When that woman stole the velvet cloth from the house of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, we considered it a grave matter. She was a woman from Quraysh. So we came to the Prophet ﷺ to speak with him, and we said, "We will ransom her for forty ounces of silver."The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Her purification is better for her."When we heard the gentleness in the words of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, we went to Usama and said, "Speak to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ."When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw this, he stood up to deliver a sermon and said, "What is this insistence of theirs upon me regarding one of the prescribed limits of Allah that has fallen upon one of the bondswomen of Allah! By the One in whose hand is my soul, if Fatimah the daughter of the Messenger of Allah had done what this woman has done, Muhammad would have cut off her hand."
لما سرقت المرأة تلك القطيفة من بيت رسول الله ﷺ أعظمنا ذلك. وكانت امرأة من قريش. فجئنا إلى النبي ﷺ نكلمه. وقلنا: نحن نفديها بأربعين أوقية. فقال رسول الله ﷺ: تطهر خير لها فلما سمعنا لين قول رسول الله ﷺ أتينا أسامة فقلنا: كلم رسول الله ﷺ فلما رأى رسول الله ﷺ ذلك قام خطيبا فقال: ما إكثارهم علي في حد من حدود الله عز وجل وقع على أمة من إماء الله! والذي نفسي بيده لو كانت فاطمة ابنة رسول الله نزلت بالذي نزلت به لقطع محمد يدها.
Ibn Majah (2548), Hakim (4/379–380), and, by his route, Bayhaqi (8/281) all narrated it, all of them from the hadith of Muhammad bin Ishaq, from Muhammad bin Talha bin Shaddad bin Rukana, with his chain, in similar wording. Muhammad bin Ishaq said, "Abdullah bin Abu Bakr told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, after that, used to show her mercy and maintain ties with her." This is connected to the previous chain. Hakim said, "Its chain is sahih, though the two of them did not narrate it in this exact wording." Its chain is hasan on account of Muhammad bin Ishaq's explicit statement of transmission, and Ibn Hajar also graded its chain hasan in Fath al-Bari (12/89).On this subject there is also what was narrated from Abdullah bin Amr, that a woman stole during the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Those from whom she had stolen brought her forward and said, "O Messenger of Allah, this woman stole from us." Her people said, "We will ransom her," meaning her family. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Cut off her hand." They said, "We will ransom her for five hundred dinars." He said, "Cut off her hand." So her right hand was cut off. The woman then said, "Is there any repentance for me, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "Yes, today you are as free of your sin as the day your mother bore you." Then Allah revealed, in Surah Maidah, "But whoever repents after his wrongdoing and reforms" [Maidah 5:39].Ahmad (6657) narrated it from Hasan, who said, Ibn Lahia told us, Huyayy bin Abdullah told me, Abu Abdul-Rahman Hubli told him, from Abdullah bin Amr, and he related it.Ibn Lahia is subject to well-known criticism, and his teacher Huyayy bin Abdullah Maafiri is a disputed figure, criticized by Ahmad, Bukhari, and Nasai, while Ibn Main and Ibn Adi regarded him favorably, and Ibn Hibban listed him among the trustworthy narrators. So his hadith is graded hasan so long as it does not contain something objected to.