by one additional handspan, and they would send their garments to us so that we might measure a full cubit for them.

All of its transmitters are trustworthy—the same men relied upon by Muslim—apart from Zayd al-ʿAmmī, who is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb. If this report from Ibn ʿUmar is in fact sound, it is probable that he took it from his wife Ṣafiyyah bint Abī ʿUbayd, who, as mentioned earlier, narrated the ḥadīth from Umm Salamah.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in Fatḥ al-Bārī: “This narration clarifies that the permissible length of a cubit equals two handspans measured with an average-sized hand.”

There is corroboration from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah: the Messenger of Allah ﷺ instructed Fāṭimah—or Umm Salamah, may Allah be pleased with them—to let the hem trail a cubit. Ibn Mājah and Aḥmad related it through Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from Abū al-Mahzam, from him.

Ḥabīb al-Muʿallim, however, diverged; he transmitted it from Abū al-Mahzam, from Abū Hurayrah, from ʿĀʾishah with the same purport. Ibn Mājah and likewise Aḥmad also recorded this version.

Abū al-Mahzam is unanimously regarded as weak, as noted in al-Zawāʾid, and al-Ḥāfiẓ ruled in al-Taqrīb: “Abandoned.” (1)