Question
How authentic is the Hadeeth (narration) where a woman came to the Prophet to convert to Islam and he stipulated that she must not wail (over the dead). She told him that there was a woman who once wailed for her and she wanted to return the favor. The Prophet was silent. Is there a Sharee’ah (Islamic legislation) rule to be extracted from this Hadeeth? May Allah reward you.
Fatwa
All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His Slave and Messenger.
This is a Saheeh Hadeeth that was narrated by Al-Bukhari, Muslim and An-Nasaa’i.
As for your question about the Sharee’ah rule to be extracted from this Hadeeth, it indicates that you misunderstood how the Prophet gave the woman permission. The meaning of the Hadeeth is that the woman went to return the favor of the woman who wailed for her and then returned and gave the Prophet her pledge of allegiance. This woman was Um ‘Atiyyah, may Allah be pleased with her.
Scholars have several interpretations of this Hadeeth:
• An-Nawawi said that the apparent meaning of this Hadeeth is that the ruling on the permissibility of wailing was specific for Umm ‘Atiyyah, may Allah be pleased with her, and her family, but not for anyone else. A Sharee‘ah-giver has the right to specify that a certain rule applies to anyone. However, this special case does not oppose the general prohibition on wailing.
• Commenting on the aforementioned opinion of An-Nawawi Ibn Hajar stated that it was not a sound opinion, unless it can be assumed that the people to whom ’Um ‘Atiyyah, may Allah be pleased with her, wailed were non-Muslims, which is far from correct, and unless we also assume that they shared the exception with her.
• The wailing that Um ‘Atiyyah was allowed to do was not accompanied by the corrupt practices of the pre-Islamic era, such as tearing one's clothes and scratching one’s face. An-Nawawi, may Allah have m,ercy upon him, rejected this meaning and pointed out its invalidity.
There are other opinions about this issue that were quoted by Ibn Hajar at the end of his explanation of this Hadeeth. Finally, he concluded that the nearest opinion to the truth is that wailing was permissible, then it became disliked, then it became impermissible. He clarified that with such understanding, the ambiguity will be eliminated.
And Allah knows best.