as did al-Nasa’i, Ibn Majah, and Abu Dawud—who transmitted part of it. It has been fully referenced in al-Irwa’ (7/85), but its documentation was omitted from the printed edition and should therefore be restored from here.

There I said:

“All its narrators are trustworthy narrators of Muslim, except for this Sumayyah, who is deemed acceptable by al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar.”

I would add here: Al-Dhahabi mentioned her at the end of al-Mizan, in the section entitled “Unknown Female Narrators,” and stated at its beginning:

“I know of no woman who has been accused, nor of any whom they have abandoned.”

Al-Haythami said concerning the hadith of Aishah (4/323):

“Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Awsat. Its chain includes Sumayyah, from whom Abu Dawud and others narrated; the rest of its narrators are trustworthy.”

That is what he said! Yet he failed to attribute it to Ahmad. There are two observations concerning his transmission of Safiyyah’s hadith:

First, what appears in the book of Abd al-Razzaq agrees with the narration of Ahmad and others of Aishah’s hadith: the narrator from both Safiyyah and Aishah is Sumayyah. However, the printed edition of Abd al-Razzaq has “Sumaynah,” with an added nun between the ya and the ha. I believe this to be a typographical error.

Second, Abd al-Razzaq’s recollection is that the narrator’s name was Shumaysah, a diminutive of Shams. This accords with what al-Bukhari narrated in al-Adab al-Mufrad (47/142), through the route of Shu‘bah from Shumaysah al-Atakiyyah, who said:

“The disciplining of an orphan was mentioned in Aishah’s presence, may Allah be pleased with her, and she said:”