ii 8 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam several of her well-known teachers died, her longevity still enabled her to function as a valued link between the old and young generations of scholars. Karima’s biographies provide several clues that her reputation was well established and that she attracted numerous students to her assemblies. Luminaries of hadith transmission, such as the Shafi‘i scholar al-Khatib al-Baghdadl and Mansur b. Muhammad al-Sam‘am (an erstwhile Hanafl) (d. 489/1096),” and Nur al-Huda al-Husayn b. Muhammad (d. 512/ 1118),’4 a leading Hanafl scholar of Baghdad, numbered among her students. Al-Khatib and Nur al-Huda were likely among those who carried word of Karima’s reputation back to Baghdad. As with many scholars resident in Mecca, Karima was sought out for her transmission authority by pilgrims. Her reputation attracted the Maliki jurist Jumahir b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Tulaytull (of Toledo), who heard hadith from her in 452/1061 when he undertook the Hajj.” Similarly, ‘All b. al-Husayn al-Mawsill and Muhammad b. Barakat heard hadith front her in Mecca. Al-Dhahabl recounts an anecdote from Muhammad b. ‘All al-Hamadani, who had set out for the Hajj in 463/1071 and received news of her death en route. He was thus unable to fulfill his wish to meet Karima and obtain certification to transmit hadith front her. 5 Karima acquired an enviable reputation as a mubadditha on the basis of her knowledge of more than just the Sahih. Al-FarisT, for example, remarks that she gave him permission (ijaza) to narrate all the works that she was known to have heard. Yet, after her death, her transmission of the Sahih emerges as the outstanding feature of her career. The fact that Karima was a celebrated, trustworthy transmitter of al-Bukhari’s work is all the more striking when we recall that al-Bukhari himself did not include any hadith containing isnads with female 33 For the biography of al-Khatib, see al-Dhahabi, Siyar , 18:270-97. For that of al-Sam‘anr, see al-Dhahabi, Siyar , 19:114-19. He was the grandfather of the better-known scholar Abu Sa‘d ‘Abd al-Karim b. Abl Bakr Muhammad al-Sam‘ani (d. 562/1166). Mansur b. Muhammad al-Sam‘ani created a stir by switching allegiance from Hanafism (the madhbab of his birth and in which he acquired the highest level of religious education) to Shafkism. According to al-Dhahabi, this was made public in 467. Thus, he likely heard from Karima while he was still a Hanafl (since she died in 463). 34 al-Dhahabi, Siyar , 19:353-55. Al-Dhahabi notes that he outlived all other students of Karima who had heard the Sahib of al-Bukhari from her. 35 Abu Bakr Jumahir b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Tulaytuli (d. 466/1073-74). His biography is found in al-Dhahabi, Ta’rikh al-Islam (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 1994), 31:196. 36 al-Dhahabi, Siyar , 18:235. Here it is worth noting that Karima attracted scholars of all madhhabs to her assemblies - a testament not just to her popularity but also to the power of hadith transmission as a source of social cohesion, a point which will be taken up in Chapter 4.