Halimah al-Sa'diyahDramatizedWording is illustrative of Halimah's decision; her concern and the return of the child to Aminah are attested in the seerah accounts.
Saying
This concerns me. Let me return this child to Aminah.
~Age 4, c. 574 CE
As a small child, the Prophet ﷺ was raised in the desert by his foster mother, Halimah al-Sa'diyah. When he was four years old, he was playing with the other children when the angel Jibril came to him. The other children ran away in fear, but he stood his ground. Jibril overpowered him and laid him on the ground. He opened his chest and took out his heart. He removed a black portion from it and threw it away, saying that this was shaytan's portion in him. He then washed the heart in a golden cup of Zamzam water, put it back and sealed the chest.
Halimah's young son and her daughter Shayma ran to her screaming that their brother had been killed. Halimah rushed out and found him sitting with a pale face. He was frightened, but he was not screaming or crying. A line remained on his chest ﷺ where it had been opened, and it could still be seen late in his life.
The incident worried Halimah, and she decided then and there to return him to his mother, Aminah.
Most scholars link this incident to the verse "Have We not opened up your chest?" (Qur'an 94:1). Some scholars, drawing on verse 39:22, say that verse refers instead to his being guided to Islam. The incident is understood as the physical removal of shaytan's portion from his heart, part of the protection from major sin (ismah) that Allah grants the prophets. The same opening of the chest happened again almost 45 years later, on the Night Journey. The second time, there was no black clot left to remove.
This concerns me. Let me return this child to Aminah.
Every child that is born, shaytan assigns a qareen to him. Even me, except that Allah helped me against him, and now he has accepted Islam and only whispers good things to me.
Said when asked whether he too had a qareen.
That was shaytan's portion that he had in you.
Said immediately after Jibril removed a black portion from the young Prophet ﷺ's heart and cast it aside, during the Opening of the Heart at Halimah's camp.
I could still see the traces on his chest.
Recalling the mark left by the Opening of the Heart, decades after the incident, when the Prophet ﷺ was around sixty.
“Haven't we opened up your chest?”
Majority view links this verse to the Opening of the Heart, though some scholars read verse 39:22 as referring instead to his later guidance to Islam.
“I did not have any authority over you. I only called you, and you responded to me. So do not blame me; blame yourselves.”
Cited as a general teaching that shaytan has no real authority over a person -- only the ability to whisper -- raised during the discussion of the qareen assigned to every person (including the Prophet ﷺ) tied to this event.
“Can [the misguided be like] those whose hearts Allah has opened to Islam, so they are enlightened by their Lord?”
Minority scholarly opinion: some hold this ayah, rather than the majority view (Quran 94:1), is the Quranic reference to this incident, describing the Prophet ﷺ's heart being opened to Islam.
“Can [the misguided be like] those whose hearts Allah has opened to Islam, so they are enlightened by their Lord?”
A minority of scholars hold this ayah instead refers to the Prophet ﷺ's guidance to Islam, not the physical Opening of the Heart.