94 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam corpus of rulings but also knowledge of Arabic grammar, morphology, and rhetoric. Women, aside from a minority in the upper classes, often did not have the wherewithal or time free from domestic obligations to pursue such an education. The requirements of face-to-face meetings with teachers and oral transmission were intended as a safeguard against interpolations and erroneous recording of texts, which were typically copied in unvocalized Arabic, thereby increasing the possibility of mistakes in transmission. The teacher would read the text aloud, and the student would listen and review his own copy to ensure accurate transmission. The requirement of face-to-face pedagogy, however, collided with cultural and religious norms dictating against interaction between men and women who were not related to each other by marriage or within specified degrees of kinship (i mahram ). Furthermore, during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries, scholars advocated that students begin studying badith (i.e., seeking traditions from different haditb masters) only after demonstrating a good command of Arabic and the ability to memorize and convey texts accurately. According to the fourth-century badith scholar alRamahurmuz! (d. ca. 360/970), Basrans encouraged the start of the study of badith around the age of ten, Kufans around the age of twenty, and Syrians around the age of thirty. ’ Following these recommendations, girls or young women who wished to excel in this arena would have had to begin pursuing their studies around the onset of puberty and/or during their child-bearing years. The dominant culture of domesticity (in the premodern Muslim world and elsewhere) did not encourage such renunciation of familial obligations, nor did women typically enjoy the financial autonomy that would allow them such pursuits. The following anecdote speaks clearly to the fate of women in the increasingly competitive arena of badith transmission. Ibn Sa‘d reports that al-Zuhr! compared ‘Amra bint ‘Abd al-Rahman to ‘Urwa, saying, When I heard the badith of ‘Urwa and then those of ‘Amra, I would put more stock by the badith of ‘Urwa. Although I could be sated with her [‘Amra’s] haditb, ‘Urwa was an inexhaustible sea [of knowledge]. 86 The issue of mahram bonds and the transmission of religious knowledge has been discussed in Chapter 1 . 8 ' Al-Ramahurmuzl, al-Muhaddith al-Fasil, 1 87. In Chapter 3, 1 discuss how the age requirements changed in the classical period (after the fourth/tenth century) so that female participation was again encouraged. 88 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Tabaqat, 5:134.