Professor Dr. Muhammad Yaseen Mazhar Siddiqui writes:
Along with the mention of the recovery of the Zamzam spring, sources refer to the vow sacrifice of Hazrat Abdul Muttalib Hashmi, according to which he vowed that if the Lord of the Worlds granted him ten children, he would sacrifice one in the way of Allah near the Kaaba. This was because, while digging Zamzam, some prominent Quraysh, especially the head of the sub-branch Banu Nawfal of the Banu Abd Manaf family, Uday ibn Nawfal, mocked him, saying what was the need for so much effort and to become greater than others when he had no children except one son. The way Ibn Ishaq and others have narrated this tradition highlights its weakness:
قال ابن اسحاق : وكان عبد المطلب بن هاشم، فيما يزعمون والله اعلم قد نذر . حين لقي من قريش ما لقي عند حفر زمزم. لئن ولد له عشرة نفر ثم بلغوا معه حتى يمنعوه لينحرن اجدهم لله عند الكعبة فلما توافي بنوه عشرة وعرف انه سيمنعونه، جمعهم ثم اخبره بنذره و دعاهم إلى الوفاء لله بذلك فأطاعوه
In any case, according to the tradition, when his ten children grew up and became defenders, he gathered his children, informed them of his vow, encouraged them to fulfill it, and they all obeyed him.
The incident of fulfilling the vow and sacrificing camels in exchange is very lengthy. To summarize, it was decided to shoot arrows placed in the Kaaba for each child’s name, and the one whose name came out would be sacrificed. The keeper of the arrows of the Kaaba, the priest, performed this task, and each time the name of Hazrat Abdullah came up, and Abdul Muttalib decided to sacrifice him. When the elders of Quraysh saw in their gatherings that he was going to sacrifice Abdullah, they intervened and stood like an iron wall, saying they would not allow this. Eventually, faced with his firm determination, it was decided to seek a decision from a Hejazi soothsayer (kahina), and whatever she said would be done. For this purpose, they went to Medina and found out that the respected woman was in Khyber, so they presented themselves before her. After much thought, she decided that instead of the son, camels should be sacrificed. The number of camels increased through archery until it reached one hundred, and then the name of camels came in place of Abdullah. Abdul Muttalib sacrificed them and fulfilled his vow, saving his son.
Hadith Research:
There is considerable ambiguity in the traditions regarding the vow of Abdul Muttalib and the sacrifice of Abdullah in terms of their history and timing.
According to Ibn Ishaq and his followers among the authors of the Seerah, the matter of Abdullah’s marriage took place immediately after this event. This suggests that the vow of sacrificing the son and its fulfillment is an event from one or two years before the birth of the Prophet, i.e., around 570-571 CE, because shortly after the marriage, the tragedy of Abdullah’s death occurred.
قال ابن اسحاق: ثم انصرف عبد المطلب آخذا بيد عبد الله فمر به فيما يزعمون على امرأة من بني اسد بن عبد العزى بن قصي بن كلاب، و هي اخت ورقة بن نوفل وهى عند الكعبة فقالت له حين نظرت الى وجهه : اين تذهب يا عبد الله؟ قال : مع ابي، قالت: لك مثل الابل التى نحرت عنك وقع على الآن؟ قال: أنا مع ابي ولا استطيع خلافه ولا فراقه . . . .
In a narration of Baladhuri, transmitted on the authority of Hazrat Abdullah bin Ja’far bin Abi Talib bin Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi, the dates of the digging of Zamzam and the sacrifice of the son are mentioned.
The first event occurred in the fortieth year of Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi, and the second thirty years later.
In Waqidi’s narration, it is clarified that the event of sacrificing camels in place of the son happened five years before the incident of the Elephant, and in the same year, Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi’s eldest son Harith passed away, and the deceased’s son Rabiah was then two years old. Therefore, Rabiah was seven years older than the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him.
. . . . . . فمتى كان اراد ذبح ولده؟ قال : بعد ذلك اي حفر زمزم بثلاثين سنة. . . . . . وقال : وفي سنة التى نحر فيها عبد المطلب الأبل، مات الحارث بن عبد المطلب ولا بنه ربيعة سنتان- وقال الواقدي : وكان نحر الابل قبل الفيل بخمس سنين، فكان ربيعة اسن من رسول الله بسبع سنين.
On this basis, the event of the vow of sacrifice dates back to between 522 CE and 567 CE, when Abdul Muttalib was seventy years old. Considering the timing of events, this date and year seem correct as they correspond with the year of Abdul Muttalib’s death and his age. According to Ya’qubi, ten years after the discovery of Zamzam, Abdullah married Bibi Amina, and in one narration, it is stated that it happened fifteen years بضع عشرة سنة later, and there was a one-year gap between Abdullah’s marriage and his vow of sacrifice, i.e., one year before the marriage. This timing is quite different from Baladhuri’s and does not correspond with the years of the events.
