The first thing that stuck out to me in the reading was the fact that the prophet Muhammad is not considered to be the son of God, the same way Jesus is, instead he is called God’s apostle or prophet, which I thought was an interesting comparison. I also thought it was fascinating to learn about how people lived their lives during this time in Arabia (the 500s), especially the fact that well-off babies, such as Muhammad, were given into the care of a foster mother (in this case Halima), usually for pay, and were raised by them instead of their biological mother. The fact that Muhammad did not even see his real mother again until he was two was very shocking to me, and it makes me wonder why this system was originally put into place and what benefits they believed it had for the child or parents. Including this, Halima went so far as to call Muhammad “my son” and seemed to serve as more of an adoptive mother to him, given that she raised him instead of his real mother, Amina.
Something else which stuck out to me was that Amina said when she was pregnant with Muhammad a “light went out from her which illuminated the castles of Busra in Syria…”, which I had never heard of before. I Googled the place and discovered that Busra is a town in Syria (which still exists today) and played a crucial role in the adolescence of Muhammad, as it was the first town he visited while on a trading trip with his uncle. I thought this was a very interesting part of the excerpt and it made me wonder what significance Busra held in Syria during Muhammad’s lifetime and why that town in particular was chosen during Amina’s pregnancy.