Aminah bint Wahb

Aminah bint Wahb was the mother of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and a woman of noble Qurayshi lineage from the Banu Zuhrah clan. She married Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, a young man renowned for his beauty and virtue among the Quraysh. Abdullah died before Aminah gave birth — while on a trading journey to Syria — leaving her to carry the Prophet ﷺ as a widow. Islamic tradition records that Aminah experienced a pregnancy unlike any other. She reported seeing a light proceeding from her by which she could see the palaces of Basra in Syria — a sign of the universal significance of the child she was carrying. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born into her care in the Year of the Elephant (approximately 570 CE), the same year Abraha's army came to destroy the Ka'bah and was destroyed by Allah. After the custom of the Quraysh, the infant was sent to the desert to be nursed by a Bedouin woman, Halimah al-Sa'diyyah of the Banu Sa'd tribe. When Muhammad ﷺ was returned to his mother, Aminah took him on a journey to Medina to visit the grave of his father Abdullah. On the return journey, she fell ill at a place called al-Abwa, between Mecca and Medina, and died there. The Prophet ﷺ was six years old. He was cared for by his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. The Prophet ﷺ visited her grave in later life and is reported to have wept, saying: 'She is my mother. I sought permission from my Lord to seek forgiveness for her but I was not given permission. I sought permission to visit her grave and I was given permission — so visit graves, for they remind you of death.' This hadith established the permissibility of visiting graves while also showing the Prophet's profound and human love for his mother.