2.6 Return to Mecca When he was returned to Mecca, his grandfather, now a venerable old man, supported him handsomely and lavished upon him love and care. This great old man used to have a couch placed for hirnself in the shade of the Kaaba and all his sons used to come and sit on the ground around it as a sign of respect. But when Mohamed came, his grandfather made him sit on the couch beside him, patted him on the shoulder and showed him such marked affection that no one ever suggested that he ought to sit below with his uncles. One day, when Mohamed was about six years old, his mother decided to take him with her to visit his father's uncles, Banu Najjar of Yathrib. She took Umm Ayman, the only slave his father had left, with them. When they arrived in Yathrib, she showed him where his father had been before them and where he was buried. After a visit of one month in Yathrib, they mounted their camels and set out for Mecca. On the way, in a village called AI-Abwa, Amina fell ill and died. She was buried there, a few miles away from where Mohamed's father was buried. After his mother, the only parent he had known, was buried, Mohamed returned, a sad, small figure, with the slave Umm Ayman to Mecca. This endeared him yet more to his aged grandfather, and made the great man, who showed no sign of affection for his grown sons, tender and loving in the treatment of this small, lonely figure, but, as if fate insisted on making bereavement and grief the little boy's portion, his grandfather died when he was eight years old. Mohamed was inconsolable, following his grandfather's bier sobbing all the way.