966 – It is narrated from Fariʿah bint Mālik—may Allah be pleased with her—that her husband set out in pursuit of some runaway slaves of his, and they killed him. She said: “I then asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for permission to go back to my family, for my husband had left me neither a house that he owned nor any living expenses. He replied, ‘Yes.’ When I was already in the apartment, however, he called me and said, ‘Remain in your house until the prescribed term has run its course.’ So I observed my waiting period there: four months and ten days. Afterward, ʿUthmān ruled in accordance with this report.”

The ḥadīth was recorded by Aḥmad and the Four Compilers, and authenticated by al-Tirmidhī, al-Duhalī, Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Ḥākim, and others.⦗1⦘

Status of the ḥadīth: sound (ṣaḥīḥ). It was transmitted by Mālik and from him by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and al-Duhalī—both of whom declared it authentic—together with al-Dārimī, al-Shāfiʿī, Ibn Ḥibbān, and al-Ḥākim; Ibn al-Qaṭṭān also graded it authentic. All of them relate it from Mālik, from Saʿd ibn Isḥāq ibn Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah, from his aunt Zaynab bint Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah, who said that Fariʿah bint Mālik ibn Sinān informed her … (the remainder of the narration).

Al-Tirmidhī remarked, “This ḥadīth is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.” Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī noted that Ibn Ḥazm criticized it without evidence, while Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr declared it a well-known (mashhūr) report. Shaykh al-Albānī followed Ibn Ḥazm in weakening it on the grounds that Zaynab was “unknown,” even though she is, in fact, reliable.