And Ibn Isḥāq, from Muḥammad ibn Zayd, from his mother, from Umm Salamah—none of them mentioned the Prophet ﷺ; they confined it to Umm Salamah.

85 – Chapter: A woman praying without a head covering

641 – Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā narrated to us, Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl narrated to us, Ḥammād narrated to us, from Qatādah, from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, from Ṣafiyyah bint al-Ḥārith, from ʿĀ’ishah, from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: “Allah does not accept the prayer of a woman who has reached menstruation age except with a head covering.”

(1) Its chain is sound (ḥasan). Ṣafiyyah bint al-Ḥārith—she is al-ʿAbdarī, the mother of Ṭalḥah al-Ṭalaḥāt—from whom Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn and Qatādah narrated, and Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned her among the trustworthy successors (thiqāt al-tābiʿīn) 4/385–386. Ibn Ḥajar alone in al-Taqrīb counted her as a Companion, and he was not followed in that. Lady ʿĀ’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, used to stay with her in Basrah after the Battle of the Camel. The rest of its narrators are trustworthy. Ḥammād: he is Ibn Salamah.

It was also recorded by al-Tirmidhī (378) and Ibn Mājah (655) via the path of Ḥammād ibn Salamah, with this chain. Al-Tirmidhī said: a ḥasan ḥadīth.

It is in Musnad Aḥmad (25167) and Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān (1711) and (1712).

See also what follows it.

Al-Khaṭṭābī said: By “a woman who has reached menstruation age” (ḥāʾiḍ) he means a woman who has reached the age of menstruation, not one who is currently in her menstrual days, because a menstruating woman does not pray at all. And al-khimār is what one uses to cover the head.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said in al-Istidhkār 5/443: The view upon which the jurists of the regions in the Hijaz and Iraq agree is that a free woman must cover her entire body with a thick, ample garment and cover her head, for all of her is ʿawrah except her face and hands, and that she must cover everything other than her face and hands.

The author of al-Mughnī said 2/331: If a small part of a woman becomes exposed, it is pardoned. And al-Khiraqī’s statement—that if anything other than her face and hands of a free woman becomes exposed, she must repeat the prayer—is understood to apply to what is substantial and egregious. There is no fixed limit for what is much or little; rather, reference in that matter is to custom, because estimation is a matter of scriptural specification (tawqīf) and there is no such specification in this case, and because it is difficult to guard against small exposure, so it is pardoned by analogy with the small exposure of a man’s ʿawrah.