165 — Umm Salamah (may Allah be pleased with her) reported that she asked the Prophet ﷺ: “May a woman pray in a dirʿ (tunic) and a khimār (head-covering) without an izār (lower wrap)?” He replied, “If the dirʿ is ample enough to cover the tops of her feet.” This was transmitted by Abū Dāwūd, and the leading ḥadith critics judged the report to be mawqūf⦗1⦘.

• Status of the ḥadith
The narration is weak. It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Ḥākim (3/719), and al-Bayhaqī (2/233) through their chains to Umm Salamah. In the isnād appears Umm Muḥammad bint Zayd, who is an unknown narrator. A further flaw is that Ibn Dīnār related it on his own, and his memory is weak.
The author of al-Talkhīṣ al-Ḥabīr judged the wording mawqūf, whereas Ibn al-Mulqin and al-Shawkānī considered the marfūʿ version more authentic.

• Vocabulary explained
– dirʿ: pronounced with a kasrah on the dāl, a sukūn on the rāʾ, and a voiced ʿayn. Here it means a woman’s shirt or tunic, hence it is left unspecified. If the intention were a coat of mail, the text would have qualified it with “iron,” as in al-Bukhārī: “The Prophet ﷺ pawned an iron dirʿ.” Ibn Fāris stated that a coat of mail (dirʿ al-ḥadīd) is feminine, whereas a woman’s dirʿ, meaning her tunic, is masculine.
– sābiġan: with an open sīn, a kasrah on the bāʾ, and a dotted ghayn—meaning long and wide, covering the tops of the feet.
– izār: a garment that wraps around the lower half of the body; it may be treated as masculine or feminine. One says iʾtazara or ittazara, meaning “he/she donned an izār.”