In this chronological calculation and historical determination, it is also necessary to consider the birth years and ages of Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi’s children. There is a thirty-three-year gap between the eldest son Harith bin Abdul Muttalib and the youngest son Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib. Whatever Abdul Muttalib’s age was at Harith’s birth, at the time of Hazrat Hamza’s birth, the noble father’s age was seventy-two years. His birth was two years before the birth of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, i.e., around 569-570 CE, two years before the Year of the Elephant. This estimated calculation confirms Waqidi’s narrated account and also Baladhuri’s narration on the authority of Abdullah bin Ja’far. Therefore, the timing given by Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, and Suhaili, etc., is not correct. It seems that in Ibn Ishaq’s narration, a link between the two events “the son’s sacrifice and Abdullah’s marriage” is missing.
This is inferred from Ibn Saad’s narration, as he narrates Abdullah’s marriage as a completely separate event and does not connect it with the vow of the father and the son’s sacrifice, as will be discussed further.
A few words about Ibn Ishaq’s narration and method of narration are necessary here to determine the status and position of the narration and to unravel the reason for linking these two events. Although Ibn Ishaq rarely openly criticizes the Seerah narrations, his method is that when he considers a narration weak, unreliable, or popular, he inserts a phrase like “as people think” فيما يزعمون in the middle of the narration, and if he wants to indicate further weakness, he adds والله اعلم.
Similarly, for narrating reports, he uses words like قالوا (he said) or حدثوا (he narrated) instead of زعموا/زعم (he thinks/believes), and all these indications are criticism or words of weakening. At the beginning of the narration of Abdul Muttalib’s vow, فيما يزعمون، والله اعلم both reasons and causes of weakening and criticism are present. The narration about Abdullah’s most beloved son احب ولد عبد المطلب اليه contains فيما يزعمون. In the narration related to the soothsayer, this phrase appears again. For the narration of arrows appearing on a hundred camels, فزعموا is used, and in the meeting and dialogue with the Asadi woman about the covenant of Allah, فيما يزعمون is repeated. All these signs clearly indicate that this narration is popular, a story, and unreliable.
The arrangement of the entire narration about Abdul Muttalib’s vow, the intention to sacrifice his son Abdullah, the slaughter of camels in exchange, and the attempt of a woman to dissuade Abdullah’s father from marrying Bibi Amina bint Wahb al-Zuhri on the way, shows that the narrators with a flair for storytelling have fully replicated the historical event of the great sacrifice of Hazrat Ismail, son of Hazrat Ibrahim, in the story of Abdul Muttalib and Abdullah. The reflection of the Ibrahimic event appears in the story of Abdullah. It seems necessary to mention again some similarities between these two events in this regard.
1. Hazrat Ibrahim, peace be upon him, was commanded in a true dream to sacrifice his son and made a vow. The place of his great sacrifice was also around or near the Kaaba. The decision to sacrifice the most beloved son was made by Hazrat Ibrahim, peace be upon him. Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi, during a repetition, vowed to sacrifice one son near the Kaaba in the path of Allah after having ten sons. Abdul Muttalib decided to sacrifice his most beloved son Abdullah. According to some narrations, Abdul Muttalib was also commanded in a dream to fulfill the vow.
2. The son of Ibrahim showed complete obedience and submission and bowed his head to his father’s decision of sacrifice. All of Abdul Muttalib’s noble sons agreed to fulfill their father’s vow and submitted obediently.
3. Satan tried to prevent Hazrat Ibrahim from carrying out the intention and to stop Hazrat Ismail from obeying his father. The task of preventing Abdul Muttalib from this great intention was carried out by the relatives of Banu Makhzum, his maternal cousins.
4. The decision to slaughter an animal instead of the son was by divine decree, and a goat or sheep was sacrificed instead of Hazrat Ismail. To save Abdullah’s precious life, the services of a soothsayer/fortune teller were taken, who advised slaughtering camels instead of the son. According to Arab tradition, Abdul Muttalib drew lots on a hundred camels and found a substitute for his son.
5. On returning from the place of sacrifice, whether Hazrat Ismail was misled by some satanic or devilish entity or not, in contrast, Abdullah bin Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi was indeed dissuaded by a woman who referred to the “sacrifice of the camel” to prevent him from marrying Amina bint Wahb al-Zuhri, but the son’s obedience did not allow her to succeed.
From all these similarities and parallels of events, it becomes clear that the entire story of Abdul Muttalib’s vow is a popular tale and an attempt to liken the two noble Hashimi ancestors to Hazrat Ibrahim and Ismail, peace be upon them. This is a mythical storytelling. For detailed discussion, see: The Documentary Status of Abdul Muttalib Al-Hashimi’s Vow, Al-Furqan Lakahnu October 2002, pp. 33-44.
