839 – Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“A woman is married for four reasons: for her wealth, for her lineage, for her beauty, and for her religion. So take hold of the one who is religious—may your hands be dust-covered.”

Agreed upon, and also recorded by the remaining seven compilers. (1)

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• tunkaḥ al-marʾah: a passive verb (the imperfect prefix is ḍammah). It means, “she is sought in marriage and a contract is concluded with her.”
• tunkaḥ: the verb nakaḥa follows the pattern daraba. Its root sense is “joining and intermingling.” Linguists differ: some maintain that the literal meaning is the contract and intercourse is figurative; others hold the reverse; yet others say both are literal—the view preferred by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah. Thus only context distinguishes the meanings: “He married (nakaḥa) So-and-so’s daughter” refers to the contract, whereas “He married (nakaḥa) his wife” refers to intercourse. The author of al-Miṣbāḥ says nikāḥ is figurative in both senses, for its root denotes joining, though the literal sense remains primary. Scholars add that the Qur’an employs nikāḥ to mean intercourse only in His words, “until she marries another husband” (al-Baqarah 230).
• tunkaḥ al-marʾah li-arbaʿ: the verb is passive and “al-marʾah” acts as the agent in the nominative.
• li-arbaʿ: that is, she is sought in marriage for four qualities.
• ḥasabihā: with a fatḥah on both ḥāʾ and sīn, meaning honour and nobility—either her own or that of her family and relatives. The phrase “for her wealth” functions as an apposition to “four” through the repetition of the preposition lam, and the lam appears before each quality.