Then we returned to our dwellings in the land of Banū Saʿd. I know of no place on Allah’s earth that was more drought-stricken or more barren than that valley.

Yet every morning our sheep would set out to graze there and would come back at dusk, and we would milk from them whatever Allah willed. We drank as much of their milk as we pleased, while no one else could obtain so much as a single drop from their own flocks.

My tribesmen began ordering their shepherds, “Woe to you—take your sheep to pasture where the shepherd of the daughter of Abū Dhuʾayb pastures hers!”

They duly drove their animals behind ours, but the sheep returned hungry, without giving them so much as a trickle of milk.

Allah’s blessing and bounty continued to reach us until the two full years of the child’s nursing were completed, and he was weaned.