The famous Tabi’i Hazrat Sa’id bin Musayyib’s daughter’s marriage incident is extremely instructive and a splendid example in Islamic history of selflessness, sympathy, fondness for the poor, and simplicity. His daughter was extremely beautiful and educated. Caliph Abd al-Malik wanted to make her his daughter-in-law, and he sent a proposal for her engagement to his crown prince. Ibn Musayyib refused. The Caliph applied a great deal of pressure and used various kinds of harshness, but Ibn Musayyib remained steadfast in his refusal. And after a few days he married her to Abu Wada’ah, a very ordinary man of Quraysh, who was one of his humble students.

Abu Wada’ah’s own account of this incident is that I used to go and sit with Sa’id bin Musayyib regularly. Once, after an absence of a few days, I happened to go, and Ibn Musayyib asked: Where did you disappear for so many days?

I said: My wife had passed away, so I could not attend. He said: Why did you not inform me? I would have also taken part in the preparation and shrouding. After a little while, when I got up to leave, he said:

Have you made arrangements for a second marriage?

I am a poor, penniless man with just a few coins; who will marry me? He said: I will make the arrangements, are you ready?

I said: Yes, certainly!

Sa’id bin Musayyib at that very moment had the nikah of his daughter performed with me for two or three dirhams. When I got up from there, out of extreme joy I could not understand what to do. Reaching home, I fell into worry about the rukhsati (bride’s departure to the husband’s home). In the evening, Sa’id ibn Musayyib ordered his daughter to walk with him. First he offered two rak’ahs of prayer and had his daughter pray two rak’ahs, after which he reached my house with her. I was going to break my fast after Maghrib when someone knocked at the door. I asked: Who? The reply came: Sa’id! I thought, Sa’id bin Musayyib does not go anywhere except his home and the mosque; who is this Sa’id? I got up and opened the door and saw that it was Sa’id ibn Musayyib. Seeing him, I said: Why did you take the trouble? You should have summoned me. He said: No, I should have come to you... Then he said: You were a lonely man and your wife was present; I thought why should you spend the night alone, that is why I have come bringing your wife.

She was standing behind him. He put her inside the door and closed the door from outside. My wife fell down out of shyness. I bolted the door from inside. After that, I climbed onto the roof and announced to the neighbors that today Sa’id ibn Musayyib had married his daughter to me and had delivered her to my house. My mother, according to custom, adorned her for three days. After she was adorned, when I saw her, she was an extremely beautiful woman, a memorizer of the Book of Allah, a scholar of the Sunnah of the Messenger, and well-versed in the rights of the husband.

Reference: Ibn Khallikan, Volume 1, p. 207

The following lessons are obtained from this incident:

An educated, beautiful girl who was the nurtured child of a eminent Muhaddith Tabi’i.

In the city, her knowledge, beauty, and character were the talk of the town; she could have gotten the best of proposals.

But the girl’s father had given her such an education that instead of becoming the queen of the crown prince of the ruling government, she happily accepted becoming the wife of a poor student, and presented this splendid example of preferring the Hereafter over the world, which will always be written in golden words in history for a Muslim girl.

The father had settled the match without asking the girl, and the girl, upon hearing her father’s decision, immediately bowed her head in submission and added four moons (greatly enhanced) to her knowledge and practice, her father’s scholarly standing, and the family’s honor. The world will always remember such an exemplary lady with love, devotion, respect and reverence, and Islamic history will always take pride in such girls.