Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib

Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib was the father of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and a young man of exceptional virtue and beauty among the Quraysh. He was the favorite son of Abd al-Muttalib and the one for whom his father had almost fulfilled the vow of sacrifice before ransoming him with one hundred camels. Abdullah married Aminah bint Wahb of the Banu Zuhrah clan — considered the finest available match for him in lineage among the Quraysh. Classical Islamic tradition describes his beauty as extraordinary, such that many women sought to marry him. He and Aminah were wed, and she conceived their only child who would become the greatest of all human beings. Before the Prophet ﷺ was born, Abdullah departed on a trading journey to Syria. On his return, he stopped in Medina and fell ill there. He died in Medina and was buried at the home of al-Nabigha al-Ja'di of the Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar. He was approximately twenty-five years old. The Prophet ﷺ grew up without ever knowing his father. In a narration, when the Prophet ﷺ later entered Medina and was shown his father's grave, he wept. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned Abdullah in the context of his lineage with honor: 'I was born from the best of the generations, generation after generation, until I was born in the generation I am in.' Abdullah's untimely death is one of the first of many trials the Prophet ﷺ endured. He died without witnessing the miracle he carried.