854 – Al-Hasan reports from Samurah – may Allah be pleased with him – that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whenever two guardians contract a woman’s marriage, the marriage belongs to the first of them.” Reported by Ahmad and the four Sunan compilers; al-Tirmidhi declared it ḥasan. (1)

Hadith grading
This ḥadith is ḥasan. It was recorded by Ahmad, al-Dārimī, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Abī Shaybah, al-Ḥākim, al-Bayhaqī and others through multiple chains from Qatādah, from al-Hasan, from Samurah. Al-Tirmidhī said: “A ḥasan ḥadith.” Al-Ḥākim judged it “authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī,” and al-Dhahabī agreed. It was also declared ṣaḥīḥ by Abū Zurʿah and Abū Ḥātim.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ (Ibn Ḥajar) observed that its soundness hinges on establishing that al-Hasan actually heard from Samurah, for the rest of the narrators are trustworthy. A similar report is related from ʿAlī in mawqūf form by al-Bayhaqī through Khallās ibn ʿAmr al-Hajarī; although Khallās did not hear from ʿAlī, the narrators in that chain are reliable despite the discontinuity.

Points derived from the ḥadith
1 – Guardianship (wilāyah) in marriage is ranked: the father, then the grandfather however remote; after them the son and his descendants; then the next closest agnate relative, in the same order followed for inheritance.

2 – If two guardians belong to one and the same tier, are equal in rank and strength, and both fulfill the conditions of guardianship, precedence is given to the one whom the woman herself has authorized.