Al-Tirmidhī (1/248), al-Bayhaqī (5/357–358), and Aḥmad (3/340) related it through Zayd ibn ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said this. Al-Tirmidhī said: “This hadith is authentic, good, and singular through this route.”
I say: Its chain of transmission is good. Its narrators are trustworthy and well known, apart from this Zayd. Abū Ḥātim said: “He is not well known.” Ibn Ḥibbān included him among the trustworthy narrators, and a number of people narrated from him. (See al-Istidrāk, 7/178.)
- “Entrust her to her maternal aunt, for the maternal aunt is a mother.”
Abū Dāwūd (1/530, al-Ḥalabiyyah edition), al-Ḥākim (3/120)—whose wording is cited here—and Aḥmad (1/88 and 115) related it through several routes from Isrāʾīl, from Isḥāq, from Hubayrah ibn Yarīm and Hānīʾ ibn Hānīʾ, from ʿAlī, who said: “When we left Mecca, Hamzah’s daughter followed us, calling out, ‘Uncle! Uncle!’ I took her by the hand and handed her to Fāṭimah, saying, ‘Take your cousin’s daughter.’ When we arrived in Medina, Zayd, Jaʿfar, and I disputed over her. I said, ‘I took her, and she is my cousin.’ Zayd said, ‘She is my brother’s daughter.’ Jaʿfar said, ‘She is my cousin, and her maternal aunt is with me.’ The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said to Jaʿfar, ‘You resemble me in appearance and character.’ He said to Zayd, ‘You are our brother and our freedman.’ And he said to me, ‘You are from me, and I am from you. Entrust her ...’ I said, ‘Will you not marry her, O Messenger of Allah?’ He said, ‘She is the daughter of my foster brother.’”
Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic. Neither of them related it with these wordings; rather, they both related the abbreviated hadith of Abū Isḥāq from al-Barāʾ.”
I say: Abū Isḥāq was al-Sabīʿī, and his memory deteriorated. However, it has another chain with Abū Dāwūd, al-Ṭaḥāwī in al-Mushkil (4/174), and al-Ḥākim (3/211), through Yazīd ibn al-Hād, from Muḥammad ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿUjayr, from his father Nāfiʿ, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, with similar wording. It contains: