Ibn al-Madīnī declared the hadith sound. The commentator adds that al-Bayhaqī and several other ḥadīth masters likewise authenticated it, while al-Ḍiyāʾ said, “Every transmitter in its chain is trustworthy.”
Al-Ḥākim related the report on the authority of thirty Companions, and al-Manāwī maintained that it is mutawātir (mass-transmitted).

Anyone who reflects on the nature of the marriage contract—the care it requires, the benefits it seeks to secure, the harms of married life it strives to avert; who considers the prospective husband, his suitability or lack thereof; who recognizes the limited foresight of a woman, her nearness of thought, and her tendency to be taken in by outward appearances, together with the diligence of her guardians, their eagerness to see her happy, and the broader vision typically possessed by men—will readily grasp the need for a guardian.

Scholars have differed over whether the guardian himself must be outwardly upright (ʿadālah):
• Imams al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad—according to the well-known view in their two schools—held that manifest uprightness is a prerequisite, for this is a discretionary guardianship and a flagrant sinner should not exercise it alone.
• Imams Abū Ḥanīfa and Mālik did not require that condition; in their view even a sinful guardian may officiate, because he is permitted to contract his own marriage and therefore may validly contract on behalf of another.

This latter opinion is also one of the two narrations from Aḥmad; it was adopted by the author of al-Mughnī, the author of al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn al-Qayyim. Among later scholars it was explicitly preferred by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī and Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh.

Al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr states: “The view supported by the evidence—and the one upon which practice rests—is that the father retains authority over her even if his own condition is reprehensible, so long as he is not an unbeliever.” I add: this is indeed the practice of the Muslims.