Abu Talib was the Prophet ﷺ's uncle and raised him after his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib died while he was still a boy. The Prophet loved him deeply, and Abu Talib shielded him from Quraysh's harm through the years of the call until he died around 619 CE. Muslims agree on his goodness and differ on his Islam.
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Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib
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Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet ﷺ's uncle and Ali's father, was the chief of Banu Hashim in Mecca. He took in the orphaned Prophet after his grandfather's death around 578 CE — the famous accounts take the boy with him on trade journeys to Syria — then remained his protector when the call was declared: the sira records him defending his nephew against Quraysh's delegations demanding him, and sharing the Muslims' three-year blockade in the quarter of Abu Talib. He died around 619 CE in the Year of Sorrow, the year Khadija also died. His faith is the oldest dispute in the books: the Shia hold he became Muslim and ascribe to him poetry of support; Sunnis read his protection as kinship loyalty and cite the accounts of his dying on his fathers' way.
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