Response to O Ayesha Be Watchful that You are Not in Uprising Wives

The following is a response to SlaveOfAhlubait’s article entitled: “O Ayesha! Be Watchful that You are Not in Uprising Wives”. The article can be found on his blog and on the Wilayat website.

SlaveOfAhlubait quotes:

And with the Chain to Umm Salma:

She said that Holy Prophet (asws) talked of Uprising/Khurooj of some Umhaat-ul-Momineen, and Ayesha laughed. So He said: Be watchful o Humaira that it is not You. Then He turned to Imam Ali. And said: O Ali! If you are the Wali of Her Amr, be gentle………..

I say: The hadith is weak due to the disconnection between Salim bin Abi Al-Ja’d from Um Salama. The authors of Jami’ of Tahseel and Tuhfat Al-Tahseel have provided quotes from earlier scholars that Salim’s narrations from A’isha and Abu Huraira are disconnected, suggesting that he was not in Madinah while they were alive. They also said that “others” have said that he didn’t meet Um Salama, which is logical since Um Salama died around the same time as A’isha.

Al-Hakim authenticated the narration and said that it is upon the conditions of the Saheehain. However, this is a mistake on his behalf since Al-Bukhari didn’t include Ammar Al-Duhani nor Abd Al-Jabbar bin Al-Ward in his book.

SlaveOfAhlubait, in response to our brother from YouPuncturedTheArk (another Sunni website), said:

Keep in mind Dhabi did not weaken anyone including Abdul Jabbar, who is Ibn al-Ward…

As regards to Narrator Ammar ibn Muawia al-Duhani, He was Trustworthy in view of Abu Hatim al-Razi, Ahmad bin Hanbal, Nisai, Yahya ibn Maeen.

I say: This response of SlaveOfAhlubait is irrelevant. The purpose of stating that these two narrators are not “upon the conditions of the Shaikhain”, is not to suggest that they are weak, but rather to show that Al-Hakim was erroneous in his examination of the narration. Since that is the case, he should not be trusted in his grading of the narration. In this case, the issue with the narration is the disconnection, not the reliability of Abd Al-Jabbar or Ammar Al-Duhani.

As for the wording of the narration, we have no issue with it, for the Prophet – peace be upon him – warned his wives by suggesting that the dogs of Al-Haw’ab will bark at one of them. In other words, we are aware, and authenticate the narration that includes a vague warning towards the wives (in which A’isha is intended), while we have our doubts about the Prophet – peace be upon him – being specific about the warning, since it has not arrived us through an authentic and connected chain.