wikishia:Featured Article/2017/3

'Abd Allah b. 'Abd al-Muttalib (Arabic: عبد اللّه بن عبد المُطَّلِب), is the father of the Prophet Muhammad (s) that passed away before the birth of his son, Muhammad (s). Unlike Sunni scholars, most of the Shi'a scholars believe that he was a monotheist.

When 'Abd al-Muttalib was digging for the Zamzam well, he had only one son; after he discovered the Zamzam well, Quraysh opposed his ownership of the well, and stated that they must have a share of the well. When he saw that he had only one son in order to defend himself, made a vow (nadhr) that if Allah will give him 10 sons, he will sacrifice one of them in the way of Allah, by Ka'ba. When his son's count reached 10; he draw lot in order to choose one of his sons to be sacrificed and the name of 'Abd Allah became drawn. But people opposed the slaughter. So they decided to draw between 10 camels and 'Abd Allah, if the 10 camels became drawn, they will be slaughtered in place of him, if 'Abd Allah became drawn, 10 more camels are added, and the draw is repeated. At last, when the count of camels reached 100, the camels were drawn, 'Abd al-Muttalib repeated the lot three times and in all of them the camels were drawn; after 'Abd al-Muttalib became sure that Allah had accepted the camels in place of 'Abd Allah, 100 camels slaughtered in place of 'Abd Allah and given to the poor.

The Prophet (s) mentioned the story in a hadith: "I am the son of the two sacrifices". Imam al-Rida (a) says about the hadith: "the two sacrifices are Isma'il and 'Abd Allah".Read more...