And Abū Nuʿaym narrated it from Zayd ibn al-Ḥawārī, from him. Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from this Zayd, who is weak.
- “A woman has the greater right to her child so long as she has not remarried.”
Al-Dāraquṭnī narrated it in his Sunan (418), through al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabāḥ, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather:
“A woman disputed with her husband concerning her child, and the Prophet said …”
He then cited it.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq likewise narrated it in his Muṣannaf: “Al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabāḥ informed us of it.” Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh narrated it from ʿAbd al-Razzāq in his Musnad, as cited in Naṣb al-Rāyah (3/265).
Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Talkhīṣ (4/11):
“Al-Muthannā ibn al-Ṣabāḥ is weak. It is strengthened by what ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated from al-Thawrī, from ʿĀṣim, from ʿIkrimah, who said: ‘A woman who had been married to ʿUmar brought a dispute against ʿUmar before Abū Bakr, after he had divorced her. Abū Bakr said: She is more tender, gentler, more merciful, more affectionate, and more compassionate; and she has the greater right to her child so long as she does not remarry.’”
I say: Although this report is attributed to a Companion, it is mursal. It has also been narrated through other mursal routes in the Muwaṭṭaʾ and Ibn Abī Shaybah’s Muṣannaf, and through another route attributed to the Prophet, with a weak, interrupted chain of transmission. I have documented all of this in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (2250). Therefore, I do not consider strengthening the hadith by means of this Companion report to be particularly strong. It is preferable to strengthen it on the basis that al-Muthannā was corroborated in narrating it by more than one narrator: Ibn Jurayj corroborated him in Aḥmad (2/182) and al-Dāraquṭnī, and al-Awzāʿī in Abū Dāwūd (2276) and al-Ḥākim (2/207), all of them from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, ʿAbd Allāh ibn