Introduction i3 compilations not accounted for here. My selection, which includes the six most authoritative works and other widely circulated ones, provides a representative sample of the badith narrated by women.' For the most part, the traditions analyzed here are classified by badith critics and scholars as muttasil and marfii That is to say, they are distinguished by an uninterrupted ( muttasil ) chain of transmission ( isnad ) that goes back to Muhammad himself (marfu‘). The traditional Muslim approach has deemed such chains of transmission to be the most trustworthy and most valid for legal discourse. Conversely, these are precisely the isnads most stringently questioned by those who doubt the authenticity of Muslim tradition. In such circles, they are regarded as patently forged chains attached to fabricated texts; both the isnads and their texts have been “perfected” in order to enhance their status as legal proofs. In addition, the badith narrated by women tend to carry another type of chain, namely a family isnad, in which members of one family narrate to each other or in which a client (mawld) narrates from his/her master or patron. in the following collections: the Muwatta ’ of Malik; the Musnad of al-Shafi‘I (d. 204/820); the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal; the Sunan of al-Dariml; the Muntaqa of Ibn al-Jarud (d. 307/ 920); the Sahib of Ibn Khuzayma; the Mustakhraj of Abu ‘Awana (d. 316/928); the Sharh Ma‘ani al-Athar of al-TahawI (d. 321/933); the Sahih of Ibn Hibban (d. 354/965); the Sunan of al-Daraqutnl (d. 385/995); and the Mustadrak of al-Hakim al-Naysaburl (d. 405/ 1014). 23 For example, I have not thoroughly analyzed the Musannafs of ‘ Abd al-Razzaq al-San‘anI (d. 211/827) or Ibn Abl Shayba (d. 235/849), which contain traditions narrated by women that do not always report sayings or actions of the Prophet. However, I have compared the women listed in the indices of these collections with the ones in my database. The representation of women in these two works is limited in comparison with the collections chosen for closer analysis for this study. (The indices of both of these works contain sections that group the traditions according the narrators who appear in their isnads. See Muhammad Salim Ibrahim Samara et al. [eds.], Fihris Ahadith wa-Athar al-Musannaf li’lHafiz al-Kabir Abi Bakr ‘Abd al-Razzaq b. Hammam al-San ‘ ani , vols. 3-4 [Beirut: ‘ Alam al-Kutub, 1988]; and Muhammad Salim Ibrahim Samara et al. [eds.], Fihris Ahadith waAthar al-Musannaf li ’l-Imam al-Hafiz ‘Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Abi Shayba , vols. 3^4 [Beirut: ‘Alam al-Kutub, 1989].) 24 This is as opposed to isnads appearing in many works of sir a , maghazi , and in some of the early legal works such as the Musannaf of ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-San‘anI. The isnads in the aforementioned genres are often of the following varieties deemed weaker as legal proofs by badith critics and jurists: mursal { isnad in which a Companion is “missing,” i.e., a Successor appears to narrate directly from Muhammad); munqati1 [isnad that is interrupted at any point in the chain); or mawquf ( isnad that claims a Companion as the final authority). Explanations for the classifications of isnads and their ranking as legal proofs can be found in Ibn al-Salah (d. 643/1245), Muqaddima fi ‘Uliim al-Hadith (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Tlmiyya, 1995), 39-58. 25 See, for example, Schacht, Origins , 163-75.