He said: “News of this reached a woman from Banū Asad named Umm Yaʿqūb, who used to recite the Quran. She came to him and said: ‘What is this report that has reached me from you—that you have cursed women who apply tattoos…’” Then follows the hadith. “ʿAbd Allāh said: ‘Why should I not curse those whom the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, cursed, when it is in the Book of Allah?’ The woman said: ‘I have read everything between the covers of the Quran, yet I did not find it!’ He said: ‘Had you read it, you would have found it. Allah, Most High, says: “Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it; and whatever he forbids you, refrain from it.”’ The woman said: ‘I see something of this on your wife even now.’ He said: ‘Go and look.’ She entered upon ʿAbd Allāh’s wife but saw nothing. She then returned to him and said: ‘I saw nothing.’ He said: ‘Had that been the case, we would not have kept her as a wife.’”

I then found a third chain for the additional wording, through Masrūq: a woman came to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd and said, “I am a woman with sparse hair; may I add extensions to my hair?” He replied, “No.” She asked, “Is this something you heard from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, or something you find in the Book of Allah?” He said, “No; rather, I heard it from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and I find it in the Book of Allah.” Then he related the hadith.

Al-Nasāʾī recorded it in this form (2/281), while Aḥmad (1/415) and al-Ṭabarānī, in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (9/337/9468), recorded it in full, with wording similar to the hadith of ʿAlqamah. It is apparent that this woman was Umm Yaʿqūb mentioned in ʿAlqamah’s narration. She is likewise the same woman in the narration of Qabīṣah ibn Jābir—who was trustworthy and had lived through both the pre-Islamic era and Islam—who said: “We would join a woman in learning a surah of the Quran. I went with an elderly woman from Banū Asad to Ibn Masʿūd’s home as part of a group of three. He saw her forehead gleaming and said, ‘Do you shave it?’ She became angry and said, ‘It is your wife who shaves her forehead!’ He said, ‘Go in and see her. If she does it, then she is no longer connected to me.’ So she went in, then returned and said, ‘No, by Allah, I did not see her doing it.’ ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd then said: ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him…’” Then he cited it.