# Foster Care with Halimah al-Sa'diyyah

The Custom of Wet-Nursing in Arabia

In sixth-century Mecca, it was the custom among noble Arab families to send their newborns to the desert tribes for nursing and early childhood care. The rationale was both practical and cultural: the desert air was considered healthier than the urban environment of Mecca; the children of the bedouin were strong, healthy, and developed robust constitution from the open desert life; and the children would return to the city having learned the purest and most eloquent Arabic — the bedouin dialects being considered more classical and uncontaminated by urban influences.

For the future Prophet ﷺ, this custom meant leaving Aminah and the household of Abd al-Muttalib as an infant and traveling to the desert with a foster family. The woman who would nurse him — Halimah bint Abi Dhuayb al-Sa'diyyah of the Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr tribe — would remember the experience for the rest of her life, and would carry his memory as the most blessed event in her family's history.

Halimah's Journey to Mecca

The year the Prophet ﷺ was born, Mecca and the surrounding region had suffered drought. The Banu Sa'd, like other desert tribes, were struggling: their animals were thin, their milk had dried up, and poverty pressed hard on every family. It was the custom for wet-nurses from the desert tribes to travel to Mecca during the hajj season or other occasions to seek infants to nurse, with the expectation of payment and gifts from the child's family.

Halimah traveled with her husband al-Harith ibn Abd al-Uzza and their infant daughter Unaysah. The family's she-donkey was so weak that Halimah's companions kept pulling ahead on the road. Their camel gave almost no milk, and Halimah herself had barely enough milk for her own infant. The journey to Mecca was difficult.

When the women of the tribe arrived in Mecca and began selecting infants, each of them passed over the child Muhammad ﷺ — because his mother was a widow, and without a father, there was less expectation of the customary gifts and payment. Halimah and her husband initially passed him over as well, taking none of the children available. But rather than return empty-handed to her tribe, Halimah decided to return and take the orphan.

The Blessings Begin Immediately

The narration of what happened next is one of the most beautiful accounts in the seerah. Halimah describes it in her own words, as preserved by Ibn Hisham: "When I placed him on my breast, my milk flowed in abundance, enough for him and my own son. My husband went to our she-camel that night and found her full of milk — we drank until we were satisfied, and we slept that night well. My husband said to me: 'Halimah, by Allah, you have taken a blessed child.' I said: 'By Allah, I hope so.'"

The blessings continued on the return journey. Halimah's donkey — which had lagged behind the entire way to Mecca — now moved so fast that her companions couldn't keep up with her. When she returned to Banu Sa'd, the family's land began to flourish: their sheep came home full of milk when the neighbors' sheep returned dry; their crops grew in a drought year. The other families of Banu Sa'd said to their shepherds: "Take your sheep to the pastures where the daughter of Abi Dhuayb's shepherd takes his sheep" — believing the blessing was in the land itself, not knowing it came from the child in Halimah's home.

Years in the Desert

The Prophet ﷺ remained with Halimah for two years of nursing. At the end of this period, Halimah was supposed to return him to Aminah. But the child was so blessed and healthy, and Halimah's family so thriving, that Halimah begged Aminah to allow her to keep him longer. She appealed on the grounds of the desert air being good for the child, and Aminah — some narrations say she was persuaded, others say she had a presentiment — agreed to extend the arrangement.

The Prophet ﷺ thus spent approximately four or five years in the desert, growing up among the Banu Sa'd. He later spoke fondly of his time there, and it is narrated that he could identify and speak some dialect of the Banu Sa'd. He grew up physically strong, deeply familiar with the desert and its rhythms, and formed bonds with Halimah's children — especially his foster brother Abdullah and foster sisters Unaysah and Shayma (Huzafa bint al-Harith), who would later meet him again during the battle of Hunayn as a captive, and whom he recognized and honored with great affection.

The Incident of the Splitting of the Chest

The reason Halimah eventually returned the Prophet ﷺ to Aminah — earlier than expected — was the incident known as the Splitting of the Chest (Shaqq al-Sadr). According to the narrations preserved by Muslim and others, two men in white garments — angels — appeared while the young Muhammad ﷺ was playing with his foster brother among the sheep. They laid him down, opened his chest, removed his heart, extracted a clot of blood from it (described as the portion from which Shaytan could access humanity), washed his heart with water from a basin of snow or Zamzam, and replaced it — all while he was conscious.

His foster brother ran to Halimah and al-Harith crying: "My Qurayshi brother has been killed!" When they rushed to find the Prophet ﷺ, he was standing — pale-faced but physically unharmed. The incident left Halimah deeply shaken with fear that something was wrong with the child, and she returned him to Aminah in Mecca. When Aminah asked why she was bringing him back early, Halimah explained what had happened. Aminah, remarkably calm, said: "Did you fear that the devil had harmed him? By Allah, the devil has no power over him. This son of mine is destined for great things."

A Lifelong Bond

Halimah visited the Prophet ﷺ in Mecca after the return, and he received her with great honor. When his mission began, she came to him again and he spread his cloak for her to sit on — a mark of respect and affection. After the Battle of Hunayn, when the prisoners of Hawazin (the tribe to which Banu Sa'd belonged) were brought before him, a woman claimed to be his foster sister. He recognized her after a moment and spread his cloak for her as well, weeping. He interceded for the entire tribe and the prisoners were released.

The relationship between the Prophet ﷺ and his foster family was not merely historical — it was a lifelong expression of gratitude, loyalty, and honor toward those who had cared for him in his most vulnerable years. This care, in turn, shaped the Islamic principle of the sanctity of the nursing relationship: the Prophet ﷺ established in law that a child's wet-nurse and her children become the child's foster family, with prohibitions on marriage and obligations of respect that parallel blood relations.

Sources: Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra; Muslim, Sahih Muslim (Kitab al-Iman — Hadith of Shaqq al-Sadr); Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; al-Tirmidhi, al-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyya