On the threshold of the temple was seated Quotila, a woman of the Bani Asad tribe. On catching sight of the lad, she started to her feet, evincing sudden surprise. She stared at him with strange persistence, because she was fascinated by a supernatural light that radiated from his brow. 'Whither art thou going?' she called to him.—'To where my father leadeth me.'—'Stop and listen to me. I offer thee a hundred camels, being as many as thy father was bound to sacrifice to save thy life, if thou wilt consent to throw thyself upon me, now at once.'—'I am in my father's company and cannot disobey him, nor leave him,' replied Abdullah, petrified at such shamelessness, especially in the presence of such a respectable person as Abdul Muttalib.
The young man turned away, filled with confusion, and rejoined Abdul Muttalib who took him to the house of Wahb ibn Abdi Manaf, whose daughter the Superintendent of the Well thought would make a good wife for his boy.
Wahb was one of the chieftains of the Bani Zahrah tribe and Abdul Muttalib being numbered among the princes of the Quraish, a most noble tribe, an alliance between two such authentically aristocratic families would be easily brought about and so the marriage of Abdullah, with Aminah, daughter of Wahb, took place without further loss of time.
Abdullah went off with his bride to the dwelling of Abu Talib, his uncle. There the marriage was consummated during the young couple's sojourn of three days and three nights. When the newly-married young man went out of the house, he came face to face again with Quotila, the woman who had previously hailed him with such lack of decency and he was surprised at her complete indifference as she saw him pass by. Abdullah was considered to be the handsomest youth in Makkah. His manly bearing had aroused the sensual passions of most of the women of the city to such an extent that, when his marriage was announced, they fell ill by dint of jealousy and disappointment. Quotila, however, was not a victim to vulgar lust, being the sister of Waraqah ibn Taufal, the learned man renowned throughout Arabia for his knowledge of the Sacred Books. From him she had learnt how, in that part of the country, a Prophet was about to come into the world, whose father would be known by rays of light illuminating his face with a pearly or starry sheen. This sign she had detected on the brow of Abdullah, and was haunted by the ambitious desire of becoming the mother of the coming Apostle. Her hopes dashed to the ground, she no longer heeded Abdullah, notwithstanding his good looks.
Knowing nothing of all this, he felt hurt at her indifference, following so quickly on her great ardour. 'How comes it that thou dost not ask me again for what thou hungered for but a little while ago?' he asked Quotila.—'Who art thou?' she replied.—'I am Abdullah bin Abdul Muttalib.'—'Art thou the stripling whose brow seemed to me to be surrounded with a luminous aureola which has now disappeared? What hath befell thee, since we first met?'
He apprised her of his marriage, and Quotila guessed that the radiance surrounding the future Prophet had passed away from the forehead of Abdullah into the womb of Aminah, his wife.—'By Allah, I made no mistake!' she told him. 'On thy brow I discovered the pure light that I would have dearly liked to possess in the depths of my body. But now it belongeth to another who will be delivered of "The Best Among Created Beings," and there remaineth naught of thee that I care for.'
Thus it came about that Abdullah, by the words that fell from the lips of this learned woman, got to hear of his wife's pregnancy and the future in store for his son. Abdullah did not live long enough to have the happiness of knowing his offspring, for Mohammad's father died at Yasrib two months before Aminah was delivered.
Aminah, mother of Allah's Chosen One, spoke thus:
"Since the day I carried my son in my womb, until I brought him forth, I never suffered the least pain. I never even felt his weight and should not have known the state I was in, if it had not been that after I conceived and was about to fall asleep, an angel appeared to me, saying: 'Dost thou not see that thou art pregnant with the Lord of thy Nation; the Prophet of all thy people? Know it full well.' At the same instant, a streak of light, darting out of my body, went up northwards—yea, even unto the land of Syria.
"When the day of my deliverance came due, the angel appeared to me again and gave me a warning: 'When thou shalt bring forth thy child into the world, thou must utter these words: 'For him I implore the protection of Allah, the Only One, against the wickedness of the envious,' and thou shalt call him by the name of Mohammad which means The Lauded, as he is announced in the Taurat and the Injil, for he will be lauded by all the inhabitants of Heaven and Earth.'"