Sura 93.

      “By the rising sunshine! 
      By the night when it darkeneth! 
    Thy Lord hath not removed from thee, neither hath he been displeased. 
    And verily the future shall be better than the past.... 
    What! did he not find thee an orphan, and give thee a home? 
    And found thee astray, and directed thee?”

In this Sura, Mohammed refers to the fact of the death of his mother, Amina, in his seventh year, his father having died a few months before.  He visited her tomb many years after, and lifted up his voice and wept.  In reply to the questions of his companions, he said:  “This is the grave of my mother; the Lord hath permitted me to visit it, and I asked leave to pray for her, and it was not granted.  So I called my mother to remembrance, and the tender memory of her overcame me, and I wept.”  The child had been taken by his grandfather, Abd al Mut-talib, then eighty years old, who treated him with the greatest indulgence.  At his death, shortly after, Mohammed was adopted by his uncle, Abu Talib, the chief of the tribe.  Abu Talib brought him up like his own son, making him sleep by his bed, eat by his side, and go with him wherever he went.  And when Mohammed, assuming his inspired position, declared himself a prophet, his uncle, then aged and universally respected, protected him from his enemies, though Abu himself never accepted his teaching.  Mohammed therefore had good reason to bless the Providence which had provided such protectors for his orphaned infancy.

Among the earliest converts of Mohammed, after Khadijah, were his two adopted children, Ali and Zeid.  Ali was the son of his guardian, Abu Talib, who had become poor, and found it hard to support his family.  Mohammed, “prompted by his usual kindness and consideration,” says Mr. Muir, went to his rich uncle Abbas, and proposed that each of them should adopt one of Abu Talib’s children, which was done.  His other adopted son, Zeid, belonged to a Syrian tribe, and had been taken captive by marauders, sold into slavery, and given to Khadijah, who presented him to her husband.  After a while the father of Zeid heard where he was, and coming to Mecca offered a large sum as ransom for his son.  Mohammed had become very fond of Zeid, but he called him, and gave him his choice to go or stay.  Zeid said, “I will not leave thee; thou art in the place to me of father and mother.”  Then Mohammed took him to the Kaaba, and touching the Black Stone said, “Bear witness, all here!  Zeid is my son.  I shall be his heir, and he mine.”  So the father returned home contented, and Zeid was henceforth known as “Zeid ibn Mohammed,”—­Zeid, the son of Mohammed.