- The soundest way to look after women is one of balanced moderation. A man should not give free rein to baseless suspicions that rest on no evidence, nor should he bar his wife from the normal, respectable interactions customary among God-fearing people so long as he observes nothing questionable. Yet he must not neglect her altogether—letting her go wherever she wishes and speak to whomever she likes—for that is negligence, and persisting in such laxity when misgivings do arise is outright cuckoldry.
Third Ḥadith
On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him): A man from Banū Fazārah came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, “My wife has given birth to a dark-skinned boy.”
The Prophet ﷺ asked, “Do you own camels?” He replied, “Yes.”
The Prophet ﷺ said, “What colours are they?” He answered, “Reddish-brown.”
He asked, “Are there any greyish-black ones among them?” The man said, “Yes, there are.”
He said, “Then from where did they get that colour?” The man replied, “Perhaps a vein (of ancestry) has pulled it out.”
The Prophet ﷺ said, “And this child too—perhaps a vein has pulled him out.”
Unfamiliar terms
• “A man from Banū Fazārah”: with an open fāʾ and zāy; Fazārah is a sub-tribe of Ghatafān, an Adnānī tribe. The man’s name was Ḍamḍam ibn Qatādah.
• “annā atāhā”: pronounced with an initial hamzah and a doubled nūn, meaning “from where did this colour, different from that of its parents, come?”
• “awraq”: with an open qāf (being diptote). It denotes an animal whose black is not pure but tinged with grey. Its plural is wurq, like aḥmar (red) and ḥumr.
• “nazʿahu ʿirq”: ʿirq (vein) means ancestral root, while nazʿ is pulling. Here it means, “Perhaps an ancestral root drew the trait to itself so the offspring resembled that ancestor in colour and form.”
Overall meaning
A man of Banū Fazārah had a son whose complexion differed markedly from that of both parents, which filled the father with doubt. He went to the Prophet ﷺ, indirectly hinting at an accusation against his wife, and told him the child was dark-skinned. Realising the man’s concern, the Prophet ﷺ sought to reassure him by drawing an analogy from something familiar. He asked about the colours of the man’s camels, learned that they were reddish-brown yet some were greyish-black, and then asked how the differing colour appeared. When the man answered that a distant ancestral strain must have surfaced, the Prophet ﷺ said that the same could be true of his son: a trait from a dark-skinned ancestor had re-emerged. The man accepted this clear analogy and his misgivings vanished.