“I said, ‘Messenger of Allah, I am a woman who plaits her hair very tightly. Must I undo it when taking the ritual bath for janābah?’ He replied, ‘No. It is enough for you to scoop three handfuls of water over your head, then pour water over yourself; that will make you clean.’

189 – “No. It is enough for you to scoop three handfuls of water over your head, then pour water over yourself; that will make you clean.”

Muslim related it (no. 178), as did the four Sunan compilers, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Laḥyānī in his Ḥadīth (fol. 123/1), Ibn Abī Shaybah, al-Bayhaqī (1/181) and Aḥmad (6/289, 314–315). The route is through Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn ʿUyaynah—whose wording this is—Rūḥ ibn al-Qāsim, and Ayyūb (i.e. al-Sakhtiyānī), from Ayyūb ibn Mūsā, from Saʿīd ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Maqburī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ, the freedman of Umm Salamah, from Umm Salamah herself.

Two trustworthy narrators transmitted it from al-Thawrī: Yazīd ibn Hārūn and ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn Hammām, yet they differed. The former narrated it exactly as Ibn ʿUyaynah did, whereas the latter inserted the phrase, “Should I undo it for menstruation and janābah?”—adding the words “and janābah.” I judge this to be an anomalous addition, because ʿAbd al-Razzāq alone reports it from Sufyān al-Thawrī, while Yazīd ibn Hārūn does not. The report of the latter is weightier, for it matches the wording transmitted by Ibn ʿUyaynah, Rūḥ ibn al-Qāsim and al-Sakhtiyānī. Allah knows best.

Ibn al-Qayyim has dealt with this anomalous addition at length in al-Tahdhīb; whoever wishes to verify the matter should consult him (1/167).