How sound is the Hadith: "A woman came to pledge allegiance to the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said to her: 'On condition that you do not wail,' whereupon she said: 'A woman was kind to me, and I wished to be kind to her.' So the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, remained silent"? And what is the legal rule derived from it?

The aforementioned Hadith is authentic, and it was narrated by Al-Bukhari, Muslim, and An-Nasa'i. The interpretation of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) permission for Umm 'Atiyyah to go and reward the woman who pleased her with wailing has been answered by scholars with several explanations, including:

1. What Imam An-Nawawi stated, that the permission was specific to the family of so-and-so, and the Lawgiver has the right to make exceptions from general rulings for whomever He wishes. 2. That the wailing which was permitted was that which did not involve the practices of the pre-Islamic era (Jahiliyyah), but this was refuted by An-Nawawi.

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar transmitted other sayings and refuted many of them. He mentioned in the conclusion of his commentary that the closest answers are that wailing was initially permissible, then it became disliked with a disliking of mild prohibition (Karahat Tanzeeh), then it became forbidden.