A Culmination in Traditionalism 163 religious learning and contextualizes the lives of the two women examined in greater detail in the sections that follow. ZAYNAB BINT AL-KAMAL (646-740/1248-1339) Zaynab bint al-Kamal elicits curiosity on account of the numerous ijdzas that she accumulated. Ibn Hajar al-‘AsqalanI reports that by the time she died, she possessed a camel-load of ijdzas. 5 Zaynab had an even earlier start to her career than Shuhda. At the age of one, she received an ijdza to transmit baditb from ‘Abd al-Khaliq al-Nishtibrl (537-649/1142f.-1252), a famed Shafi‘1 jurist and mubaddith. Al-Nishtibrl sent this ijdza for Zaynab in 647/1249f., two years before his death. 5 Although biographers do not record the work(s) that this ijdza qualified her to transmit, they affirm that Zaynab’s reputation rested partly on her link to al-Nishtibri. Al-DhahabI wrote, “[Tjhose who wanted the unmatched prestige [of this isndd ] would go to hear her; if the student traveled a month to hear even one part of this [work], his journey would not be in vain.”56 Also in the first year of her life, Zaynab received two other ijdzas : from ‘Ajlba al-Baqadriyya (d. 647/1249) and Ibn al-Sayyidl (d. 647/1249f.), both prominent baditb scholars resident in Baghdad. At the age of two, Zaynab obtained additional certification after being brought into the presence of (uhdirat ‘ala) Hablba bint Abl ‘Umar (d. 648/1250f.). In the same year, she received another ijdza from Baghdad, this time from Ibrahim b. Mahmud b. al-Khayr (d. 648/1250). By the time Zaynab was 54 Her full name is Zaynab bint Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Rahlm b. ‘Abd al-Wahid b. Ahmad al-Maqdisiyya. Her biography is available in the following works: al-Dhahabl, Mu ‘jam alShuyukh al-Dhahabi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Tlmiyya, 1990), 199; al-Dhahabl, Kitab Duwal al-Islam (Hyderabad: Da’irat al-Ma‘arif al-Nizamiyya, 1918), 1:190; al-Dhahabl and al-Husaynl (d. 765/1364), Min Dhuyul al-‘Ibar (Kuwait: Matba‘at Hukumat al-Kuwayt, n.d.), 213; al-Safadl, al-Wafi , 15:43; al-Yafi‘1, Mir ’at al-Jinan , 4:305; Ibn Hajar, al-Durar , 2:209-10; Ibn al-‘Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab , 8:221; Kahhala, A'lam al-Nisa ’, 2:46-51; and al-Zirikll, al-A ‘lam, 3:65. Though Zaynab’s biographers do not state her madhhab, the editor of al-Durr al-Munaddad fi Dhikr Ashab al-Imam Ahmad awards her a brief biography in his footnotes indicating her Hanball affiliations. See ‘Abd alRahman b. Muhammad al-‘UlaymI, Al-Durr al-Munaddad (Cairo: Matba‘at al-Madanl, 1992), 2:501. Further, her nisba of al-Maqdisiyya suggests that she descended from the aforementioned community of Palestinian Hanballs, who had settled in Damascus and its environs in the twelfth century. Zaynab’s prodigious collection of ijdzas also attracted Goldziher’s attention (see Muslim Studies , 2:367). For the biography of al-Nishtibri, see al-Dhahabl, Siyar, 23:239^48. In this notice, al-Dhahabl mentions 647 as the year in which he sent this ijdza to Zaynab ( Siyar 23:243). 56 al-Dhahabl, Siyar, 23:243. 57 Ibn Hajar, al-Durar, 2:209.