Ibn Mājah also narrated it.

Ahmad, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah narrated the following, with the wording being Ibn Mājah’s:

Ibn ʿUmar said: “Ghaylān embraced Islam while married to ten women. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to him, ‘Keep four of them.’”

Al-Tirmidhī said: “I heard Muhammad say, ‘This version is not reliably preserved. The correct version is what Shuʿayb and others narrated from al-Zuhrī, who said: “I was told on the authority of Muhammad ibn Suwayd that Ghaylān …”’”—and he related the report.

Imam Ahmad’s wording includes:

“During ʿUmar’s caliphate, he divorced his wives and divided his wealth among his sons. When this reached ʿUmar, he said: ‘I suspect that Satan, while eavesdropping, heard of your death and planted the thought in your mind. Perhaps you have only a little time left. By Allah, you shall take back your wives and reclaim your wealth, or I shall ensure that they inherit from you, and I shall order your grave to be pelted with stones, just as the grave of Abū Righāl was pelted.’”

Mālik narrated this hadith in al-Muwattaʾ from al-Zuhrī with an incomplete chain to the Prophet. Al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad also narrated it in their respective Musnads through Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar and others, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, with an incomplete chain to the Prophet.

However, Imam Ahmad and others explained that this was among the reports in which Maʿmar erred when he came to Basra. He narrated it to them from memory, and Maʿmar would make mistakes when narrating from memory. Thus, the Basran narrators, such as Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar—Ghundar—and others, transmitted the erroneous version from him. His students who heard him narrate from his writings, such as ʿAbd al-Razzāq and others, transmitted it correctly.

Thus, in the hadith of Fayrūz, in which the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to him:

“Divorce whichever of the two you wish,”

the intended meaning is not a divorce counting toward the three, according to al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others. Rather, the intended meaning is