Halima

Halima was very poor, but from the moment that she took care of Muhammad things seemed to change for the better.

The goats belonging to Halima and her husband had lots of healthy baby goats, and the mother goats gave lots of milk that they could drink.

Their chickens grew fat, and the others in her clan used to say

"Take our sheep to the place where Halima's sheep graze"

because Halima's sheep were always so healthy and well fed.

When Muhammad was two years old, he was so fit and healthy that Halima thought that it was time for him to go back to Makkah and live with his mother Amina,

but Amina was still worried that Muhammad might get sick if he came back to the city,

and said that she was happy for Halima to continue to look after him in the clean air of the desert.

In the years that followed, Muhammad grew stronger, and helped watch the sheep with his foster brother and sister.

But one day, when he was three years old, Halima's children came running to their mother

shouting that two strangers, all in white, had taken Muhammad.

When Halima and her husband ran to see what had happened, they found no strangers,

but Muhammad was standing there looking pale and shaken.

Muhammad said that the two strangers had laid him down, opened up his chest and taken something from it.

But they had left no marks upon his body, and had vanished without trace.

Later in his life,

when it was realised just how special Muhammad was,

it was said that these two strangers were actually angels

who had washed away all trace of sin from Muhammad's heart.