muhammad [pbuh], The master of prophets, was born in bani hashim lane in makkah on monday morning, the ninth of rabi‘ al-awwal, the same year of the elephant event, and forty years of the reign of kisra (khosru nushirwan), i.e. the twentieth or twenty-second of april, 571 a.d., according to the scholar muhammad sulaimân al-mansourpuri, and the astrologer mahmûd pasha. [muhadarat tareekh al-umam al-islamiyah 1/62; rahmat-ul-lil'alameen 1/38,39]
ibn sa‘d reported that muhammad’s mother said: "when he was born, there was a light that issued out of my pudendum and lit the palaces of syria." ahmad reported on the authority of ‘arbadh bin sariya something similar to this. [mukhtasar seerat-ur-rasool, p.12; tabaqat ibn sa'd 1/63]
it was but controversially reported that significant precursors accompanied his birth: fourteen galleries of kisra’s palace cracked and rolled down, the magians’ sacred fire died down and some churches on lake sawa sank down and collapsed. [reported by al-baihaqi, but al-ghazali didn't approve it - see fiqh-us-seerah p.46]
his mother immediately sent someone to inform his grandfather ‘abdul-muttalib of the happy event. happily he came to her, carried him to al-ka‘bah, prayed to allâh and thanked him. ‘abdul-muttalib called the baby muhammad, a name not then common among the arabs. he circumcised him on his seventh day as was the custom of the arabs. [ibn hisham 1/159,160; zad al-ma'ad 1/18; muhadarat tareekh al-umam al-islamiyah 1/62]
the first woman who suckled him after his mother was thuyebah, the concubine of abu lahab, with her son, masrouh. she had suckled hamzah bin ‘abdul-muttalib before and later abu salamah bin ‘abd al-asad al-makhzumi. [talqeeh furoom ahl-al-athar p.4; mukhtasar seerat-ur-rasool p.13]
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