The Classical Revival 123 Successors. As suggested by al-Khatlb, who was Karima’s contemporary, the function of women was to reproduce hadith knowledge, including collections such as the Sahih of al-Bukharl, and not to extract legal rulings on the basis of these texts. Their contributions consisted of authenticating their students’ copies of badlth works in one of three ways: through a public reading of their own authenticated copies; by listening to students read their copies aloud; or even more simply by certifying in writing that students were permitted to transmit specified works on their authority as long as their copies were free of error. The importance of accurate reproduction of hadith literature raises a second issue central to the success of female hadith transmitters: the proliferation of written transmission. Notwithstanding the preference for direct transmission from Karima, it is nonetheless apparent from her biographies that written transmission was prevalent and acceptable in her career. For example, al-FarisI notes that he received permission ( ijaza ) to transmit everything she had heard. Use of the term “ ijaza ” in hadith transmission generally indicates purely written transmission without an accompanying oral rendition of the text.4 ’ The fact that al-FarisI can boast of his ijaza from Karima clearly indicates an acceptance of written transmission by his time. Such acceptance, however, was not widespread in the earliest period of hadith history. As discussed in Chapter 2, the imperative to acquire hadith through face-to-face, oral transmission, often entailing rigorous journeys in search of authoritative sources, raised the bar for women’s participation and denied them access to this domain. Written transmission, by contrast, reinvigorated female hadith transmission, compounding the positive effect that canonization had on their participation. The unequivocal acceptance of written transmission in hadith circles was accompanied by anxious hand-wringing on the part of leading scholars such as al-RamahurmuzI, al-Hakim al-Naysaburl, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, 47 al-Sarlfinl, al-Muntakhab, 427. 48 al-Khatlb, al-Kifaya, 311 53; Ibn al-Salah, Muqaddima, 106-11. A more detailed review of early and classical commentary on ijazas is available in the work of Abu Tahir Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Silafl (d. 576/1180), al-Wajlz fi Dhikr al-Mujaz iva ’/Mujiz (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islaml, 1991). Contemporary analyses of the significance of ijazas are available in the following studies: Ahmad Ramadan Ahmad, alIjdzdt wa’l-Taiuql'at al-Makhtiita fi al-‘Uliim al-Naqliyya wa’l-'Aqliyya (Cairo: Wizarat al-Thaqafa, 1986); ‘Abd Allah al-Fayyad, al-Ijazdt al-'IImiyya ‘inda alMuslimin (Baghdad: Matba‘at al-Irshad, 1967); Hisham Nashabi, “The Ijaza: Academic Certification in Muslim Education,” Hamdard Islamicus 8 (1985): 7-20; and Georges Vajda, “Un opuscule inedit d’as-Silafl,” in La transmission du savoir en Islam (London: Ashgate Variorum, 1983).