972 – ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) ruled concerning the wife of a man who has gone missing: “She waits for four years, after which she observes a waiting period of four months and ten days.” It was recorded by Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī. (1)

Hadith grading: An authentic mawqūf report.

Ibn Ḥajar states in al-Talkhīṣ that al-Shāfiʿī narrated it from Mālik, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, from ʿUmar. ʿAbd al-Razzāq (7/88) transmitted it from Ibn Jurayj, from Yaḥyā with the same chain; Abū ʿUbayd narrated it from Muḥammad ibn Kathīr, from al-Awzāʿī, from al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd, from ʿUmar and ʿUthmān with identical wording. The report is further supported by additional lines of transmission and corroborating narrations that strengthen it.

He adds in al-Talkhīṣ: Ibn Abī Shaybah (3/521) related it through Ibn Abī Laylā from ʿUmar, and al-Dāraquṭnī recorded it through Abū ʿUthmān from ʿUmar. Ibn Ḥajar comments, “This is the soundest chain for this report.”

Key vocabulary:
– tarabbaṣa (to wait): The verb rabasa–yarbusu–rabṣan means “to wait for an expected good or harm.” When a divorced woman “tarabbaṣat,” she refrains from marriage until her waiting period ends.
– ʿiddah (waiting period): Derived from the root ʿadda–yaʿuddu (“to count”). It denotes the span during which a woman must abstain from remarriage after her husband’s death or separation, ending by childbirth, completion of menstrual cycles, or the lapse of specified months.