Hadith Five: Umm Salamah said: “I was with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Maymunah was also present when Ibn Umm Maktum came in—this was after we had been commanded to observe hijab. The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Screen yourselves from him.’ We asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, is he not blind? He cannot see us and does not recognize us.’ The Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘Are the two of you blind as well? Do you not see him?’

All the compilers of the Sunan except Ibn Majah—as well as others—transmitted it through the route of al-Zuhri: ‘Nubhān, the freedman of Umm Salamah, narrated to me from her.’ The report is cited in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (6/210/1806) and al-Silsilah al-Ḍaʿīfah (5958). Whoever wishes to see the full discussion may refer to those works, or at least to the first of them, for the second has not yet been printed as of this writing.

The gist of the critical analysis presented in those two sources is as follows: