She was searching the head of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for lice, while the wife of Uthman bin Mazun and other women from among the migrant women were with him, complaining about their houses, saying that they were being driven out of them and treated harshly there. Zaynab joined in the conversation and stopped tending to the head of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "You cannot speak with your eyes. Speak and continue your work."The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then commanded that day that the migrant women should inherit. So when Abdullah died, his wife inherited from him a house in Madinah.
أنها كانت تفلي رأس رسول الله ﷺ، وعنده امرأة عثمان بن مظعون، ونساء من المهاجرات يشكون منازلهن، وأنهن يخرجن منه، ويضيق عليهن فيه، فتكلمت زينب، وتركت رأس رسول الله ﷺ، فقال رسول الله ﷺ: إنك لست تكلمين بعينيك، تكلمي واعملي عملك. فأمر رسول الله ﷺ يومئذ أن يورث من المهاجرين النساء. فمات عبد الله فورثته امرأته دارا بالمدينة.
Abu Dawud (3080) and Bayhaqi (6/156) through his route, and Ahmad (27050) - and this is his wording - all narrated it from the hadith of Abdul-Wahid bin Ziyad, who said, Amash narrated to us, from Jami bin Shaddad, from Kulthum, from Zaynab, and he mentioned it.Imam Ahmad (27049) also narrated it by another route, from Sharik, from Amash, with his chain, in abbreviated form, that the Prophet ﷺ gave women inheritance of their allotted plots. Sharik is Ibn Abdullah Nakhai, who has poor memory, but he was corroborated in the first chain. Its chain of transmission is hasan because of Kulthum, who is Ibn Alqama. Ibn Hibban mentioned him among the reliable narrators of the Tabiin, and Ibn Hajar said in Taqrib, "Trustworthy," but the correct view is that he is "truthful," for neither he nor Mizzi mentioned anyone who declared him trustworthy other than Ibn Hibban, except that a group narrated from him, as Mizzi mentioned, and it is said that he had companionship with the Prophet.As for Zaynab, who used to pick lice from the head of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, she is Zaynab bint Jahsh, Mother of the Believers, and it is unlikely that she is Zaynab bint Muawiya, the wife of Ibn Masud. As for her inheriting a house in Madinah after the death of Abdullah (Ibn Masud), this is simply a statement of what actually happened.As for his saying, "their allotted plots," al-khitat, with kasrah on the kha and fathah on the ta, means placing a marker on land as a sign of ownership, like the plots of cities designated for ownership, whether for the state or for individual members of the people. The meaning of the hadith is that the Prophet ﷺ set aside plots for the emigrant women, similar to land grants, so that they came to own these plots, which contained the houses of their husbands. For it had been the custom that when a woman's husband died, she would be turned out of her husband's house. So the Messenger of Allah ﷺ granted the wives of the emigrants inheritance of their husbands' houses after their deaths, like the granting of ownership of plots, except that this ruling was specific to the emigrants, and once that generation had passed, it ceased to apply.