Aminah's Farewell

When he ﷺ was six years old, his mother Aminah took him on the long road north to Yathrib, to visit his father's grave and his kin there. With them travelled Umm Ayman, the Abyssinian bondwoman who had served 'Abdullah, and who would watch over this child for the rest of her life.

They stayed a month. In Yathrib the boy learned to swim in a family well and played with the boys of his cousins' clan. Years later, entering the city as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he would point out the places he remembered: in that house I stayed with my mother; in that well I swam.

On the road home, at a place called al-Abwa, Aminah fell ill and died. She was buried there, between the two cities of her husband and her son, and the six-year-old completed the journey to Makkah in the care of Umm Ayman, an orphan now of both parents.

Many years later, passing al-Abwa, the Prophet ﷺ asked his Lord's permission to visit his mother's grave. He stood at it and wept, and those around him wept at his weeping. He said: visit the graves, for they remind you of death. He never spoke of his mother except with tenderness, and he honoured Umm Ayman all his life, calling her: my mother after my mother.