weakened by journeying and much
sorrow, and perhaps feeling her desire for life forsake her after the
fulfillment of her pilgrimage, sickened and died at Abwa, and Mahomet
and the slave girl continued their mournful way alone.

Amina is drawn by tradition in very vague outline, and Mahomet's memory
of her as given in the Kuran does not throw so much light upon the woman
herself as upon her child's devotion and affectionate memory of the
mother he lost almost before he knew her. His grief for her was very
real; she remained continually in his thoughts, and in after years
he paid tribute at her tomb to her tenderness and love for him.

"This is the grave of my mother ... the Lord hath permitted me to visit
it.... I called my mother to remembrance, and the tender memory of her
overcame me and I wept."

The sensitive, over-nervous child, left thus solitary, away from all his
kindred, must have brought back with him to Mecca confused but vivid
impressions of the long journey and of the catastrophe which lay at the
end of it. The uncertainty of his future, and the joys of gaining at
last a foster-father in Abd al Muttalib, finds reflection in the Kuran
in one little burst of praise to God: "Did He not find thee an orphan,
and furnish thee with a refuge?"

Life for two years as the foster-child of Abd al Muttalib, the venerable,
much honoured chief of the house of Hashim, passed very pleasantly for
Mahomet. He was the darling of his grandfather's last years of life; for,
perhaps having pity on his defencelessness, perhaps divining with that
prescience which often marks old age, something of the revelation this
child was to be to his countrymen, he protected him from the harshness of
his uncles. A rug used to be placed in the shadow of the Kaaba, and there
the aged ruler rested during the heat of the day, and his sons sat around
him at respectful distance, listening to his words. But the child
Mahomet, who loved his grandfather, ran fearlessly up, and would have
seated himself by Abd al Muttalib's side. Then the sons sought to
punish him for his lack of reverence, but their father prevented them:

"Leave the child in peace. By the God of my fathers, I swear he will one
day be a mighty prophet."

So Mahomet remained in close attendance upon the old man, until he died
in the eighth year after the Year of the Elephant, and there was mourning
for him in the houses of his sons.

When Abd al Muttalib knew his end was near he s