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The camel carried the traveller across long stretches of desert, while the horse embodied speed, beauty and preparedness. Sheep and goats belonged to another side of Arabian life: quieter, closer to the home, and woven into the ordinary rhythm of pasture, milk, food and livelihood. The Qurʾān draws attention even to the beauty of this daily scene, describing grazing livestock as a source of warmth and benefit and speaking of the pleasure of seeing them return in the evening and go out to pasture in the morning.[1]

“And the grazing livestock He has created for you; in them is warmth and [numerous] benefits, and from them you eat. And for you in them is [the enjoyment of] beauty when you bring them in [for the evening] and when you send them out [to pasture]. (Qurʾān 16:5–6)

In Arabic, al-ghanam is a collective term that can include both sheep (ḍaʾn) and goats (maʿz). Sheep and goats continued to appear around him ﷺ in different ways throughout his life: in the pastures of his youth, in his household in Madīnah, on the road of Hijrah, at moments of hospitality, and even in acts of worship.

“Every Prophet Was a Shepherd”

Abū Hurayrah رضي الله عنه relates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said that Allah did not send any prophet except that he shepherded sheep. When the Companions asked whether this included him, he replied:

“Yes. I used to shepherd the sheep of the people of Makkah for a few qirāṭs.”[2]

The statement is striking in its simplicity. The man before them was now the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the recipient of revelation and the leader of the community of Madīnah. Yet he spoke without hesitation of having once worked for the people of Makkah, tending their animals for wages.

Shepherding was patient work rather than spectacular work. A shepherd had to find pasture, keep together what naturally scattered, watch for danger, notice weakness and bring the flock home safely. Classical scholars saw wisdom in the fact that the prophets passed through this experience before carrying responsibility for people. Ibn Ḥajar records the explanation that tending sheep trained them in patience and compassion: gathering animals after they scattered, protecting them from predators and thieves, recognising differences in temperament, and caring for creatures that were weak and constantly in need of attention.[3]

Later, the Prophet ﷺ would guide people of very different temperaments: the strong and the vulnerable, the impulsive and the cautious, the newly converted and the deeply learned. His task was not only to speak, but to teach, correct, encourage, forgive and patiently gather people around the truth. The pasture, in the words of the commentators, was a quiet preparation for a much greater trust.

A Taste Remembered from the Pasture

The shepherd years did not disappear from his memory. Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh رضي الله عنه recalls that the Companions were once with the Prophet ﷺ at Marr al-Ẓahrān, gathering kabāth, the fruit of the arāk tree. He told them to take the black ones because they were the best. They immediately asked whether he had once tended sheep. He replied: “Yes. Is there any prophet who did not tend them?”[4]

It is a small scene, but a memorable one. By then, revelation had come, the Hijrah had taken place, and Madīnah had become the centre of a growing community. Yet he still remembered which desert fruit tasted best from the days when he moved through the grazing lands. Earlier stages of life were not erased by later honour.

The Ewe at Umm Maʿbad’s Tent

Sheep enter the Sīrah again on the road of Hijrah. The Prophet ﷺ, Abū Bakr رضي الله عنه, ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah and their guide passed the tent of Umm Maʿbad al-Khuzāʿiyyah during a time of drought. The travellers asked whether she had food that they could purchase, but scarcity had left her with almost nothing.

Near the tent was an ewe too weak to go out with the flock. When the Prophet ﷺ asked whether it had milk, Umm Maʿbad explained that the animal was more exhausted than that. He asked permission to milk it. She agreed if he found anything in it.

The Sīrah report relates that he brought the ewe close, mentioned Allah’s name and prayed for blessing. Milk flowed. He gave Umm Maʿbad to drink, then his companions, and drank after them. He milked again and left milk for the household before continuing the journey.[5]

When everyone had rested and drunk their fill, he milked the ewe again and left a full vessel of milk with Umm Maʿbad before continuing the journey.

Soon afterwards her husband returned, driving a few thin goats weakened by the drought. He was astonished to see milk in the tent when their animals had produced none.

“Where did this milk come from?” he asked.

Umm Maʿbad replied that a blessed man had passed by them.

What followed became one of the most celebrated physical descriptions of the Prophet ﷺ in the literature of the Sīrah: Umm Maʿbad described to her husband the appearance, speech, dignity and manner of the traveller who had stopped at their tent.

According to a later Sīrah report from Umm Maʿbad, the ewe whose udder the Prophet ﷺ had touched on the road of Hijrah remained with her household for many years afterwards—until the time of ʿĀm al-Ramādah, the devastating famine during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb رضي الله عنه. Umm Maʿbad is reported to have said that they continued to milk the ewe morning and evening, even at a time when milk had become almost impossible to find anywhere around them[6].

