136 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam the scholarly networks of Nishapur, and her daughter, Karima, is described by the latter’s son al-FarisI in terms similar to those he used for Fatima in the entry cited earlier. Fie praises her asceticism, saying that she never wore silk or indulged in material pleasures, and engaged in worldly matters only as necessary. Karima acquired the tradition of piety and asceticism from Fatima, her mother, and Sufi knowledge (tafiq al-ma'rifa ) from Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayrl, her father. Similarly, Fatima’s granddaughters Amat al-Qahir Jawhar (d. 530/1 135f.), the daughter of ‘Abd Allah, and Amat Allah Jallla (d. 541/1146), the daughter of ‘Abd al-Rahlm, are praised for their pious conduct and their hadlth studies. Fatima’s father was not alone in initiating his daughter into this culture of religious learning. Nearly every woman noted for piety and hadlth learning in al-FarisTs history belonged to a prominent scholarly family.89 Al-Hurra al-Bistamiyya (d. in the 470s/1077f.), the daughter of Abu ‘Umar Muhammad b. al-Husayn al-Bistaml (d. 408/1018), who was a Shafi‘I jurist and judge ( qadl ) of Nishapur, heard hadlth from a number of scholars. When she herself became a teacher, students would read to her while she sat listening behind a curtain. 0 Fatima al-Sabuniyya (death date unknown) acquired a special place within her scholarly family because of her superlative piety, learning, and generosity in spending all that she had on the poor and the Sufis (al-mutasawwifa). Al-FarisI generously praises her as the pearl of the SabunI clan {dun at sadaf dl-sabuniyya) and the pride of their eyes (qurrat a ‘yuni-him). Fie makes the striking comment that she was like a sister to her father (kanat ka ’l-ukht li-abl-hd ), thereby signaling their closeness and her special status within the family. 9 1 Other such examples of scholarly, pious women leave little doubt that the tradition of educating women was firmly established among the 87 al-Sarifim, al-Muntakbab , 428-29. 88 al-Sam'ani, Tabbir fi Mu' jam al-Kabir, 2:230-31 (for Amat al-Qahir) and 2:231 (for Amat Allah Jallla). 89 Bulliet has counted a total of thirty-six women belonging to the ‘ultima families of Nishapur who merited mention in the following works: al-Hakim al-Naysaburi’s Ta’rikb Naysabur (three women), al-FarisI’s Siydq li-Ta’rikh Naysabur (twenty-two women, one of them included in al-Hakim’s work), and al-Sahml’s Ta 'nkb Jurjan (twelve women); Bulliet, “Women and the Urban Religious Elite,” 68. See also Travis Zadeh , The Vernacular Qur’an: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 346-49, for his observations on the involvement of women such as Fatima (the daughter of Abu ‘All al-Daqqaq) in networks of learning in fifth/eleventhcentury Nishapur. Zadeh also observes that women's religious learning is not exceptional for this period. 90 al-Sarifim, al-Muntakbab, 215. 91 al-Sarifim, al-Muntakbab, 230.