Sayyiduna Abdullah ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) says: I always wished to ask Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) about which two women are meant in the verse where Allah Almighty says: {إِنْ تَتُوبَا إِلَی اللّٰہِ فَقَدْ صَغَتْ قُلُوبُکُمَا} … If you both turn in repentance to Allah, (it will be better for you) for your hearts have deviated (from the right). Once, Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) performed Hajj and I also performed Hajj with him. He went aside (to relieve himself), and I also turned with a water jug and accompanied him. When he finished relieving himself and returned, I poured water from the jug on his hands, and he performed ablution. Then I said: O Commander of the Faithful! Who are those two wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) about whom Allah Almighty said: {إِنْ تَتُوبَا إِلَی اللّٰہِ فَقَدْ صَغَتْ قُلُوبُکُمَا} … If you both turn in repentance to Allah, (it will be better for you) for your hearts have deviated (from the right). He said: O Ibn Abbas! I am amazed at you. Listen, they are Aisha and Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with them both). Then Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated the rest of the hadith: I and my Ansari neighbor used to live in the neighborhood of Banu Umayyah, which was in the high area of Madinah. We used to take turns visiting the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). On the day I went, I would bring all the news of revelation and other matters of that day to my companion, and when he went, he would do the same. The fact is, we Quraysh used to have dominance over women, but when we came to Madinah, we saw that the Ansari women had dominance over their men. Our women also started learning the ways of the Ansari women. One day, I shouted at my wife, and she replied back. Her replying back was unpleasant to me, but she said: Why do you dislike my reply? The wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) also reply to him, and sometimes one of them even leaves him until night. I was alarmed by this and said: May the one who does this be ruined! Then I got ready and went to Hafsa and asked: O Hafsa! Does any one of you keep the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) upset until night? She said: Yes. I said: She is ruined and in loss. Are you not afraid that Allah may become angry because of the anger of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and thus that woman would be destroyed? Now, do not ask the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for more, nor reply to him, nor stop talking to him. If you need anything, ask me, and do not be deceived by the fact that your neighbor is more beautiful and more beloved to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) than you. By this, Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) meant Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). Then Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: We used to hear that Ghassan (the king of Syria) was shoeing his horses to fight us. Once, my Ansari friend stayed with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) on his turn, and in the evening he returned and knocked on my door forcefully and asked: Is Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) here? I was alarmed and went to him. He said: Today a great incident has occurred. I said: What is it? Has the Ghassani army come? He said: No, something even greater has happened. A dreadful event has occurred: the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has divorced his wives. I said: Then Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her) is ruined and in loss. I thought this would soon happen. I put on my clothes and performed the morning prayer with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). (After the prayer) the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) went to his upper room and sat in a corner, and I went to Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her). I saw that Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her) was crying. I asked: Why are you crying? Did I not warn you? Has the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) divorced you? She replied: I do not know. He is in the upper room. Then I went out and came to the pulpit and saw people sitting around it, some of them weeping. I sat with them for a while, but my heart could not rest, so I went to the upper room where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was, and said to his Abyssinian servant: Ask permission for me to enter upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). The servant went and conveyed my request, then returned and said: I mentioned you to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but he remained silent. I went back and sat with the people by the pulpit. Again, my heart was restless, so I went to the servant and said: Ask permission for me. He went and returned, saying: I mentioned you to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but he remained silent. Then I went back and sat with the people. Again, my heart was restless, so I went to the servant and said: Ask permission for me once more. The servant went inside and returned, saying: I mentioned you to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but he remained silent. As I was about to turn away, suddenly the servant said: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has given you permission. When I entered, I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) lying on a rough mat with a pillow stuffed with palm fibers, which had left marks on his blessed body. I stood and said: Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah! Have you divorced your wives? The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his eyes towards me and said: No. I was amazed and said: Allah is the Greatest! Then, while still standing, I said to lighten the mood: If only you would pay attention to me. We Quraysh used to have dominance over women, but when we came to Madinah, we found a people whose women had dominance over their men. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) smiled. Then I said: O Messenger of Allah! If you hear my situation, I want to say something. I went to Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her) and said to her: Do not be deceived by the fact that your neighbor, meaning Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), is more beautiful and more beloved to the Messenger of Allah than you. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) smiled again. When I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) smiling, I sat down. I looked around the house of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and by Allah, I saw nothing except three animal skins. I said: O Messenger of Allah, pray to Allah to grant abundance to your Ummah. Persia and Rome have been given abundance of everything, and they have immense worldly goods, while they do not even worship Allah. At first, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was reclining, but upon hearing this, he sat up straight and said: O Ibn Khattab! Are you still in doubt? The reward of their good deeds is given to them in this world. I said: O Messenger of Allah! Pray for my forgiveness. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), due to something that Sayyidah Hafsa (may Allah be pleased with her) had disclosed about Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), separated himself from his wives for twenty-nine days, and in his anger said: I will not come to you for a month. When twenty-nine days had passed, he first went to Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her). Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said: O Messenger of Allah! You swore not to come to us for a month, but only twenty-nine days have passed; I have been counting. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: A month can be twenty-nine days. So that month was of twenty-nine days. Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said: Then Allah revealed the verse of choice (Ayat al-Takhyir). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) first asked me, and I chose him, and then he gave all his wives the choice, and all of them replied as I did.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) that Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I have agreed with my Lord in three matters, or my Lord has agreed with me. I said: O Messenger of Allah! If you take the Maqam Ibrahim as a place of prayer, then this verse was revealed {وَاتَّخِذُوا مِنْ مَّقَامِ إِبْرَاہِیمَ مُصَلًّی} … "Take the Maqam Ibrahim as a place of prayer." I said: O Messenger of Allah! Good and bad people both enter upon your wives; if you order them to observe veiling, it would be better, so the verse of veiling was revealed. And when something concerning the Mothers of the Believers reached me, I looked into the matter with deep interest and said to them: Refrain from behaving in such a manner with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), otherwise Allah, the Exalted, will replace you with better wives for him, who will be Muslims. When I went to one of the Mothers of the Believers, she said: O Umar! Do you advise the wives of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)? Can the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) not do so himself? So I stopped, but then Allah, the Exalted, revealed this command: {عَسٰی رَبُّہٓ اِنْ طَلَّقَکُنَّ اَنْ یُّبْدِلَہٓ اَزْوَاجًا خَیْرًا مِّنْکُنَّ مُسْلِمٰتٍ مُّؤْمِنٰتٍ قٰنِتٰتٍ تٰئِبٰتٍ عٰبِدٰتٍ سٰئِحٰتٍ ثَیِّبٰتٍ وَّاَبْکَارًا} … "It may be, if he divorces you, that his Lord will give him in your place wives better than you—submissive, believing, devout, penitent, worshipping, fasting—previously married and virgins."