While I was wandering in search of some camels of mine that had strayed, a group of riders, or horsemen, came along carrying a banner. The bedouins began gathering around me because of my standing with the Prophet ﷺ, when the riders arrived at a tent. They brought out a man from it and struck off his neck. I asked about him, and they told me that he had married his father's wife.
بينا أنا أطوف على إبل لي ضلت، إذ أقبل ركب، أو فوارس، معهم لواء. فجعل الأعراب يطوفون بي لمنزلتي من النبي ﷺ إذ أتوا قبة. فاستخرجوا منها رجلا فضربوا عنقه. فسألت عنه فذكروا أنه أعرس بامرأة أبيه.
It was narrated by Abu Dawud (4456), Ahmad (18609), Tahawi in his commentary (3/149), and Saeed bin Mansur (943), all from the hadith of Mutarrif, from Abu Jahm, from Bara bin Azib, who related it in the same manner. Except that in Ahmad's version it reads, "He consummated marriage with his wife's mother." Its chain is sahih. Mutarrif is Ibn Abdullah Shakhir, and Abu Jahm is Sulayman bin Abu Jahm, the freedman of Bara.It has been said that the words of Allah Most High, "And do not marry those women whom your fathers married, except what has already occurred" [Nisa 4:22], were revealed concerning Manzur bin Zaban, who had married his father's wife, whose name was Mulaykah. It has also been said that he is the one to whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the maternal uncle of Bara bin Azib, was sent to be killed. Others say this is a different case, since Manzur bin Zaban remained alive into the era of Abu Bakr Siddiq, who found him in Bahrain, brought him to Madinah, and separated him from his father's wife. Umar wanted to kill him, but he swore by Allah that he had not known Allah had forbidden this, so Umar left him alone.Munziri, in his abridgment of Abu Dawud, criticized this hadith for the multiplicity of its variant reports, but stopped short of clarifying which version should be preferred. Scholars of knowledge recognize that a multiplicity of transmission routes does not itself weaken a hadith. It has been reported from some of the early generations, "When a hadith comes through a hundred different routes, we do not fail to understand it because of that."For this reason, Hafiz bin Qayyim responded to Munziri, after quoting his statement in full, saying, "All of this indicates that the hadith is well preserved, and this does not require abandoning it in any way." He then said, "So what defect is there in this that would require abandoning the hadith? The hadith has hasan routes of transmission that support one another." He then listed these routes. End of summary.