The Classical Revival i35 families over four generations produced scores of influential hadith transmitters, jurists, and theologians. In his study of Nishapur, Bulliet charts the growth and interconnectedness of this complex of Shafi‘i families and counts six major and several minor families in the network.^ Over seven generations, nearly eighty of their members are noted for their learning or other pious contributions to Nishapur and surrounding areas. The social significance of belonging to a household devoted to religious learning is clear in Fatima’s biographies, which praise her in terms that recall Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima. For example, al-Subkl’s entry for ‘Abd al-Rahman, another of Fatima bint al-Hasan’s sons, refers to her as al-sayyida al-tahira (the pure sayyida, i.e., female exemplar), alsayyida al-kbayra al-saliha (the good, virtuous sayyida), and umm al-sadat (the mother of sayyids ).8 She is regularly mentioned as an authority in the biographies of her descendants who were brought to her to be inculcated in the tradition of piety characteristic of this household. 6 The cumulative impact of these notices impresses on us her tremendous status as the matriarch of a clan that exercised influence from Baghdad to Nishapur. Fatima’s network, replete with male and female hadith scholars, casts into sharper relief the dramatic rise in the fortunes of female hadith transmitters after a long period of decline. The eight female Successors examined in Chapter 2 were exceptions to the rule of marginalization characterizing female hadith participation during their lifetimes. By contrast, Fatima’s accomplishments were the product of a culture that exalted religious learning and piety among women as well as men. A number of Fatima’s female descendants continued her tradition of transmitting religious knowledge in 84 Bulliet, Patricians, 149-91. Bulliet has distilled the complex web of these families’ relations into genealogical charts in Patricians of Nishapur. See pp. 160-61 for his description of Abu Bakr Ahmad al-Furaki, who married one of al-Qushayri’s daughters, and pp. 175-91 for the genealogical charts of the Qushayri, FurakI, Saffar, FarisI, ShahhamI, and Furawl clans. 85 al-Subkl, Tabaqat, 5:105-6. In using the term sadat for the children of Fatima and alQushayri, al-Subkl emphasizes their lineage within the family of the Prophet. 86 See, for example, the biographical notices for her grandchildren Hibat al-Rahman b. ‘Abd al-Wahid b. ‘Abd al-Karlm and ‘Abd al-Razzaq b. ‘Abd Allah in al-Sam‘am, al-Tahbir fi Mu‘jam al-Kabir (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1997), 2:212, #1091 (for Hibat alRahman), and 1:186, #399 (for ‘Abd al-Razzaq). It is difficult to ascertain the extent of Fatima’s public presence as a teacher for students beyond her extensive family network. AlFarisI does not note the names of those who heard her hadith within her own biography, although she is listed as an authority in the biographies of members of her extended family network. Al-DhahabI lists Ibn al-Faraw! (d. 549/1155) and Zahir al-Shahhaml (d. 533/ 1138) as Fatima’s students in the course of her biography and notes that others also heard hadith from her. For the biography of Ibn al-FarawI, see al-Dhahabl, Siyar , 20:227-28, and for that of al-Shahhaml, see Siyar , 20:9-13.