Particularly dear to him were his younge uncle Hamzah and his aunt Safiyyah, the children of Abd Al-Muttalib's last marriage which had taken place on the same day as that of Mohammad's parents. Hamzah was of his own age, Safiyyah a little bit younger, and a powerful and lasting bond was formed between the three of them.
When he was six years old, his mother decided to take him on a visit to his kinsmen in Yathrib. They joined one of the northbound caravans, riding on two camels, Aminah on one of them and he on the other with his devoted slave girl, Barakah.
In later life he recounted how he learned to swim in a pool which belonged to his Khazrajite kinsmen with whom they stayed, and how the boys taught him to fly a kite.
But not long after they had set out on their return journey Aminah fell ill and they were obliged to halt, letting the caravan go on without them. After some days she died - it was at Abwj, not far from Yathrib - and there she was buried.
Barakah did what she could to console the boy, now doubly an orphan, and in the company of some travellers she brought him once more to Mecca.
His grandfather now took complete charge of him, and it soon became clear that his special love for his son Abdullah had been transferred to that of grandson.
Abd Al-Muttalib was always happy to be near The Holy Kaba, as when it had been his wont to sleep in the Hijr at the time when he had been ordered to dig the well of Zamzam. So his family use to spread him a couch every day in the shadow of the Holy House, and out of respect for their father none of his sons, not even Hamzah, would ever venture to sit on it
But his little grandson had no such scruples, and when his uncles told him to sit elsewhere Abd Al-Muttalib said,
"Let my son be. For by God, a great future is his."
He would seat him beside him on the couch, and carress fonderly his back, and it always pleased him to watch what he was doing. Almost every day they could be seen together, hand in hand, at the Kaba or elsewhere in Mecca.
Abd Al-Muttalib even took Muhammad with him when he went to attend the Assembly where only the chief men of the town, all over forty, would meet to discuss various matters, nor did the eighty year old man refrain from asking the seven year-old boy his opinion on matters dissccused. When called to question by his fellow dignitaries, he would always say to them,
"A great future is in store for my son."
Two years after the death of his mother, the orphan was bereaved once again. This time of his grandfather. When he was dying, Abd Al-Muttalib entrusted his grandson to his son Abu Taleb who was full brother to Abdullah the boy's father. His uncle Abu Taleb continued the same warm effection and kindness to his newphew Mohammad and layer protected him from his enemies of Quraysh.
Hence forth he was brought up as one of his own sons, and his wife Fatimah Bint Assad did all she could to replace the boy's mother.
Years later, Mohammad used to say of her that she would have let her own children go hungry rather than have him hunger.