Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib: Father of the Prophet

Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (c. 545-570 or 571 CE) was the father of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He was a son of Abd al-Muttalib, the chief of the Quraysh, and is described in the earliest biographical sources as the most loved of his father's sons and the one whose life was very nearly given up in fulfilment of a vow his father had made. He married Amina bint Wahb of the Banu Zuhrah, and died on a journey away from Mecca before he could see his son reach any age at which he might remember him — the sources disagree on whether his death came shortly before or a few months after the birth.

Very little is recorded of Abdullah as an independent figure once the events of his father's vow and his own death are set aside. This article draws on what the sira actually preserves, chiefly through Ibn Ishaq's narration as transmitted by Ibn Kathir and through The Sealed Nectar, rather than supplying detail the sources do not give.

The Vow of Abd al-Muttalib

Ibn Ishaq's narration, transmitted by Ibn Kathir, records that Abd al-Muttalib had vowed that if he were given ten sons who lived to manhood, he would sacrifice one of them at the Kaaba. When his tenth son reached maturity, he revealed the vow, and lots were drawn among his sons using divinatory arrows before the idol Hubal. The arrow fell on Abdullah — described in this account as the son closest to his father's heart and the most chaste of his brothers.

Abd al-Muttalib took Abdullah to the Kaaba, razor in hand, to carry out the vow, but the Quraysh, Abdullah's maternal relatives of the Makhzum clan, and his brother Abu Talib intervened and urged that another course be found. Abd al-Muttalib consulted a woman diviner, who advised that the arrows be drawn again between Abdullah and ten camels, and that ten more camels be added each time the arrow continued to fall on Abdullah, until it fell on the camels instead. This was done, and when the number reached one hundred camels the arrow finally fell on them; the camels were slaughtered in Abdullah's place, and the standard rate of blood-money among the Quraysh was afterward set at that figure. The fuller course of this episode, and Abd al-Muttalib's own role in it, is set out in the article on him. A saying attributed to the Prophet describes him as "the offspring of the two who were sacrificed" — his distant ancestor Ismail, and his own father Abdullah, both spared.

Marriage to Amina

Abd al-Muttalib chose Amina bint Wahb, of the Banu Zuhrah, as a wife for Abdullah. The Sealed Nectar records that her family held an eminent position among the Quraysh through her father, the chief of the Banu Zuhrah, and that the marriage was contracted in Mecca on this strength of lineage. Beyond the fact of the marriage and its issue, the early sources give no account of Abdullah and Amina's life together.

Death

The Sealed Nectar preserves two distinct accounts of the circumstances of Abdullah's death. In one, he was sent by his father to buy dates in Medina; in the other, he had gone on a trading journey to Syria and died in Medina on his way back. Both versions agree that he died in Medina, and that he was buried in the house of al-Nabigha al-Ja'di there. He was twenty-five years old.

The sources do not agree on when this happened relative to the birth of his son. The Sealed Nectar states that most historians place his death about two months before Muhammad was born, while some other accounts place it two months or more after the birth. This article reports the disagreement as the sources themselves leave it, rather than resolving it in favour of one account over the other.

Ibn Ishaq's narration adds that when Amina learned of her husband's death, she composed a lament for him — its content is not given in the sources consulted for this article, and none is supplied here.

Estate

Abdullah left very little property: five camels, a small number of goats, and a woman-servant named Barakah, who is better known by her kunya Umm Ayman. She went on to care for the infant Muhammad and remained attached to the household for the rest of her life, a role addressed further in the articles on Muhammad and on his mother.

Legacy

Abdullah's place in the sira is defined almost entirely by two facts that bracket his short life: that his father's vow of sacrifice fell on him before it fell on anything else, and that he died before his son could know him. The sources allow no fuller portrait of his character or his years as an adult than this, and this article does not supply one. What is preserved of him — his rescue as a young man, his marriage, and the manner and uncertain date of his death — is presented here as it stands in the earliest biographical literature.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Ibn Ishaq, as transmitted by Ibn Kathir — the narration of the vow of Abd al-Muttalib and the sparing of Abdullah
• Ibn Hisham, recension of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah — the account of Abdullah's death and burial in Medina

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar. Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya [English translation]. [Compiled c. 1373 CE]
• Al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. [Completed c. 915 CE]
• Ibn Sa'd, Muhammad. Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. [Compiled c. 845 CE]

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Al-Mubarakpuri, Safi-ur-Rahman. The Sealed Nectar (Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum). Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996.
• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
• Guillaume, Alfred, trans. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.

Further Reading

• Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1983.
• Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. The Life of Muhammad. Translated by Isma'il Razi al-Faruqi. Indianapolis: North American Trust Publications, 1976.
• Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.