She passed by a band of Christians. They rose toward the child, turned him about, and said, “We shall take this boy to our king, for a great destiny awaits him.” She barely managed to snatch him back from them, and only after great effort.
It is also related that when she returned him, fearing that some harm might have befallen him, and as she drew near Mecca she discovered he was missing. She went to his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, who set out with a group to search for him. Waraqah ibn Nawfal, together with another man from Quraysh, found the boy and brought him to his grandfather. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib lifted him onto his shoulder, circumambulated the Kaʿbah seeking protection for him and praying for him, and then returned him to his mother Āminah.
Al-Umawī, through the weak chain of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Waqqāṣī from al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, recounts the story of his birth (peace and blessings be upon him) and his nursing with Ḥalīmah in wording that differs from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq’s account. He relates that ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ordered his son ʿAbd Allāh to take the infant around the Arab clans to find him a wet-nurse, and that he eventually hired Ḥalīmah for this task.
According to that version, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stayed with her for six years, his grandfather visiting him each year. After the incident of his chest being split open occurred while he was with them, she returned him to Mecca, where he lived with his mother until, at the age of eight, she passed away. His grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib then became his guardian, but died when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was ten. His two paternal uncles—the full brothers of his father—al-Zubayr and Abū Ṭālib, then took charge of him. When he was in his mid-teens he traveled with his uncle al-Zubayr to Yemen, and on that journey they witnessed several signs. A fierce camel blocking their path in a valley knelt down and scraped its chest on the ground when it saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), enabling him to mount it. On another occasion they faced a raging flood, yet Allah Almighty dried up the torrent until they crossed safely. Al-Zubayr died when the Prophet was fourteen, leaving Abū Ṭālib as his sole guardian.
The point is that his blessedness (peace and blessings be upon him) first came upon Ḥalīmah al-Saʿdiyyah and her household while he was a child, and later encompassed the whole tribe of Hawāzin—and even more—when he captured them a month after the conquest of Mecca. They pleaded their kinship to him through nursing, so he set them free, treated them with tenderness, and bestowed favors upon them, as will be detailed in its proper place, God willing.
Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, in his account of the campaign against Hawāzin, reports—through ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr—who said: We were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) at Ḥunayn. After he had taken their wealth and captives, a delegation from Hawāzin, having embraced Islam, caught up with him at al-Jiʿrānah and said, “O Messenger of Allah, we are family and kin, and calamity has befallen us in a way that is not hidden …”