i74 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam ‘A’isha bint Muhammad served as an authority not only for the men mentioned earlier, but also for many women. Al-Sakhawl provides entries for thirty-one of ‘A’isha’s female students.1 1 Most of these entries follow his standard pattern of providing birth dates, names of spouses and children, and names of a few prominent authorities from whom the women narrated. In only one case, that of Zaynab bint ‘All b. Muhammad b. ‘ Abd al-Bar’am, do we learn the name of the work that she heard from ‘A’isha (the Sahlh of al-Bukharl). The biographical data at our disposal permit a few important observations regarding ‘A’isha’s contact with both male and female students. The four male students for whom we have names were born sometime after her fiftieth birthday. More precisely, Ibn Hajar was born when she was fifty, Kamal al-Dln Muhammad when she was seventy-three, and the remaining two, ‘Izz al-DTn Ahmad and Ahmad b. Ibrahim, when she was seventyseven. Her female students similarly had contact with her late in her life. Al-Sakhawl provides a combination of birth dates and ijaza dates for twenty-seven of these women. Only one of these students, Fatima bint ‘All b. Mansur (b. ca. 770/1368), was born by the time ‘A’isha bint Muhammad had reached the age of forty-seven. The remaining birth date data show that two students were born when she was in her seventies and eight of them when she was past the age of eighty. As for the ijaza dates, one woman obtained her ijaza from ‘A’isha when the latter was in her sixties, eleven of them when she was in her eighties, and six of them when she was in her early nineties. A final comment pertains to the geographical extent of ‘A’isha’s reputation. Al-Sakhawl mentions the provenance of twenty-six of her female students as follows: twenty-one were from Mecca, two were from Aleppo, one from Cairo, and one from Bulaq. We do not know whether the students actually went to see ‘A’isha in al-Salihiyya or if she encountered them in the cities of their origin. It may well be that the ijdzas were granted in absentia, a practice that appears to have proliferated during ‘A’isha’s lifetime. Irrespective of the particulars of how the ijdzas were granted, the provenance of her students allows us to map the spread of her reputation to urban areas distant from her own home. 112 For ‘A’isha’s female students, see the following numbered entries in al-Sakhawi’s al-Daw ’ al-Lami ', volume 12: 46, 47, 60, 103, 145, 156, 169, 231, 232, 258, 339, 346, 409, 488, 593, 609, 694, 741, 806, 843, 860, 919, 946, 975, 978, 983, 984, 987, 999, 1002, and 1004. 113 al-Sakhawi, al-Daw ’ al-Lami ', 12:44, #258.