He said, “Even were she not my step-daughter raised in my care, she would still be unlawful for me. She is the daughter of my milk-brother, for Thuwaybah nursed both me and Abū Salamah. Therefore do not offer me your daughters or your sisters.”

Al-Bukhārī adds: ʿUrwah said, “Thuwaybah was Abū Lahab’s slave-woman. He set her free after she had suckled the Messenger of God ﷺ. When Abū Lahab died, a member of his household saw him in a dream in a most wretched state and asked, ‘What have you met with?’ Abū Lahab replied, ‘I have found no good since I left you, except that I am given drink through this because I emancipated Thuwaybah,’ and he pointed to the hollow between his thumb and the finger next to it.”

Al-Suhaylī and others relate that the one who saw the dream was his brother al-ʿAbbās, about a year after Abū Lahab’s death, following the Battle of Badr. In that vision Abū Lahab told al-ʿAbbās, “The punishment is lightened for me every Monday.” They said this was because, when Thuwaybah brought him the glad tidings of the birth of his nephew Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, he freed her on the spot, and he has been recompensed for that deed.

Breast-feeding of the Prophet ﷺ by Ḥalīmah bint Abī Dhuaʾayb al-Saʿdiyyah and the blessings and prophetic signs that appeared through it

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq said: “The Prophet ﷺ was put out to be nursed with Ḥalīmah bint Abī Dhuaʾayb, whose full lineage is ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Shijnah ibn Jābir ibn Razām ibn Nāṣirah ibn [Fuṣayyah ibn Naṣr ibn] Saʿd ibn Bakr ibn Hawāzin ibn Manṣūr ibn ʿIkrimah ibn Khaṣāfah ibn Qays ʿAylān ibn Muḍar.” He further said: “The milk-father of the Messenger of God ﷺ—that is, Ḥalīmah’s husband—was al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Rifāʿah ibn Milān ibn Nāṣirah ibn Saʿd ibn Bakr ibn Hawāzin. His ﷺ foster-siblings through nursing were ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith, Anīsah bint al-Ḥārith, and Ḥudhāfah bint al-Ḥārith, who was also known as al-Shaymāʾ.”