The Classical Revival I2.I In short, the achievement of scholars such as al-Bukharl and Muslim was to diminish the imperative for each transmitter to critically evaluate hadith and their isnads. Over the course of the fourth/tenth century, the compilations opened the field of hadith transmission to the participation of those who were not specialized in the critical evaluation of isnads but who could nonetheless contribute by their faithful reproduction of selected works. Hadith manuals aiming to distinguish the true practitioners of the craft from dilettantes continued to insist on legal acumen and knowledge of traditionists as prerequisites to transmission. Alongside this insistence, however, there was the acknowledgment that traditionists did not need to understand the applications or nuanced meanings of their traditions but needed only to convey them in order to maintain the formality of transmission via an unbroken isnad that carried the smallest possible number of intermediaries ( isnad ‘all). Hadith manuals from the classical period testify to these profound changes in standards of transmission. For example, al-Khatlb alBaghdadTs al-Kifdya fi ‘Ilm al-Riwaya documents a period when hadith transmission became more amenable to the participation of nonspecialists. In one particularly telling section of his work, al-Khatlb defines types of knowledge expected from commoners ( ‘animat al-nas) and differentiates between that and what is limited to specialists of hadith (ahl al-‘ilm ).43 Commoners can be expected to have knowledge of financial transactions, the obligatory aspects of religious practice, and the avoidance of sin. Hadith scholars, on the other hand, should master specialized knowledge of the precise, accurate transmission of hadith, their legal implementation, and the conditions for accepting hadith, and should exercise due caution about interpolations. Having distinguished between these two types, al-Khatlb declares that it is acceptable to transmit from the ‘amma because they merely serve to convey the words and not the specialized understanding of the text. His explicit assertion that the participation of women is acceptable in this 42 The first extensive work of this type was al-Ramahurmuzi’s fourth-century compilation atMuhaddith al-Fasil bayna al-Rawi wa ’l-Wa 7. See also al-Hakim al-Naysaburi’s Ma ‘rifat ‘Ulum al-Hadith, which describes in detail fifty-two categories of knowledge necessary for students to be proficient transmitters. al-Khatlb al-Baghdadl, al-Kifdya , 92-94. A hadith report allows that those who transmit religious knowledge may well transmit to those who are more proficient and knowledgeable than the bearer of the report(s). This was interpreted as license for broader, unrestricted participation in hadith transmission. Al-Khatlb includes this report in his section on allowing nonspecialists to transmit traditions; see al-Kifdya fi ‘ llm al-Riwaya (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Tlmiyya, 1988), 93-94.