came upon a valley where there is a tree from which others have already eaten, and you found another tree that had not yet been touched—under which one would you let your camel graze?”
He answered, “The tree that has not been eaten from.”
She said, “That is me,” meaning that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had never married a virgin other than her. 1
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah narrated—through Abū Saʿd, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Aswad, from his father—that ʿĀʾishah said:
“The Prophet ﷺ did not marry me until Gabriel brought him my image and said, ‘This is your wife.’ So he married me while I was still a young girl, wearing a ḥawf (a girdle of leather straps fastened around a child’s waist). When he married me, modesty overwhelmed me, for I was very young.” 2
This report is transmitted only by Abū Saʿd—he is Saʿīd ibn al-Marzubān, the greengrocer—and his hadith is considered soft.
Yahyā ibn Yamān narrated—through al-Thawrī, from Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah—who said:
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ contracted marriage with me in Shawwāl and consummated the marriage with me in Shawwāl. Which of his wives, then, enjoyed greater favour with him than I?” 3
The Arabs used to regard it as auspicious for their women to enter their husbands’ homes in the month of Shawwāl.
(1) Reported by al-Bukhari, 9/104, Book of Marriage, chapter “Marrying Virgins.” The name of Ismaʿil’s brother is ʿAbd al-Hamid.
(2) The hadith is also found in al-Hakim’s al-Mustadrak, 4/9, which he declared authentic and with which al-Dhahabi agreed on that occasion. In the present isnad, however, al-Dhahabi judged it weak because of Abu Saʿd al-Baqqal, and this verdict is sound. Al-Fallas said: “He is weak in hadith, to be abandoned”; Abu Zurʿa: “His hadith is poor”; al-Bukhari: “His reports are munkar (objectionable)”; Abu Hatim: “His narrations are not to be used as evidence”; al-Nasaʾi: “Weak,” and elsewhere, “Not reliable; his hadith is not recorded.” Ibn Hajar, Taqrib, summarises: “Weak, a mudallis (one who conceals defects in transmission).”
(3) Yahya ibn Yaman is truthful but often makes mistakes; here, however, he is corroborated. The hadith is transmitted by Muslim (no. 1423) in the Book of Marriage, chapter “The recommendation to marry and to consummate in Shawwal,” by al-Darimi 2/145, Book of Marriage, chapter “A man consummating with his wife in Shawwal,” by Ahmad in al-Musnad 6/54 and 206, by Ibn Saʿd 8/59, by Ibn Majah (no. 1990), Book of Marriage, chapter “When it is recommended to consummate the marriage,” and by al-Nasaʾi 6/70, Book of Marriage, chapter “Marriage in Shawwal,” all through chains from Sufyan. Their wording adds: “ʿAʾisha used to prefer that the women she prepared for marriage consummate in Shawwal.”