140 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam unrest and descended on the prison. Al-Qushayri now found some respite teaching hadith in Baghdad under the invitation of the ‘Abbasid caliph alQa’im. His return to Nishapur only exposed him to further hostility, and he was compelled to emigrate to Tus with his family to escape persecution. Only after Nizam al-Mulk replaced al-Kunduri and inaugurated policies aimed at a more equitable balance of power between Hanafis and Shafi’Is did al-Qushayri feel comfortable returning to Nishapur with his family. 100 In an environment characterized by the heightened use of state power to control the ‘ulamd ’ and by increased military and political instability, the ‘ulamd ’ elaborated on preexisting strategies of personal and group survival. These included collaboration with the ruling elite, competing with each other for teaching and judiciary posts in order to secure their financial futures, endowing charitable foundations to preserve property within a family, and using networks of learning to facilitate and perpetuate alliances. While such strategies have been recorded since the earliest periods of Islamic history, they were employed with far greater intensity and display greater sophistication in the post-‘Abbasid era as documented in case studies of the ‘ulama ’ of Nishapur, Damascus, and Cairo. Another strategy through which ‘ulama ’ could compete was to draw growing numbers of their family members into the orbit of religious learning, thereby increasing the status and competitive capacity of the family as a whole. It is in this context that we can better comprehend the significant increase in women’s public participation that coincided with the rise of regional dynasties. The marshalling of women’s contributions and their post fourth/tenth-century reentry into hadith learning evolved as an important strategy in the interest of the social survival and perpetuation of ‘ulama ’ culture. In part, our heretofore incomplete grasp of the chronology of women’s hadith participation has prevented an appreciation of how this chronology relates to the broader narrative of the history of the ‘ulamd’ as a social class. Situating the fourth/tenth-century revival of women’s hadith transmission and, more specifically, the activities of Fatima bint al-Hasan and her female cohort within this sociopolitical context provides a more nuanced understanding of the development of the ‘ulama’ c lass. 100 A summary of the trials al-Qushayri faced and the ways in which shifting political alliances affected his security may be found in al-Subkl, Tabaqdt, 5:157-58. 101 For Nishapur, see Bulliet, Patricians; for Damascus, see Chamberlain, Knoivledge and Social Practice; and for Cairo, see Berkey, Transmission of Knowledge.