Q: I was asked about the authenticity of this hadith,
It was narrated that Iyas bin ‘Abdullah bin Abu Dhubab said:
“The Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Do not hit the female servants of God.’ Then Umar came to the Prophet and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, the woman have become bold towards their husbands.’ So he allowed them to be hit. Then many women went around to the family of Muhammad, complaining about their husbads. The next day the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Last night seventy women came to the family of Muhammad, each woman complaining about her husband. Those (husbands who hit their wives) are not the best of you.’”
A: Imam Abu Dawud’s Sunan contains a small section in the Chapter of Marriage, called: Section: On the Hitting of Wives. In this section he narrates the hadith above as well as one more hadith, which I will also comment on for the sake of completion and benefit.
Hadith #1 (above): This hadith is disconnected (mursal). It comes from someone called Iyas ibn Abdullah, and the hadith experts (such as Imam Bukhari, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Nasa’i, Ibn Abi Hatim, Ibn Hibban, and Salah al-Din al-Ala’i) say he was not a Companion but a Follower. Therefore the hadith is not authentic because it does not go back to God’s Messenger ﷺ through a fully connected reliable chain.
The great hadith master Ibn Abi Hatim included this hadith in his book Kitāb al-Marāsīl (The book of mursal hadiths). In it he wrote that Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s student al-Athram asked him about Iyas ibn Abdullah, and Imam Ahmad replied that he was not a Companion. That is why Ibn Abi Hatim put this hadith in this book (Kitāb al-Marāsīl, p. 10).
The later hadith expert Salah al-Din al-Ala’i also quoted this in his book on mursal hadiths, in his section on narrators whose narrations are classified as mursal. He said, ‘Al-Athram quoted Ahmad that his narrations (there are only three of them) are disconnected and that he is not a Companion.’ (al-Ala’i, Jāmiʿ al-taḥṣīl fī aḥkām al-marāsīl, p. 147).
Imam Bukhari included this hadith in his book on narrators al-Tarikh al-Kabir in his section on Iyas and commented that Iyas is not a Companion (al-Tarikh al-Kabir, vol. 1 p. 440).
Ibn Hibban at first included this narrator in his book al-Thiqāt, in the section on the Companions, and said, ‘It is said that he had some Companionship.’ He later re-inserted him in the section on Followers, and he said, ‘It is said that he had some Companionship. That is wrong according to me.’ (al-Thiqāt, vol. 4, p. 34).
This Iyas only has three known narrations. As Ibn Hajar noted, Imam Ahmad did not narrate any of them in his Musnad, about which he said that he included every hadith worthy of consideration. Only one of these three, this one, can be found in a major collection as it was narrated by Abu Dawud in his Sunan. It was also narrated by al-Nasa’i in his larger al-Sunan al-Kubra in which he included many weak and disconnected narrations, but al-Nasa’i removed it from his al-Sunan al-Sughra (what people refer to as Sunan al-Nasa’i) in which he chose only the strong narrations. This is an indication that Imam Nasa’i also did not accept this narration as authentic.
The only reason that some very late scholars of Hadith authenticated this hadith is because some more lax, late hadith scholars believed we should accept the claims that he was a Companion. However, according to the great experts, he was not a Companion and this hadith is not connected and therefore not authentic.
Hadith # 2: On the authority of Umar ibn al-Khattab that the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘A man should not be asked about the reason for which he hit his wife.’
The hadith experts agree that this hadith is not authentic because it is narrated via Abd al-Rahman al-Musli.
Imam Ali ibn al-Madini rejected this hadith and pointed out its many problems as quoted by Ibn Kathir in Musnad al-Faruq (number 114).
Imam al-Bazzar in his Musnad (where he points out the problems with narrations) pointed out that it only comes from al-Musli who is not known to have narrated anything else.
Imam al-Dhahabi said: In its chain is Abd al-Rahman al-Musli, who is unknown (Mizan al-I’tidal, vol. 2, p. 602).
Abu l-Fath al-Azdi placed Abd al-Rahman al-Musli in his book of weak narrators, as quoted by Ibn Hajar (Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 6, p. 304).
Ibn Qattan said: This hadith is not authentic. (Bayan al-Wahm wa l-Iham, vol. 5, p. 524)
Ahmad Shakir graded it as weak in his edition of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Musnad (vol. 1, p. 77) and so did the joint editors of the Mu’assassat al-Risala edition. Al-Albani also graded it as weak (Irwa’ al-Ghalil, vol. 7, p. 98).
Imam Nasa’i included it in his large al-Sunan al-Kubra, in which he placed many weak and disconnected hadiths, but removed it from his al-Sunan al-Sughra (aka Sunan al-Nasa’i), in which he kept only the strong chains, indicating that this hadith is not authentic according to him.
The authors of the great encyclopaedia of Hadiths and their faults, al-Musnad al-Musannaf al-Mu’allal, quoted the criticisms of this hadith by Ali ibn al-Madini and al-Bazzar.
Therefore both hadiths in this section are not authentic.
I was later asked about another Hadith in A different section of the Sunan that also mentions hitting wives. The Hadith is the following:
Mu’awiyah al-Qushayri asked: Messenger of Allah, what is the right of the wife of one of us over him? He replied: That you should give her food when you eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, do not strike her on the face, do not revile her or separate yourself from her except in the house.
Abu Dawud said: The meaning of “do not revile her” is, as you say: “May Allah revile you”.
(Abu Dawud # 2142)
A:
The hadith of Mu’awiya al-Qushayri (a sahabi with very few hadiths) does not come from a strong chain, which is why it was not included by Bukhari or Muslim. Similarly, Nasa’i included it in his al-Sunan al-Kubra, but removed it from his al-Mujtaba (the one known as Sunan al-Nasa’i), because he was much stricter in that smaller collection and removed from it many of the weaker hadiths in his bigger collection. It is also worth noting that in Nasa’i’s version, the hadith says, ‘do not hit them’ rather than ‘do not hit their face.’
Imam Bukhari himself points out the weakness of this hadith in his Sahih. This hadith mentions that if someone was to keep away from their wives because of a dispute, he is only allowed to keep away from them within the confines of the home. Imam Bukhari wanted to say that this is incorrect, so he wrote a section heading:
Section on the Prophet ﷺ staying away from his wives outside their homes. It is mentioned about Mu’awiya ibn Hayda (al-Qushayri) that he raised the following (i.e. ascribed it to God’s Messenger): ‘do not leave them except in the home.’ However, the first (position) is more authentically narrated.
Imam Bukhari then proceeded to narrate two hadiths, one from Umm Salama and one from Ibn Abbas, about God’s Messenger ﷺ staying away from his wives for a month outside the home.
We see that Bukhari used the expression ‘it is mentioned about Mu’awiya’ (what the hadith experts call ‘seeghat al-tamreed’ (literally: the expression of indicating illness) to point out that from an isnad point of view, this cannot be ascribed to God’s Messenger ﷺ with certainty, and then points out from a content (matn) point of view that its content goes against two authentic hadiths
Basira Academy 