Al-Tirmidhī remarked, “The ḥadīth is good and sound.”
Yet Imām Aḥmad, Abū Ḥātim, Abū Zur‘ah, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasā’ī judged it defective because Ibn Jurayj had not actually heard it from Abū al-Zubayr.
Sufyān al-Thawrī supplies a parallel chain in al-Nasā’ī’s collection, but it too is said that Sufyān did not hear it from Abū al-Zubayr.
A further corroboration comes through al-Mughīrah ibn Muslim, recorded by al-Nasā’ī and others, and with these supporting routes the ḥadīth is deemed authentic.
Vocabulary of the ḥadīth
• Khā’in (betrayer, embezzler): the opposite of amīn (trustworthy). He betrays what he was entrusted with—such as a deposit or a borrowed article—then falsely claims that it was lost or destroyed.
• Mukhtalis (snatcher): one who seizes something furtively; a form of sudden theft that begins in concealment and ends in swift flight.
• Muntahib (plunderer): one who takes property openly and by force, wresting it from its owner.
Points gleaned from the two ḥadīths
- A woman from Banū Makhzūm used to borrow people’s belongings deceitfully and then deny them. On one occasion she borrowed jewellery, disowned it, and it was discovered in her possession. Her case reached the Prophet ﷺ, and he resolved to enforce Allah’s prescribed punishment by cutting off her hand. She was a woman of distinction from a prominent Qurayshī family, so Quraysh became deeply anxious about her and the ruling that was about to be executed. They consulted one another about whom they might send as an intermediary to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on her behalf, and they found no one more fitting than Usāmah ibn Zayd, for he was especially close and dear to the Prophet ﷺ. Usāmah spoke to him, and the Prophet ﷺ became angry with him, saying in rebuke, “Are you interceding—”