Bahth fi Qissat Bani Hisham ibn al-Mughira wa Istidhanihim al-Nabi - SAW - an yuzawwiju Aliyan - RA - dimna Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dar Alam al-Fawa'id li-l-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Bahth fi Qissat Bani Hisham ibn al-Mughira wa Istidhanihim al-Nabi—SAW—an yuzawwiju Aliyan—RA (A Study on the Account of Banu Hisham ibn al-Mughira and Their Request for the Prophet's Permission to Marry Their Daughter to Ali) is a specialized hadith treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (d. 1386 AH / 1966 CE) . The work critically examines the narrations concerning Banu Hisham ibn al-Mughira seeking the permission of the Prophet ﷺ to wed their daughter to Ali ibn Abi Talib .
Manuscript and Scope
The treatise survives as an incomplete draft discovered in the Library of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca (Maktabat al-Haram al-Makki) on a single long folio bearing marginal additions and corrections . It is published as the thirty-eighth treatise within the eighteenth volume of al-Muallimi's collected works, Athar al-Muallimi .
Al-Muallimi outlined four planned areas of inquiry at the corner of the manuscript's final page:
- Rebuttals to criticisms directed at al-Miswar ibn Makhrama and Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr.
- The young age of the two narrators.
- The claim of solitary transmission (tafarrud).
- The perceived improbability of the proposal in light of Ali's recognized virtue, his reverence for the Prophet ﷺ, his honor for Fatima, and his enmity toward Abu Jahl and his faction .
Of these projected topics, only the hadith extraction (takhrij) and the second inquiry regarding the age and birth date of al-Miswar ibn Makhrama are present in the surviving text .
Hadith Extraction and Transmission Chains
Al-Muallimi documents the transmission of the narrative across early hadith compilations . He notes that the hadith is firmly established in al-Sahihayn (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) through Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali from al-Miswar ibn Makhrama, as well as through Ibn Abi Mulayka from al-Miswar . Portions of the hadith are also recorded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal in al-Musnad and by al-Hakim al-Naysaburi in al-Mustadrak via Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Rafi'—Ali's scribe—from al-Miswar, and through Ja'far ibn Muhammad from Ibn Abi Rafi' .
Al-Muallimi also analyzes supporting narrations, including mursal chains transmitted by al-Hakim via Ismail ibn Abi Khalid from Abu Hanzala, and through al-Sha'bi from Suwayd ibn Ghaflah . He further references transmissions from Ibn Abbas preserved in al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar's al-Muwaffaqiyyat and al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Saghir .
Chronological Critique
The core of the surviving discussion addresses the assertion made by historians—such as Yahya ibn Bukayr and Amr ibn Ali al-Fallas, cited in Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Tahdhib al-Tahdhib and al-Isabah—that al-Miswar was born two years after the Hijrah and brought to Medina in Dhu al-Hijjah of year 8 AH at age six, leading some to argue that he was only six or seven years old during Ali's proposal and too young to retain the event accurately .
Al-Muallimi refutes this chronological claim on several grounds:
- The consensus claimed by historians lacks any authentic, contiguous chain of transmission reaching al-Miswar himself or his contemporaries, noting that about a century separates figures like Yahya ibn Bukayr and Amr ibn Ali from al-Miswar's death, along with the recognized leniency of historians in dating births .
- The text of the hadith in al-Sahihayn and Musnad Ahmad contains al-Miswar's explicit statement: فسمعت رسول الله ﷺ وهو يخطب الناس في ذلك على منبره هذا، وأنا يومئذ محتلم ("I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ addressing the people regarding that on this pulpit of his, and on that day I had reached puberty") .
- He responds to Ibn Sayyid al-Nas's claim that the wording was an error for ka-l-muhtalim ("approaching puberty"), arguing that even if accepted, such a descriptor applies to someone over ten years old rather than six or seven, and he suggests that earlier historians may have mistakenly stated "two years after the Hijrah" instead of "two years before the Hijrah" .
- The inclusion of the wording wa-ana yawma'idhin muhtalim by al-Bukhari, Muslim, and Ahmad without objection indicates that the historians' dating lacks a solid foundation, further supported by al-Bukhari's omission of those historians' claims in his biographical histories .
- Contextualizing the event historically, he observes that the family of Abu Jahl accepted Islam only at the Conquest of Mecca in late 8 AH, placing the incident near the end of the Prophet's life, which would make al-Miswar around eight years of age or older even under the historians' own framework .
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