Zainab bint Salama · The Book of Divorce

I went to Umm Habiba, the wife of Allah's Apostle (ﷺ), when her father Abu Sufyan had died. Umm Habiba sent for a perfume having yellowness in it or something else like it, and she applied it to a girl and then rubbed it on her cheeks and then said: By Allah, I need no perfume but for the fact that I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) say on the pulpit:" It is not permissible for a woman believing in Allah…

I, am doing it, for I have heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) saying: It is not permissible for a woman believing in Allah and the Hereafter to mourn beyond three days except the husband (for whom she can mourn) for four months and ten days.

One among you used to spend one year in a dungeon dressed in worst clothes. (And at the end of this period) she threw dung at the dog which happened to pass that way and then she came out (of her 'Idda). Can't she (wait) even for four months and ten days?

Umm Salama and Umm Habiba (Allah be pleased with them) were talking with each other (and saying) that a woman came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and mentioned to him that her daughter had lost her husband, and her eyes were sore and she wanted to use collyrium, whereupon Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: One among you used to throw dung at the end of a year, and now (this abstinence from adornment) is only for four months and ten days.

I had in fact no need of it, but I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: It is not permissible for the women believing in Allah and the Hereafter to abstain from adornment beyond three days except (at the death of) husband (in which case she must abstain from adornment) for four months and ten days.