Chapter on Fair Apportionment

917 – ʿAʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) reported: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to divide his time among his wives and uphold justice. He would also supplicate: ‘O Allah, this is my division regarding what I control; so do not blame me for what You control and I do not.’” The Four Sunan collected it, and Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Ḥākim declared it sound, yet al-Tirmidhī preferred the view that it is mursal. (1)

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Hadith grading
The report is mursal (disconnected).
It was narrated by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Ḥākim, and al-Bayhaqī through several chains from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from Ayyūb, from Abū Qilābah, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd, from ʿAʾishah.

Outwardly the chain appears sound, and on that basis al-Ḥākim ruled it “authentic according to Muslim’s criteria,” a judgment endorsed by al-Dhahabī and Ibn Kathīr. Nevertheless, the meticulous scholars judged it defective. Al-Nasāʾī said: “Ḥammād ibn Zayd narrated it in mursal form.” Al-Tirmidhī remarked: “More than one transmitter related it from Ayyūb, from Abū Qilābah, as a mursal tradition.” Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “I heard Abū Zurʿah say, ‘I know of no one who corroborated Ḥammād’s version,’” and Ibn Abī Ḥātim endorsed that verdict, concluding: “The hadith is mursal.”