So ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib dispatched his eldest son, al-Ḥārith. Al-Ḥārith found that ʿAbdullāh had already passed away and been buried in the house of al-Nābighah (1)—a man of Banū ʿAdiyy ibn al-Najjār, the house that, when you enter it, has a small inner court on the left. ʿAbdullāh’s maternal uncles told him of the illness that had struck him, how they had cared for him and managed all his affairs, and how they had laid him to rest. Al-Ḥārith returned to his father and informed him. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, together with his sons and daughters, grieved for him with profound sorrow, while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was at that time still in the womb. ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib was twenty-five years old when he died.

Al-Wāqidī (3) said: This is, in our view, the most firmly established report concerning ʿAbdullāh’s death and his age.

Al-Wāqidī (3) also narrated to me—on the authority of Maʿmar from al-Zuhrī—that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib had sent ʿAbdullāh to Madinah to buy dates for him, and there he died.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (4) said: Hishām ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī informed us from his father, and ʿAwānah ibn al-Ḥakam likewise, that ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib died when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was twenty-eight months old; others say seven months.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (4) added: The better-attested view is that he died while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was still in the womb.

Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār said: Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan narrated to me from ʿAbd al-Salām, from Ibn Kharrabūdh, who said: ʿAbdullāh died in Madinah when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was two months old; his mother died when he was four; and his grandfather died when he was eight, after which he placed him in the care of his uncle Abū Ṭālib.

The opinion preferred by al-Wāqidī and by his scribe, the ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, is that the Prophet’s father died while he ﷺ was still a fetus in his mother’s womb—this being the most poignant and exalted degree of orphanhood.

We have already cited the ḥadīth (5): “And my mother’s vision, when she was carrying me, was that a light issued from her and illumined the palaces of Syria.”

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (6) said: Āminah bint Wahb—the mother of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—used to relate that when she conceived the Messenger of Allah ﷺ she was told, “You have conceived the leader of this community. When he is delivered to the earth, say:

[a rajaz verse]”