He, together with Zayd, Ibn ʿUmar, and others (may Allah be pleased with them), also issued the legal opinion that a mufawwaḍah—namely, a woman whose dowry had not been stipulated—“receives no dower if her husband dies.” Yet the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ regarding Barwaʿ bint Wāshiq (may Allah be pleased with her) had not yet reached them. (1)

This is a vast subject. The number of instances transmitted from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on this point is extraordinarily large, and what has come down from those after them is beyond reckoning, for it runs into the thousands.

Those Companions were the most knowledgeable, the most deeply versed in the law, the most God-fearing, and the most virtuous members of the ummah; those who came after them are of a lesser rank. It is therefore even more likely that parts of the Sunnah would remain unknown to later scholars, a fact that needs no further elaboration.

Whoever believes that every sound hadith reached each of the leading imams—or even one particular imam—has fallen into a grave and ugly error.

Nor should anyone claim, “The hadiths have now been written down and compiled, so their remaining unknown is impossible,” for the famous collections of the Sunnah were only compiled after the passing of the imams who are followed. Even so, it is impermissible to assert that the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ are confined to a limited set of compilations.

Then, even if it were supposed that the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ were indeed confined