Yūsuf and al-Fath ibn ʿAbd Allāh said:
“Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Armuwī (1) informed us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Bazzāz informed us; ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Ḥarbī narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṣūfī narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn narrated to us; Maʿn narrated to us, from Mālik, from Hishām, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, who said:
‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ never shook hands with a woman at all.’ (2)”
Al-Nasāʾī also recorded this ḥadīth in his compendium of Mālik’s narrations, through the chain: Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Dimashqī → Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn.
ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ṭāʾī informed us on several occasions; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Muḥammad al-Shāfiʿī—in the year 609 AH, while I was in my fourth year—relayed to us; ʿAlī ibn al-Musallam the jurist informed us; Abū Naṣr al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Khaṭīb—in the year 465 AH— informed us; Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ghassānī at Ṣaydā—in the year 394 AH—narrated to us; Abū Rūq Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Hizzānī (3) in Baṣrah narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn al-Walīd al-Busrī narrated to us; Ghundar narrated to us; Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Mālik (H (4)).
We were likewise informed, with a higher chain, by Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Aḥmad, from al-Muʾayyad ibn Muḥammad,
(1) The nisbah designates someone from Armiyah, a district in Azerbaijan.
(2) The chain of transmission is sound. Al-Muwatta, 2/189, records from Ummaymah bint Ruqayqah: “I came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ with a group of women who wished to pledge allegiance to him for Islam. We said, ‘Messenger of Allah, we pledge that we shall not associate anything with Allah, shall not steal, shall not commit adultery, shall not kill our children, shall not fabricate any slander between our hands and feet, and shall not disobey you in what is right.’ The Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘To the extent that you are able and have the strength.’ We responded, ‘Allah and His Messenger are more merciful to us than we are to ourselves; come, Messenger of Allah, let us complete the pledge.’ He said, ‘I do not shake hands with women; my word to a hundred women is the same as my word to one woman.’ The hadith is also related by al-Nasaʾi, 7/149 (Book of Allegiance, ‘Chapter on the Pledge of Women’) and by al-Tirmidhi, no. 1597 (Book of Military Expeditions, ‘Chapter on the Pledge of Women’); al-Tirmidhi graded it hasan sahih (good and sound).
(3) The nisbah refers to Huzan, a sub-clan of al-Atik; al-Atik belongs to the larger tribe of Rabiʿah, and Huzan is Huzan ibn Sabah ibn Atik.
(4) A siglum indicating that the chain of transmission is about to be diverted to a different route.