their burdens.” 1.

Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—whose excellence and knowledge need no introduction, was unaware of this Sunnah. He therefore held that she was entitled to maintenance and housing, and he rejected Fātima’s hadith because she might have forgotten. He said, “Are we to abandon the word of our Lord for the word of a woman whom we do not know whether she remembered or forgot?” This means that the Commander of the Faithful, Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—was not confident in this evidence. Just as this may happen to Umar, to Companions of lesser standing, and to the Successors after them, it may also happen to later generations among the Followers of the Successors, and so on down to our own day—indeed, until the Day of Resurrection: a person may not be confident that the evidence is authentic. How many scholarly opinions have we encountered concerning which some scholars regard the relevant hadiths as authentic and therefore accept them, while others regard them as weak and therefore do not accept them, because they are not confident that they were reliably transmitted from the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him.