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During the interlude she rarely enjoyed, Haleema, being a loving and caring mother, often used to mull over the future of Masroud, her own son. She was the product of the Bedouin life; she herself had been living the life of a Bedouin. Her long experience convinced her that no matter how industrious and brave her son may turn out to be, the bareness of the desert and the conditions that obtained in it, would never afford him an opportunity to live a life that could even distantly be compared with the one that some people of Mecca lived. She, therefore, wanted her son to go to Mecca to live there a comfortable life. But how was she going to send her son to Mecca? was the question she must have consistently asked herself.
Haleema thought and thought. Lost in it, she spent many, many nights without sleep. Even during the day, her mind remained occupied with her only thought: how to induct Masroud, with a secured base, into the Meccan life?
Her constant and persistent exploration of possibilities eventually paid the dividend. It dawned on her that she could achieve her ambition easily, if she arranged to return Muhammad to his mother in Mecca with an undetectable switch. The switching plan required Haleema simply to have Muhammad substituted by Masroud and plant him in Amina’s house where, she knew for sure, there was none who would ever suspect or question his identity.
Pleased with her plan, Haleema began working on its implementation. First of all, she needed to call Muhammad Masroud, and Masroud Muhammad. For a fleeting moment, the infants appeared a little confused, but then they got used to the change. And this change proved hugely instrumental in turning around the destinies of two innocent infants; one of them was going to change, undeservedly, the face of the earth; the other was going to live, undeservedly for him, too, the life of an anonymous Bedouin!
The second step of the plan required Haleema to create a situation that would facilitate her son’s plantation in Amina’s house. This step required her to conceive a scenario that would not only fit in the pagans’ age-old belief, it would also soften Amina’s attitude towards her son whom she despised from the core of her heart. And what could be a better scenario than the following, which she made use of, in order to convince Amina that her son was really a prodigious child.
No sooner had Muhammad stepped into the fifth year of his life, Haleema began telling everyone about the prodigious nature of her adopted son. She took special pleasure in narrating the child’s encounter with two angels whom, she claimed, her son Masroud, had seen with his own eyes, surrounding Muhammad in a broad daylight.
Pressed for details, she used to tell her listeners that one day, Masroud and Muhammad were playing in the field. While they were engrossed in their play, from nowhere, two angels appeared before Muhammad.