A woman came to the Prophet ﷺ and embraced Islam, then a man married her. Her first husband then came and said, "Messenger of Allah, I had accepted Islam along with her, and she knew of my Islam."So the Messenger of Allah ﷺ took her away from her second husband and returned her to her first husband.
أن امرأة جاءت إلى النبي ﷺ فأسلمت، فتزوجها رجل، قال: فجاء زوجها الأول فقال: يا رسول الله! إني كنت أسلمت معها، وعلمت بإسلامي، قال: فانتزعها رسول الله ﷺ من زوجها الآخر، وردها إلى زوجها الأول.
It was narrated by Abu Dawud (2238, 2239), Tirmidhi (1144), Ibn Majah (2008), Ibn Hibban (4159), Ibn Jarud (757), and Hakim (2/200), all of them from the hadith of Simak, from Ikrima, from Ibn Abbas, and he mentioned it. Tirmidhi said, "This is a sahih hadith." Hakim said, "Its isnad is sahih, and the two of them did not include it, and this is the kind of case where I say that Bukhari relied on Ikrima, and Muslim relied on Simak." I say, it is not as he said. Neither of the two Shaykhs relied on Simak from Ikrima, for Simak, who is Ibn Harb bin Aws, although he was truthful in himself, was inconsistent in his narration from Ikrima, as Imam Ahmad and others have said. Perhaps he was not inconsistent in this particular hadith, as previously mentioned from the hadith of Ibn Abbas that the Prophet ﷺ returned his daughter to her husband under the original marriage contract, so there is no contradiction between the two hadiths.The jurisprudence of the chapter, Tirmidhi said following the hadith of Amr bin Shuayb, "The practice among the people of knowledge regarding this hadith is that if a woman embraces Islam before her husband, and then her husband embraces Islam while she is still within her waiting period, her husband has the greater right to her as long as she is within the waiting period. This is the view of Malik bin Anas, Uzai, Shafii, Ahmad, and Ishaq."I say, the meticulous scholars of hadith held the view that if a woman embraces Islam and her husband does not, then if she wishes, after the waiting period ends, to marry someone else, she has that right. But if she waits and remains committed to the original marriage, then whenever her husband embraces Islam, she is still his wife. Abu Sufyan bin Harb embraced Islam at Marr Zahran while his wife Hind bint Utba remained a disbeliever in Makkah. He then came to her calling her to Islam. She seized his beard and said, "Kill this misguided old man." She remained for some days before embracing Islam, then she embraced Islam and gave her pledge of allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ, and the two of them remained on the original marriage. Likewise, the wife of Ikrima bin Abu Jahl and the wife of Safwan bin Umaya embraced Islam while their husbands fled toward Yemen, then they came back and embraced Islam after some time, and the two couples settled back into their original marriages.Khattabi said, after quoting the grading of Ibn Abbas's hadith as sahih and the grading of Amr bin Shuayb's hadith as daif, "In this hadith is proof that the separation of the two abodes has no effect in bringing about a divorce. This is because Abu Asas was in Makkah after the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had released him and freed him from captivity, having stipulated that he send Zaynab to him, which he did. Zaynab then came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and stayed with him." He said, "It has also been reported that a group of women were returned by the Prophet ﷺ to their husbands under the original marriage contract." He then mentioned those whom I have already mentioned before this.Hafiz bin Qayyim said in his Zad (5/137), "We do not know of anyone who ever renewed the marriage contract for the sake of Islam at all. Rather, what actually happened was one of two things, either the two of them separated and she married someone else, or she remained with him even if his embracing of Islam came after hers." See for further detail Minna Kubra (6/180).