Al-Bayhaqī said:

ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ informed us; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Junayd narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Naṣr narrated to us; Abū Nuʿaym al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-Ward, from ʿAmmār al-Duhnī, from Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, from Umm Salamah—may Allah be pleased with her—who said:

The Prophet ﷺ spoke of some of his wives, the Mothers of the Believers, going out. ʿĀʾishah laughed, so he said to her, “Watch yourself, O Humayrāʾ; be sure it is not you.” He then turned to ʿAlī and said, “O ʿAlī, should you ever be given charge over her affairs, deal gently with her.” This ḥadīth is exceedingly unusual.(1)

Even more unusual is what al-Bayhaqī also transmitted—from al-Ḥākim, from al-Aṣamm, from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣanʿānī, from Abū Nuʿaym, from ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Shabāmī, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from ʿUmar ibn al-Hujnaʿ, from Abū Bakrah—who was asked, “What kept you from fighting in support of your side on the Day of the Camel?” He replied, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘A people doomed to destruction will emerge; they will never prosper. Their leader is a woman, while their leader is in Paradise.’”(2) This report is extremely objectionable.

The sound version is what al-Bukhārī related from al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, from Abū Bakrah, who said: “Allah benefited me by a single word I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. When he was told that the Persians had placed the daughter of Chosroes on the throne, he said, ‘A nation that entrusts its affairs to a woman will never prosper.’”(3)

Imām Aḥmad said: Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar told us, Shuʿbah told us, from al-Ḥakam: I heard Abū Wāʾil say that when ʿAlī sent ʿAmmār and al-Ḥasan to Kūfah to rally its people, ʿAmmār addressed them, saying, “I know full well that she is his wife in this world and the Hereafter, but Allah is testing you: will you follow him or her?”(4) Al-Bukhārī recorded the report through Bundār from Ghundar.(5)

All this took place during the events of the Camel. ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with her—later regretted going out, as we shall mention in its proper place. Al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām likewise realized, while standing on the battlefield, that fighting there was not right and therefore withdrew.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq said: Maʿmar informed us, from Qatādah, who said: When al-Zubayr withdrew on the Day of the Camel and the news reached ʿAlī, he remarked, “Had the son of Ṣafiyyah been sure he was in the right, he would not have turned back. The Prophet ﷺ had met the two of them in the Saqīfah of Banū Sāʿidah and said, ‘Do you love him, O Zubayr?’ He replied, ‘What would prevent me?’ The Prophet then said, ‘How will it be when you fight him while you are the one in the wrong?’ People say that this is why he withdrew.” This chain is mursal in this rendition.(6)