In the Home of Madīnah

Years later, sheep and goats were part of the ordinary world of the Prophet’s ﷺ own household. ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها was asked what he did at home. In the well-known report, she said that he remained in the service of his family until the time for prayer came. Another authentic narration gives a more concrete picture: he would attend to his garment, milk his sheep and serve himself.[7]

There is no grandeur in the scene, and that is precisely what makes it powerful. Outside the home he was the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, teacher of the Companions and leader of Madīnah. Inside, he could sit and milk an animal himself. His position did not place ordinary work beneath him.

A revealing glimpse into the Prophet’s ﷺ household comes in the report of Laqīṭ ibn Ṣabirah رضي الله عنه, who arrived in Madīnah with the delegation of Banū al-Muntafiq. Finding the Prophet ﷺ away from home, the visitors were received by ʿāʾishah رضي الله عنها, who prepared food for them and served dates.

When the Prophet ﷺ returned, his first question was whether the guests had been given something to eat. While they sat together, the shepherd brought the flock back to its enclosure, accompanied by a newborn lamb.

The Prophet ﷺ asked what had been born and then instructed the shepherd to slaughter a sheep in its place. Yet he immediately turned to Laqīṭ and clarified: “Do not think that we slaughtered it because of you. We have one hundred sheep and do not want them to increase; whenever the shepherd brings a newborn, we slaughter a sheep in its place.”[8]

The scene brings together several features of Prophetic domestic life: a managed flock of one hundred sheep, careful attention even to a new birth among them, and a household in which hospitality was offered readily but without display or making the guest feel indebted. The visitor was honoured, yet the Prophet ﷺ deliberately removed any sense that an exceptional expense had been incurred merely to impress him. Hospitality here appears not as extravagance, but as generosity joined with simplicity, sincerity and freedom from ostentation.

Ibn Saʿd reports that the Prophet ﷺ had milch animals (manāʾiḥ), and transmits names including ʿAjwah, Zamzam, Suqyā, Barakah, Warsah, Iṭlāl, Iṭrāf, Qumrah and Ghawthah or Ghawthiyyah. Other reports mention a goat called al-Yumn and goats tended by Umm Ayman رضي الله عنها.  Livestock were part of the Prophetic household's daily economy.[9]

One such report tells of a milch sheep called Qamar or Qumrah. When it failed to return, the Prophet ﷺ asked what had happened and was told that it had died. He then asked what had been done with its hide, and the report preserves his instruction to tan it. The general ruling itself is independently established in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Even the death of an animal became an occasion for practical guidance and avoidance of needless waste.[10][11]

A Little Goat at the Trench

During the digging of the Trench, another goat entered the memory of the Sīrah. Madīnah was under severe pressure, the work was exhausting, and food was scarce. Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh رضي الله عنه saw the hunger of the Prophet ﷺ and went home distressed by what he had seen. His family had a measure of barley and a small young goat.

Jābir slaughtered the goat while his wife prepared the barley. He quietly invited the Prophet ﷺ, intending to invite only a few people because the meal was so small. Instead, the Prophet ﷺ called the people working at the Trench. He came to Jābir’s home, invoked Allah’s blessing over the food and instructed them how to serve it. Jābir reports that around a thousand people ate until they were satisfied, while food remained.[12]

One small goat and a measure of barley became part of a communal meal in one of the hardest moments of the Madinan period. Scarcity became abundance, and a private invitation became provision for an entire group.

“Tranquillity Is Among the People of Sheep”

The Prophet ﷺ also associated the people of sheep with sakīnah and waqār—tranquillity and sobriety. In an authentic narration, he contrasted these qualities with pride and boastfulness found among certain rough pastoral environments. The statement is not a judgement on every owner of one kind of animal. Classical commentators understood it in connection with ways of life and the dispositions that repeated habits can cultivate.[13]

The connection with shepherding is nevertheless suggestive. Sheep and goats are vulnerable creatures that require regular gathering, watching and protection. The shepherd must notice what wanders, wait for what falls behind and care for what is weak. The work rewards attentiveness rather than display. The Prophetic vocabulary of sakīnah therefore fits naturally beside the earlier ḥadīth that every prophet tended a flock.

From Provision to Worship

Sheep were not only part of livelihood and household provision; they also entered the Prophet’s ﷺ life as sacrifice. Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه reports that the Prophet ﷺ sacrificed two horned, amlaḥ rams with his own hands, mentioning Allah’s name and saying the takbīr.[14]

Yet lawful use of an animal never cancelled the duty of mercy. Shaddād ibn Aws رضي الله عنه relates the Prophet’s ﷺ universal principle: “Allah has prescribed iḥsān in all things.” He then instructed that when an animal is slaughtered, the act should be done well, the blade sharpened and unnecessary suffering avoided.[15]

This balance characterises the Prophetic approach to animals. Sheep and goats could provide milk, meat, hides and sacrifice. But usefulness did not make cruelty permissible. Even at the moment of slaughter, the animal remained a creature towards which iḥsān was required.

