Ibn Saʿd said: “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbbād narrated to us; Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl narrated to me, from al-Rubayyiʿ bint Muʿawwidh, who said:
‘A dispute arose between me and my cousin—who was also my husband—so I told him, ‘Everything I own is yours; now separate from me.’ He replied, ‘I have done so.’ By Allah, he then took everything I had, even my bedding. I went to ʿUthmān ﵁ and informed him of the matter while he was under siege. He said, ‘The condition has the stronger claim; take everything of hers, even the braids of her hair if you wish.’ (1)
42 – Zaynab bint Abī Salama ibn ʿAbd al-Asad ibn Hilāl al-Makhzūmiyya* (ʿ)
She was the Prophet’s ﷺ step-daughter and the sister of ʿUmar; their mother, the Mother of the Believers, gave birth to them in Abyssinia.
She related hadith, and among those she narrated from were ʿĀʾisha, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Umm Ḥabība, and others.
Those who reported from her include ʿUrwah, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, and Abū
…if Allah wills it.
“If I had knowledge of the unseen, I would have secured abundant good.” Whatever reports of the unseen the Prophet communicated were only what Allah had made known to him; he did not possess such knowledge independently. As the Exalted says: “He is the Knower of the unseen; He does not disclose His unseen to anyone, except to a messenger whom He has chosen” (Q 72:26-27).
(1) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, 8:447-48; ʿAbd al-Razzaq, al-Musannaf, no. 11850; through his chain al-Tabarani, no. 4870 – all from Maʿmar, from ʿAbd Allah b. Muhammad b. ʿAqil, from al-Rabiʿ.
The ʿiqas is a cord with which a woman ties the ends of her braids. The verb ʿaqasat shaʿraha means “she plaited her hair,” and a plaited braid is called an ʿaqisa.
(*) Additional sources: Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, 8:461; Ibn Habib, al-Muhabbar, 84, 402; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Istihab, 1854; Ibn al-Athir, Usd al-Ghabah, 5:468; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, 1683; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, 3:155; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, 4:261 b; al-Safadi, al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, 15:61; Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, al-ʿIqd al-Thamin, 8:229; Ibn Hajar, al-Isabah, 4:317; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 12:421; Ibn ʿIraq, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 423.