ʿAlī replied, “You have left us nothing to add! Had you said anything other than what you just did, I would have taken a dislike to you.”
She answered, “When three men are so outstanding that you are the least of them, they must truly be an elect company. (1)
Ibn ʿUyaynah narrated—through Ismāʿīl, from Qays—that ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “The burn-marked woman (2) has proven you wrong; of all of them only Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays stood firm.”
I say: Asmāʾ has a hadith included in the Four Sunan collections.
Those who transmitted from her include her son ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar; her sister’s son ʿAbd Allah ibn Shaddād; Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab; ʿUrwah; al-Shaʿbī; al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad; and others.
She lived on after the death of ʿAlī.
52 – Asmāʾ daughter of Abu Bakr ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Quḥāfah ʿUthmān al-Taymī * (ʿ)
Umm ʿAbd Allah, a Qurashī woman of the Banū Taym, originally from Mecca and later resident in Medina.
(1) Reported by Ibn Saʿd, vol. 8, p. 285; all the transmitters are trustworthy.
(2) Here the verb “kadhdhaba” serves as an exhortative expression, meaning: “Adopt al-hariqa.” The term al-hariqa is rare and morphologically irregular. It can denote: (a) a woman overmastered by her sexual appetite; (b) according to another view, the vulva itself; or (c) intercourse performed while the partners are lying on their sides, the word being linked to the phrase hariqat al-wark (the hip sinew). The intended sense is: “Refrain from approaching women in this specific manner.” See al-Faʾiq, al-Nihaya, and Lisan al-Arab, s.v. “harq.”
The report is also transmitted by Ibn Saʿd, vol. 8, p. 285, with an authentic chain of narration.
(*) Additional sources: Musnad Ahmad 6/344; Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat 8/249, 255; Khalifa, Tabaqat p. 333; Khalifa, Tarikh p. 269; al-Maʿarif pp. 172–173, 200, 221; Tarikh al-Fasawi 1/224; al-Mustadrak 4/64–65; al-Istīʿab 4/1781; Ibn ʿAsakir 19/190/1; Jamʿ al-Usul 9/145; Usd al-Ghabah 7/9; Tahdhib al-Kamal no. 1676; Tadhhib al-Tahdhib 4/2/256; Tarikh al-Islam 3/133; al-ʿIbar 1/82; Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid 9/260; Tahdhib al-Tahdhib 12/398; al-Isabah 12/114; Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal p. 488; Kanz al-ʿUmmal 13/627; Shadharāt al-Dhahab 1/44, 80.