and from the other side as well; rain poured down in torrents, the valley burst with water, and both town and desert became verdant. On that occasion Abū Ṭālib composed:

A radiant one whose very face begs the clouds for rain—
springtime for orphans, a shield for widows.
Peril circles round him from the sons of Hāshim,
yet through him they live in bounty and distinction.
A scale of justice that never cheats by a barley grain,
a balance of truth whose measure never falls short.

ʿAbdallāh ibn Shabīb—who is weak—related: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Azraqī told us; Saʿīd ibn Sālim narrated to us; Ibn Jurayj said: We were with ʿAṭāʾ when he said, “I heard Ibn ʿAbbās say: I heard my father say: ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was the tallest of people and the most handsome of face; no one ever saw him without loving him. He had a cushion in the Ḥijr on which no one sat but he, and no one sat beside him upon it. The councillors of Quraysh—Ḥarb ibn Umayyah and those beneath him—would sit around him short of the cushion. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ once came, still a boy who had not yet reached puberty, and sat on the cushion. A man pulled him away, and he began to cry. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib—his sight had already gone—asked, ‘Why is my son crying?’ They replied, ‘He wanted to sit on the cushion but they prevented him.’ He said, ‘Leave my son; let him sit on it. He senses his own nobility, and I hope he will attain a rank unmatched by any Arab before him or after him.’”

He went on: ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib died when the Prophet ﷺ was eight years old, and the Prophet ﷺ walked behind his grandfather’s bier, weeping until he was buried at al-Ḥajūn.

The Prophet ﷺ also tended sheep. ʿAmr ibn Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd transmitted from his grandfather, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Every prophet has pastured sheep.” They asked, “And you, too…?”