassionate ^{1 3}. Among what she inherited from him was the Abyssinian slave-girl Barakah, Umm Ayman ^{1 4}. See Abd Allah's death in Medina.

Amina gave birth to her son in the Shi'b (valley) of Banu Hashim in Mecca, on the morning of Monday, the ninth of Rabi' al-Awwal, in the Year of the Elephant. She sent to Abd al-Muttalib to give him the news of his grandson ^{5 6}. Ibn Sa'd relates from her that when she bore him she saw a light by which the palaces of Syria were illuminated ^{5 7}. Two years later, in the desert of Banu Sa'd, Halima asked her to leave the boy with her, for fear of the plague of Mecca, and Amina sent him back with her ^{8 9}. When he reached six, she took him to Yathrib to visit his father's grave, with Umm Ayman and his guardian Abd al-Muttalib. She stayed a month, then died on the way back, at al-Abwa' (Amina's death) ^{10 11 12}.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) describes Amina as Muhammad's mother. Her father was Wahb b. 'Abd Manaf of the clan of Zuhra of the Quraysh, and her mother was Barra bint 'Abd al-'Uzza of the clan of 'Abd al-Dar. She is said to have been the ward of her uncle Wuhayb b. 'Abd Manaf, on the day of whose betrothal of her to 'Abd Allah b. 'Abd al-Muttalib he also betrothed his own daughter Hala to 'Abd al-Muttalib, a report the article suggests may reflect a forgotten marriage custom. ¹³

Amina seems to have remained with her own family, where 'Abd Allah visited her, though he is usually said to have died before Muhammad's birth. Muhammad was in her charge while she lived, and presumably lived with her family, except when sent to a wet-nurse among a nomadic tribe. She is said to have died at al-Abwa', between Mecca and Medina, on the way back from visiting Muhammad's kinsmen at Medina, when he was six. The stories of her pregnancy, including her report of a light that lit up the palaces of Busra, are part of the accounts the article considers. ¹³