He told of a woman who came to God's Messenger and said, “My husband wants to take away my son, and he has provided drink and other benefits for me.” The Prophet said, “This is your father and this is your mother, so take whichever of them you wish by the hand.” He took his mother’s hand and she went off with him.
Narrated Hilal b. Usama quoted Abu Maimuna Sulaiman,* client of the people of Medina, as saying:
While I was sitting with Abu Huraira a Persian woman came, to him along with a son of hers. She had been divorced by her husband and they both claimed him. She addressed him in foreign speech telling him that her husband wished to take her son away, and Abu Huraira told them to cast lots for him, saying that to her in foreign speech. Then her husband came and asked who was disputing with him about his son, and Abu Huraira assured him in God's name that the only reason why he said what he had said was because once when he was sitting with God’s Messenger a woman came to him and said, “Messenger of God, my husband wants to take away my son, and he had benefited me and drawn water for me from the well of Abu ‘Inaba.” (Nasa’i has “from sweet water.”) God’s Messenger replied, “Cast lots for him.” Her husband asked, “Who is disputing with me about my son?” and God’s Messenger said, “This is your father and this is your mother, so take whichever of them you wish by the hand,” and he took his mother’s hand.
* Mirqat, iii, 536 says that while Sulaiman appears in all texts of the Mishkat, the correct form is Salman. Abu Dawud, Talaq, 35 (in the 2-vol. edn. Cairo, 1348 A.H.) has Salma (or Sulma). See further Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, xii, 253.
Abu Dawud and Nasa’i transmitted it, but Nasa’i mentioned the version which was traced back to the Prophet. Darimi transmitted it on the authority of Hilal b. Usama.
‘Amr b. Shu'aib, on his father’s authority, said his grandfather,‘Abdallah b. ‘Amr, told of a woman who said, “Messenger of God, my womb was a vessel to this son of mine, my breasts a water-skin for him, and my lap a guard for him, yet his father has divorced me and wants to take him away from me.” God’s Messenger replied, “You have more right to him as long as you do not marry.”
