“You shall have as many camels as were slaughtered in your stead—so lie with me now.”

He answered, “I am with my father and cannot oppose him or leave him.”

ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib then took him until they reached Wahb ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Zuhrah ibn Kilāb ibn Murrah ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy ibn Ghalib ibn Fihr, who at that time was the foremost man of the Banū Zuhrah in pedigree and distinction. He gave his daughter Āminah bint Wahb to ʿAbd Allāh in marriage, and she was the leading lady of her clan. They say that as soon as the contract was concluded he entered her chamber, lay with her, and she conceived the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

After leaving her, he went to the woman who had earlier made him her offer and said, “Why do you not propose to me today what you proposed yesterday?” She replied, “The light that was with you yesterday has forsaken you; I have no need of you now.” She had heard from her brother Waraqah ibn Nawfal—who had embraced Christianity and studied the scriptures—that a prophet would arise from this nation, and she had hoped he might be born of her. Yet Allah, exalted is He, placed him in the noblest lineage, the most honored ancestry, and the purest stock, as He says: “Allah knows best where to place His message” (Qur’an 6:124).

We shall describe his birth in detail later.

Among the verses composed by Umm Qatāl bint Nawfal, lamenting what had slipped from her grasp—recorded by al-Bayhaqī through Yūnus ibn Bukayr from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq—are these:

Seek out the house of Zuhrah, wherever they may dwell,
and Āminah, who carried a noble boy;
We saw the Guided One when he lay with her,
a light that shone before him on his way.

All creatures hope in him, every one of them,
a leader of mankind, guiding them aright;
Allah fashioned him from a radiant, spotless light,
whose brilliance chased our darkness far away.
Such is the work of your Lord when He favored him,
whether he traveled or remained in place;
He shall guide the people of Mecca after disbelief,
and thereafter ordain the Fast upon them.

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Sahl al-Kharāʾiṭī relates: ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb told us, Muḥammad ibn ʿImārah al-Qurashī told us, Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī told us, Ibn Jurayj told us, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: When ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib set out with his son ʿAbd Allāh to arrange his marriage, he passed by a soothsayer from the people of Tabālah, a Jewish woman who had studied the earlier scriptures.