An Extraordinary Childhood - By Dr. Muhammad Fawzi

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

طفولة غير عادية
بقلم الدكتور محمد فوزي

An Extraordinary Childhood
By Dr. Muhammad Fawzi

It goes without saying to theologians– including even non-Muslims– that one of God's laws of nature is to prepare the universe for receiving a God-chosen forthcoming prophet; for the quality of prophethood is an exceptional one in itself, to say nothing of miracles that support prophets' divine messages whether theoretically or practically.
This is a key to understanding why the childhood of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was an exceptional one. Nevertheless, this notion should not contradict in a reader's mind with an essential Islamic article of faith that the prophet is a human being as God stresses in the Quran: "…and Muhammad is but a messenger, just like the messengers before" (Kin of Imran: 144), that is a human being distinguished with delivering God's divine message.
Miraculousness, however, has not only marked the prophet's whole life and thus childhood, but it started before his cradle too. His birth converged with the year when Abraha, an Abyssinian subject who was ruling Yemen then, headed with an army for Mecca which was the birthplace of the Prophet and a religious center before his time (consider "The Sealed Nectar"/Ibn Hesham's "Prophetic Biography"/ "The Encarta® Desk Encyclopedia"). He wanted to destroy the Kaaba (a one-room stone structure in Mecca.[1]); but the time he reached it, God sent birds with stones in their legs that showered Abrah's Army till death (see the Quranic chapter "The Elephant").
The prophet was then born for a short-lived father and mother: the former died even before his birth whilst the latter died when he was only six years. Those years were fraught with both tragedy and marvelousness. Following his birth, the infant (pbuh) was taken to a nearby tribe, Bani Sa'd, for breast-feeding. His years there are reported (ibid) to have seen a miraculous incident when Gabriel came to the four-year-old child, cleaved his chest, washed his heart in a golden vessel filled with water from Zamzam spring and purified the heart from Satan's share (hadith no. 236 in Muslim's Authentic Book "Sahih"/Quranic chapter "The Dilation/Expansion").
The news flew to the family that took the child soon: thus, from the foster-mother's house to his mother's one, who died soon, then to his grandfather's home, who believed the child was special and blessed.
In his sittings, the grandfather made a special place for Muhammad (pbuh) never touched by anybody else. And with another tragedy, the grandfather died when the child (pbuh) reached eight years and was relocated in his uncle's house, who took him later in one of his travels to the Levant (ibid).
On his journey with the 12-year-old boy (pbuh), the uncle passed by a Jewish ascetic who told the child would be a God-chosen person, a mercy for all the worlds, and the seal of all prophets.

[1]The Encarta® Desk Encyclopedia. The American Heritage Dictionary