192. Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam world, destabilized the status quo, and sparked the gradual reclamation of public space by Muslim women. However, as I show here, women did suffer setbacks after the first/seventh century in the domain of hadith transmission but were able to reenter the field in the mid-fourth/tenth century and attain enviable reputations as prominent, trustworthy hadith transmitters. Zaynab bint al-Kamal, for example, convened popular assemblies in public arenas, interacted with male and female students who coveted her name in their isnads , and clearly achieved a high level of prominence on a par with contemporary male traditionists. This level of activity and the acclaim bestowed on women like her is particularly remarkable given the prior prolonged absence of women. In light of women’s fluctuating fortunes in hadith transmission, it is important to reevaluate our understanding of the fate of women’s status and mobility from the rise of Islam to the eve of the modern period. My research on these ten centuries of Muslim women’s education took me on compelling detours and produced many as yet unanswered questions . I present a few of those here in the hopes of sparking future research that builds on my macroscopic analysis. First, I found myself lingering on the lives of a number of early and classical Muslim women. Women are generally awarded brief, fragmentary biographical entries and obituaries in chronicles. The exceptions to this rule, however, are presented in enticingly richer detail and give us windows onto otherwise inaccessible worlds. Aside from offering opportunities for more detailed historical reconstruction of women’s lives, such studies can illuminate the intellectual milieus with which these women were associated. For example, the lives of Hafsa bint Sirin, ‘Amra bint ‘Abd al-Rahman, and ‘A’isha bint Talha have much to tell us about early Islamic asceticism, the early Medinese legal and historical tradition, and Umayyad literary circles and court culture, respectively. Further, the ascetic and devotional practices of women such as Hafsa, Umm al-Darda’, and Mu'adha bint ‘Abd Allah find parallels with their Christian counterparts and can shed light on inter-religious exchanges in this early period. As for women of the post-Successor generations, the richest documentary evidence dates from the Seljuq, Ayyubid, and Mamluk periods. The published sources along with archival material including samd ‘at and ijazdt can be used to produce microstudies of muhaddithas and fill lacunae with respect to women’s history in early and classical Islam. The utility of such research extends beyond women’s studies to enhancing our understanding of broader issues in the social, political, and intellectual history of these eras. Women who attained expertise in other areas of religious learning