The Classical Revival 109 fourth centuries, fourteen in the fifth and sixth centuries, and ten in the seventh century. Further, whereas it is rare to find female teachers mentioned in the biographies of second- and third-century scholars such as al-Awza‘1, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Yahya b. Ma‘In, this is not the case for many post-fourth-century scholars. Al-Khatlb al-Baghdadl, Ibn ‘Asakir, and al-Dhahabl are but three leading scholars who collected hadith from women. Al-SarrTanl (d. 562/1166) identifies sixty-nine female teachers from whom he transmitted baditb. Lists of teachers compiled by such scholars further substantiate women’s growing influence in this field after the fourth/tenth century. In addition to quantitative indicators, there is also a marked shift in the qualitative descriptions of women’s baditb participation. Most women before the third/ninth century merited historical attention for transmitting individual traditions, in many cases only one or two traditions. From the fourth/tenth century onward, in keeping with trends in the arena of baditb , women were commemorated for transmitting collections of traditions. ' In many instances, the activities of later women evince training and a critical sense for the meanings of the works narrated. As a reflection of this trend, the term mubadditha (female transmitter of baditb collections) as distinct from rawiya (a woman who narrates a few traditions) is increasingly employed in the biographical literature of the classical period/’ 3 There are close to 100 entries on women in al-Dhahabl’s Siyar A ‘lam al-Nubald'. Approximately forty of these women are not included in this count because they are famed for skills other than hadith transmission or are recognized because of their kinship or marital ties to prominent men. Also, this count includes only women who have their own biographical entries but does not account for women who are mentioned only in the course of someone else’s biography. 4 Al-SanTanl, a hadith scholar and biographer, is perhaps best known for his biographical work al-Ansab. For a listing of his teachers, see his work al-Tahbir ft al-Mu ‘jam. al-Kabir (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1997). 5 These include major authoritative collections such as the Sahihs of al-Bukharl and Muslim, minor collections such as the Arba ‘mat (compilations of forty hadith on sundry topics), and also popular, edifying thematic works such as Kitab Shukr lillah and Kitab al-Qana ‘a wa 7Ta'affufb y the third-century ascetic Ibn Abl al-Dunya (d. 281/894). 6 In the technical terminology of hadith transmission, “ muhaddith ” and “ mubadditha ” designate a scholar with knowledge of hadith as well as hadith criticism (i.e., man ishtaghala bi’l-hadlth riwayatan wa-dirayatan). In reality, this term may have been applied indiscriminately to anyone who transmitted collections of hadith extensively regardless of their critical knowledge of the sciences of hadith. As I discuss in more detail later in the chapter, the extent to which individual women possessed critical and/or exegetical knowledge of their transmissions is not always clear from their biographies. For an introduction to the use of such titles in the classical period, see Muhammad b. ‘ Abd al-Rahman al-SakhawI (d. 902/ 1497), al-Jawahir wa j-Durar fi Tarjamat Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Hajar (Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm, 1999), 1:65-84.