A woman was married to me whom Umar disliked, so he said, "Divorce her."I refused.Umar then went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said to me, "Obey your father."
حدثنا يحيى عن ابن أبي ذئب عن خاله الحارث
كانت تحتي امرأة كان عمر يكرهها فقال طلقها فأبيت فأتى عمر رسول الله ﷺ فقال أطع أباك
Its chain of transmission is sahih. Harith, the maternal uncle of Ibn Abu Dhib, is Harith bin Abdul-Rahman Qurashi, whose reliability was already established at 1640. Hamza bin Abdullah bin Umar is a reliable successor. Ibn Saad, Ajli, and others confirmed his reliability, and Ibn Madini mentioned him, citing Yahya bin Saeed, among the jurists of the people of Madinah. He was the brother of Salim, and Bukhari included his biography in al-Kabir 45/1/2.This hadith was narrated by Abu Dawud 4:499, Tirmidhi 2:217, and Ibn Majah 1:329, all of them through the route of Ibn Abu Dhib with this chain. Tirmidhi said, "This is a hasan sahih hadith. We only know it through the narration of Ibn Abu Dhib." In their versions there is an addition, "I had a wife whom I loved," and so on. This addition will appear in the coming narrations of this hadith at 5011, 5144, and 6470.Munziri also attributed this hadith to Nasai, but I did not find it there, so perhaps it is in Sunan al-Kubra, especially since al-Muntaqa 3702 explicitly states that Nasai did not narrate it.Let the people of our age reflect on this hadith, especially those among them who have become westernized, slaves to foreigners and slaves to women, who regard divorce as a horrific act and condemn it in the most disgraceful terms, wanting marriage to be permanent no matter what obstacles or troubles beset it. They consider it an injustice to women, yet they themselves have wronged women by driving them out into the streets, into the handling of business transactions, and into work in shops and factories, and by giving free rein to their desires through alcohol, dance halls, mixing of the sexes, and private meetings between men and women.Here we have Abdullah bin Umar, who loved his wife, while his father disliked her and ordered him to divorce her. He refused, so the Messenger of Allah ﷺ commanded him to obey his father, giving precedence to the obligatory duty of obeying his father over his love for his wife, for there were many other women besides her. In this there is a lesson for anyone who takes heed.