Answer
Asalamu Alaikum,
Thank you for contacting About Islam with your question.
Dr. Shabir Ally, from Let the Quran Speak, addresses this question in the video below:
Transcript:
Aisha Khaja:
So, we’re talking about women’s rights and taking a balanced approach to hadith. Are there a lot of hadith within this category, given the broad range that we could go with?
[…]
Dr. Shabir Ally:
Just to be fair, I want to say, also, that there are many hadith which promote women’s rights, and, of course, impose responsibility on husbands. But the flip-side of that is that there… it’s more than a flip-side, it’s more like its counterbalanced more than necessary by hadith which degrade women.
Aisha Khaja:
So are you saying there are more that we see that degrade women, yes?
Dr. Shabir Ally:
Yes. Yeah. And this is the unfortunate part and the problematic nature of the whole enterprise.
For example, you have a hadith that says that if a man’s body was covered in sores from head-to-toe and his wife were to lick the pus out of the sores to cleanse them, then she still would not have fulfilled her duty to her husband.
So, this is obviously a gross exaggeration–and there’s no pun on the word “gross” here.
Then there’s a hadith that says that if the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, were to command anyone to prostrate before someone else—as, for example, people prostrated before their kings and rulers in ancient times—then the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, would have commanded women to prostrate before their husband.
This one is more commonly known than the previous one, but these two both obviously exaggerate the expectation.
Aisha Khaja:
Ok this one that you’re just speaking on… well I’ve heard of it as a weak narration. So, is it possible as some of these problematic hadith—while there are so many—is there a common understanding that these are from some of the weaker sources? Or you think the challenge is that they exist and people are still believing it?
Dr. Shabir Ally:
They’re from the weaker sources. In fact, neither of these two are from Bukhari and Muslim–which are the most authentic collections–but they are found in… for example, this last one about the prostration is found among the books which are known as the Sihah as-Sitta or the “six authentic books”.
So, they are viewed with some kind of expectation; that is, they are authentic enough to be followed.
The first one I quoted is not from the sihah, but what has happened here is that the principles by which the hadith are normally judged to be authentic have been applied to this one and it is found to meet some criteria.
In the first place, it was collected in the collection by Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal, who we know to be the founder of one of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence—that’s the Hanbali school, which is most widely-followed in Saudi Arabia today—and his collection of hadith contains some weak ones, as well.
Continue watching to learn more…
I hope this helps answer your question. You can also check out more from Let the Quran Speak at the link here.
Please keep in touch.
Walaikum Asalam.
Please continue feeding your curiosity, and find more info in the following links:
https://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-about-islam/narrations-women-context/
https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/about-muhammad/prophet-muhammad-respect-and-love-for-women/
https://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-about-islam/a-critical-look-at-hadiths-about-women/
https://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-about-islam/can-women-be-rulers-in-islam/