13.

Statement of Marriage

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بيان النكاح

Naufal b. Mu’awiya said:When I accepted Islam I had five wives, so I consulted the Prophet and he said, “Separate from one and keep four.” I therefore decided on the one who had been longest with me and had been barren for sixty years,* and separated from her. * This statement may seem strange when one considers that Naufal is said to have died in the Caliphate of Yazid b. Mu'awiya (60-64 A.H.). Some say he lived 60 years in the pre-Islamic period and 60 years in Islam. Others says he died aged 100. He is said to have accepted Islam at the Conquest of Mecca. The tradition cannot mean that he had been married to this woman for 60 years; it probably indicates that she was both barren and much older than he. She was possibly his first wife.Cf. Ibn Abu Hatim,al-Jarh wat-ta’dil, IV, i, 487 i.;Isti'ab, p. 293 ; Ibn Hajar,Tahdhib, x, 492;Isaba, iii, 1191.It is transmitted inSharh as-sunna.