Sunan Ibn Majah
Sunan Ibn Majah 1994
حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ السَّلاَمِ بْنُ عَاصِمٍ، حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ نَافِعٍ، حَدَّثَنَا مَالِكُ بْنُ أَنَسٍ، عَنْ أَبِي حَازِمٍ، عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ سَعْدٍ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ " إِنْ كَانَ فَفِي الْفَرَسِ وَالْمَرْأَةِ وَالْمَسْكَنِ " . يَعْنِي الشُّؤْمَ .
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
ʿAbd al-Salam ibn ʿAsim narrated to us: ʿAbdullah ibn Nafiʿ narrated to us: Malik ibn Anas narrated to us, from Abu Hazim, from Sahl ibn Saʿd, that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘If there were ill omen, it would be in a horse, a woman, and a dwelling.’ The narrator explained: meaning ill omen.
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
This wording presents ill omen as a hypothetical, then names three things; the final narrator comment explicitly glosses the phrase as ill omen.
أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ قَالَ " إِنْ كَانَ فَفِي الْفَرَسِ وَالْمَرْأَةِ وَالْمَسْكَنِ " .
The conditional phrase إِنْ كَانَ is elliptical (‘if there is/it were’); the following narrator comment supplies الشؤم, meaning ill omen.
Does ‘If there were ill omen’ make the ellipsis sufficiently clear while preserving the report’s conditional wording?