A Darker Appearance at Khaybar

The Sīrah also preserves a much darker episode involving a sheep. After Khaybar, a cooked sheep containing poison was presented to the Prophet ﷺ. The core incident is authentically established, and during his final illness he referred to the continuing pain from what he had eaten at Khaybar. Here the same kind of animal that elsewhere appears as livelihood, hospitality and sacrifice became the vehicle of an attempted killing. The episode's moral character lay not in the animal, but in the human intention behind its use.[16]

From Tending a Flock to Caring for an Ummah

Taken together, these reports give sheep and goats an unexpectedly rich place in the Prophetic Sīrah. They appear in the youth of Muḥammad ﷺ when he worked as a shepherd in Makkah; in a remembered taste from the arāk tree; in the blessing at Umm Maʿbad’s tent; in the ordinary work of his home; in a carefully managed household flock; in Jābir’s small meal during the Trench; and in acts of sacrifice governed by iḥsān.

Yet the earliest image remains the most enduring: the shepherd.

The Prophet ﷺ said that every prophet tended sheep. Classical commentators saw in that work training in patience, gentleness, vigilance, and responsibility. The shepherd cannot care only for those animals that remain nearest to him. He must watch for the one that strays, the one that weakens and the one that falls behind. He gathers what scatters and protects what has been entrusted to him.

Years later, people of very different backgrounds and temperaments would gather around the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The trust was infinitely greater, but the virtues recognised by the scholars were familiar: patience with those who wandered, gentleness towards the weak, vigilance against danger, and responsibility for the whole community.

Before people gathered around his minbar, there had been flocks in the pastures of Makkah. Before an Ummah looked to him for guidance, vulnerable creatures had already been entrusted to his care.

Leadership, in the Prophetic model, begins not with being served, but with learning how to care.

References:

[1] Qurʾān 16:5–6. Translation adapted from Saheeh International.

[2] Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Ijārah, no. 2262, from Abū Hurayrah رضي الله عنه.

[3] Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-Bārī bi-Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Ijārah, Bāb Raʿy al-Ghanam ʿalā Qarārīṭ, 4:516–517. Ibn Ḥajar records the scholars’ explanation that shepherding trained the prophets in patience, compassion, gathering what scatters, protecting the weak and recognising differing temperaments.

[4] Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Aṭʿimah, no. 5453, from Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh رضي الله عنه.

[5] The account of Umm Maʿbad is transmitted through multiple Sīrah routes. See Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah, 3:188–190; al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah, 2:493. Ibn Kathīr described the story as “narrated through routes that strengthen one another” (marwī min ṭuruq yashuddu baʿḍuhā baʿḍan). It is therefore cited here as Sīrah material rather than at the level of the Ṣaḥīḥayn.

[6] Al-Zurqānī, Sharḥ al-Zurqānī ʿalā al-Mawāhib al-Ladunniyyah bi al-Minaḥ al-Muḥammadiyyah, vol. 2, p. 142, chapter: “The Hijrah of the Chosen Prophet ﷺ and His Companions to Madīnah.”

[7] Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 676, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها, on the Prophet ﷺ serving his family. The fuller wording mentioning that he would mend his garment, milk his sheep and serve himself is transmitted by Aḥmad (26194), al-Bukhārī in al-Adab al-Mufrad (541), Abū Yaʿlā (4873) and Ibn Ḥibbān (5675), with an authentic chain.

[8] Abū Dāwūd, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Kitāb al-Ṭahārah, no. 142, from Laqīṭ ibn Ṣabirah رضي الله عنه. Al-Albānī graded the report ṣaḥīḥ in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd.

[9] Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, 1:496, in the reports on the Prophet’s ﷺ manāʾiḥ; see also al-Ṣāliḥī al-Shāmī, Subul al-Hudā wa al-Rashād, 7:412–413. These details are biographical reports and are not assigned the same evidentiary status as reports in the Ṣaḥīḥayn.

[10] The general ruling is authentically established in Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, no. 366a and related narrations: “When the hide is tanned, it becomes purified.”

[11] Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, 1:496; al-Ṣāliḥī al-Shāmī, Subul al-Hudā wa al-Rashād, 7:412–413, for the report concerning the milch sheep Qamar/Qumrah and its hide.

[12] Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, no. 4102, from Jābir ibn ʿAbdillāh رضي الله عنه; see also no. 3070. The longer report describes the small goat and barley meal during the digging of the Trench and states that about one thousand people ate.

[13] Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Īmān, no. 52k (and related wordings 52d–f): “Tranquillity and sobriety are found among the owners of sheep.” See also al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 3301.

[14] Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Aḍāḥī, no. 1966a–b, from Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه. The Prophet ﷺ sacrificed two horned amlaḥ rams with his own hand, mentioning Allah’s name and saying the takbīr.

[15] Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Ṣayd wa al-Dhabāʾiḥ, no. 1955a, from Shaddād ibn Aws رضي الله عنه: “Allah has prescribed iḥsān in all things…” The report instructs that the blade be sharpened and the animal spared unnecessary suffering.

[16] Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 2617, from Anas ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه, on the poisoned cooked sheep presented to the Prophet ﷺ; and no. 4428, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها, on the Prophet ﷺ recalling the pain of the food from Khaybar during his final illness.