Al-Adab Al-Mufrad
Book 53, Hadith 2
حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ، قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الْوَاحِدِ قَالَ: حَدَّثَتْنَا عَجُوزٌ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكُوفَةِ جَدَّةُ عَلِيِّ بْنِ غُرَابٍ قَالَتْ: حَدَّثَتْنِي أُمُّ الْمُهَاجِرِ قَالَتْ: سُبِيتُ فِي جَوَارِي مِنَ الرُّومِ، فَعَرَضَ عَلَيْنَا عُثْمَانُ الإِسْلاَمَ، فَلَمْ يُسْلِمْ مِنَّا غَيْرِي وَغَيْرُ أُخْرَى، فَقَالَ عُثْمَانُ: اذْهَبُوا فَاخْفِضُوهُمَا، وَطَهِّرُوهُمَا.
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
Musa ibn Isma‘il related to us: ‘Abd al-Wahid related to us: An elderly woman from Kufa, the grandmother of ‘Ali ibn Ghurab, related to us: Umm al-Muhajir related to me, saying: I was captured along with some Byzantine girls. ‘Uthman presented Islam to us, but only I and another girl accepted it. ‘Uthman said: ‘Go and have the two of them circumcised and purified.’
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
The Arabic uses the feminine-specific term خفض for the two women/girls and then says “purify them.” The wording is translated descriptively without adding a procedural gloss.
فَاخْفِضُوهُمَا
The term خفض is a gender-specific historical term often rendered as female circumcision; a plain English rendering can obscure its specialized usage.
Should the translation retain a note explaining the historical term خفض?