Weak. I have been unable to identify Abū Ishāq’s wife.
(Note) The author—may Allah preserve him—cited this report in support of Abū Dāwūd’s statement in al-Sunan that the woman who plucks hair is one who plucks the eyebrow until she makes it thin. The author said: “Thus, shaving the face and removing its hair do not fall under this definition.”
I say: I have several observations concerning this:
First: It conflicts with what the unrestricted wording of the hadiths indicates. One of these is the hadith of Aisha cited above: “. . . the woman who plucks hair and the woman who has it plucked.” Its unrestricted wording encompasses hair-plucking wherever it occurs on her body. It is impermissible to restrict it on the basis of a report such as this one from her, since that report is not established.
Second: The foregoing interpretation also conflicts with the language itself. Al-Qāmūs states: “Hair-plucking means plucking out hair. The woman who plucks hair is cursed; she is the one who beautifies women by plucking their hair, while the woman who has her hair plucked is the one beautified by it.”
Third: Abū Dāwūd’s statement was merely phrased in terms of what is most common; he did not intend to restrict hair-plucking exclusively to the eyebrow. His wording in al-Sunan itself demonstrates this, for immediately after the passage quoted by the author, he said: “The tattooist is the woman who makes beauty marks(1) on her face using kohl or a medicinal substance.” Do you suppose he meant that if she made such a mark on her hand, for example, she would not be a tattooist? Certainly not. He was merely referring to what is most common, as we have stated. Al-Hāfiz explicitly affirmed this in al-Fath, saying (10/313), after mentioning this statement of Abū Dāwūd: “The face was mentioned because that is where it usually occurs, and it occurs most often on the lip. A report from Nāfi‘ will appear at the end of the following chapter stating that it may be on the gums. Thus, mentioning the face is not restrictive, for it may also be on the hand or elsewhere on the body.”