A Boy Born in Mecca

What happens with the Arabs is that in 570 of the Christian era a boy is born in Mecca, to a mother, Āminah, whose husband had died during her pregnancy. And this boy is named Muhammad (peace be upon him). During this time, for the first few years of his life, he is sent to the desert, to the oral Arabs, to learn the language through this tradition of the Arabs in raising children.

The aristocratic Arabs would send their children to the desert Arabs, because they considered that these were the most eloquent Arabs. They wanted the children to absorb the language within the first five years of their life, because they recognised that children raised amongst these people, who spoke a very powerful Arabic, would also have strong Arabic even if they spent the later portion of their life in the city.

And so, for the first forty years of this man's life — looking at it just in terms of a human life — very little of significance occurs. By all intents and purposes, one would really say that had the Prophet not reached his fortieth year, he would have been known amongst his people perhaps for one thing only, which was that he was extremely trustworthy. He was a very quiet person. He did not speak much. He did not quote poetry. He was not a poet. He was not known to engage in discourse with the people. He was a contemplative person; he liked to go off and reflect on his own. He was known to be extremely kind to poor people and to orphans. This is all mentioned in the tradition.

Other than that, he had no aspirations of being a leader within his people, as some people would. He was from an aristocratic clan, but he happened to be from a sub-grouping within that clan that was on bad times: Banū Hāshim.