On one occasion the Arabs referred to him a dispute over the inheritance of a hermaphrodite. He spent the entire night awake, pondering what verdict he should issue. A slave-girl of his, who used to pasture his sheep and whose name was Sukhaylah,(1) saw him and said, “What is the matter with you—may you lose your father—that you are awake tonight?” He told her what was on his mind and then thought, “Perhaps she might have an idea about it.”(2) She replied, “Let the ruling follow the organ from which the urine flows.” “By Allah, Sukhaylah, you have relieved me!” he exclaimed, and he judged on that basis.(3)
Al-Suhaylī comments: This ruling belongs to the sphere of reasoning from indications and signs,(4) and it has a foundation in the Sacred Law. Allah, exalted is He, says: “And they brought his shirt with false blood upon it” (Yūsuf 18), although it bore no mark of a wolf’s teeth; and He says: “If his shirt is torn from the front, then she has told the truth and he is of the liars, but if his shirt is torn from the back, then she has lied and he is of the truthful” (Yūsuf 26–27). Likewise, the ḥadīth states: “Examine her: if she gives birth to a fair-skinned, curly-haired,(5) handsome child, then he is the man she was accused of consorting with.”(6)
Ibn Isḥāq says: The authority for postponing the sacred months (nasīʾ) rested with Banū Fuqaym ibn ʿAdī ibn ʿĀmir ibn Thaʿlabah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Mālik ibn Kinānah ibn Khuzaymah ibn Mudrikah ibn Ilyās ibn Muḍar.
Ibn Isḥāq continues:(7) The first person to alter the calendar for the Arabs was al-Qalammas,(8) Ḥudhayfah ibn ʿAbd ibn Fuqaym ibn ʿAdī. After him came his son ʿAbbād, then Qalaʿ ibn ʿAbbād, then Umayyah ibn Qalaʿ, then ʿAwf ibn Umayyah, and the last of them was Abū Thumāmah Junādah ibn ʿAwf ibn Qalaʿ ibn ʿAbbād ibn Ḥudhayfah—he too was called al-Qalammas. Islam arose while Abū Thumāmah was still in office.
When the Arabs had completed their pilgrimage, they would gather around him and he would address them,(9) declaring the sacred months inviolable. If he wished to render one of them permissible, he would pronounce Muḥarram lawful and substitute Ṣafar in its place so as to keep to the number of months Allah had sanctified, saying, “O Allah, I have made lawful one of the two Ṣafars—Ṣafar the first—and I have deferred the other to the coming year.” The Arabs followed him in this. Concerning this, ʿUmayr ibn…(10)