Q: Hadith on Obedience to Husbands

Q: I was asked about the authenticity of the following hadith,

“If a woman prays her five, fasts her month, protects her chastity, and obeys her husband, then it will be said to her: enter Paradise from whichever of its gates you choose!”

A: This hadith is narrated back to three different Companions, but none of its chains are authenticated and they all suffer from major problems. For a discussion of all these problems, see pages 963-973 of the following study:

(الأحاديث المعلة في حق الزوج على الزوجة: دراسة حديثية)

By Dr. Ne’maat Muhammad al-Ja’fari, Associate Professor of Hadith and its Sciences at King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia). She teaches the science of the hidden faults in hadiths at the University and has published a number of books and studies in the field of Hadith. In this study, she analyses all the weak hadiths she could find in the main Sunni hadith books about the rights of husbands over their wives. She found and analysed twenty-eight such hadiths. She published it with the annual journal of al-Azhar University’s Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Women, Alexandria Branch (Issue 34, Vol 3, pp. 948 – 1043). (Click here to download it as PDF).

See also the related post: Hadiths on the Husband’s Right over his Wife.