and wait for one menstrual period, then return to her family. Had he divorced her with one of the three divorces, she would have been obliged to observe the waiting period of a divorced woman, according to the explicit text of the Quran and the agreement of the Muslims. Khulʿ, however, is different: it is established that several scholars, both early and later, held that it entails no prescribed waiting period, but only verification through menstruation that the woman is not pregnant. The disagreement over this issue is well known.
As for the hadith transmitted with a connected chain, it was narrated by the compilers of the Sunan. Al-Nasāʾī said:
Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Marwazī narrated to us: Shādhān ibn ʿUthmān, the brother of ʿAbdān, told me: My father narrated to us: ʿAlī ibn [al-Mubārak] (1) narrated to us, from Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr: Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān informed me that al-Rubayyiʿ bint Muʿawwidh ibn ʿAfrāʾ had informed him.
Al-Nasāʾī also narrated it from Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd: My paternal uncle told me: My father narrated to us, from Ibn Ishāq. Ibn Abī ʿĀsim narrated it from Muhammad ibn Saʿd and from Yaʿqūb ibn Mahrān, from al-Rubayyiʿ bint Muʿawwidh. Ibn Mājah narrated it from ʿAlī ibn Salamah al-Naysābūrī: Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd narrated to us: My father told me, from Ibn Ishāq: ʿUbādah ibn al-Walīd narrated to us, from ʿUbādah ibn al-Sāmit. Both relate:
“Thābit ibn Qays ibn Shammās struck his wife and broke her hand. She came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, after dawn—she was Jamīlah bint ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy—and her brother came to complain to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, about him. He sent for him and said to him: ‘Take what you owe her, and let her go.’ He replied: ‘Yes.’ The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then instructed her to wait for one menstrual period and return to her family.”
That is, after one menstrual period. It was also narrated by
(1) Blank in the original; the supplied text is taken from Sunan al-Nasā’ī.
Shaykh Nāsir ibn Hamad al-Fahd stated (pp. 235–236):
32/324–325:
These two pages contain omissions and textual corruptions, which I have corrected to the best of my ability as follows:
(Al-Nasā’ī (3498) narrated it from [‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Sa‘d ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Sa‘d]: My paternal uncle told me: My father narrated to us, from Ibn Ishāq. Ibn Abī ‘Āsim also narrated it, [from Muhammad ibn Mansūr: Ya‘qūb ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us: My father narrated to us, from Ibn Ishāq]. Ibn Mājah (2058) narrated it from ‘Alī ibn Salamah al-Naysābūrī: Ya‘qūb ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Sa‘d narrated to us: My father told me, from Ibn Ishāq: ‘Ubādah ibn al-Walīd narrated to us, from ‘Ubādah ibn al-Sāmit, [from al-Rubayyi‘ bint Mu‘awwidh]:
Thābit ibn Qays ibn Shammās struck his wife and broke her hand. She came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, after dawn—she was Jamīlah bint ‘Abd Allāh ibn Ubayy—and her brother came to complain about him to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He sent for him and said to him: “Take what you owe her, and let her go.” He replied: “Yes.” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then instructed her to wait for one menstrual period and return to her family—that is, after one menstrual period.
Abū Dāwūd narrated it in his Sunan (2229), al-Tirmidhī in his Jāmi‘ (1185), and Abū Bakr ibn Abī ‘Āsim in his Book of Divorce, all three from Muhammad ibn [‘Abd al-Rahīm] al-Baghdādī: ‘Alī ibn [Bahr] narrated to us: Hishām ibn Yūsuf informed us, from Ma‘mar, from ‘Amr ibn Muslim, from ‘Ikrimah, from Ibn ‘Abbās: The wife of Thābit ibn Qays obtained a khul‘ from him, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, prescribed her waiting period as one menstrual period. Al-Tirmidhī said: “A hasan gharīb hadith.” Al-Hākim also narrated it in his Sahīh. Abū Dāwūd said: “‘Abd al-Rāziq narrated this hadith from [Ma‘mar], from ‘Amr ibn Muslim, from ‘Ikrimah, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.”)