14 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam Transmissions of this type have been deemed particularly suspect as chains fabricated to withstand the scrutiny of hadith critics. 1 Because the aforementioned chains of transmission have come under heavy criticism, it is important to discuss their utility for this study. The collections chosen for this study, in particular the six authoritative Sunni collections, are largely composed of traditions that were utilized in legal discussions on matters related to creed and practice. As John Burton writes in his Introduction to the Hadith, these traditions and their implications for religious practice were not taken lightly by hadith scholars and juristsr The premise in this study is that since these hadith were often considered viable proofs for legal discourse, they had to be transmitted and/or crafted with both credible isnads and credible narratives. In other words, these hadith could not violate with abandon the perceptions that Muslims of later generations had about their predecessors. To succeed within the domain of legal discussion, both the isnad and the main of a tradition had to appeal to, or resonate in some way with, the collective memory of Muslims of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries. Thus whether or not these isnads preserve an actual chain of transmission, they undoubtedly conform to an envisaged portrait of transmission. Even if they are wholesale forgeries, they are still valuable because they reveal the perceptions that Muslims had of the early female narrators as dependable transmitters. Although conclusive comment on the authenticity of individual hadith is not possible, my analysis of chronological trends nevertheless leads to a hypothesis proposing the early dating of traditions ascribed to many of the female Companions. I outline this hypothesis in the conclusion to the book and present a potentially fruitful avenue for future research into early Islamic social history. Though the source material at hand is rich and varied, women’s engagement with hadith across Islamic history remains understudied. More than 16 Schacht, Origins, 170; G. H. A. Juynboll, “Early Islamic Society as Reflected in its Use of Isnads ,” in Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadith (Brookfield: Ashgate Variorum, 1996), 171-79. 27 In explaining the exegetical activity of the early scholars, John Burton emphasizes the seriousness of their task and notes that “To the Muslim scholar, every detail, however minute, might make the difference between eternal life and death”; see John Burton, Introduction to the Hadith (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), xvii. 28 Reports in the fada ’il (exemplary characteristics) and fitan (trials and tribulations) categories were not subject to the same scrutiny by hadith critics as those in categories such as tahara (i.e., ritual purity), salat , or hajj. Because the former were not commonly utilized for legal applications and often had other didactic purposes, there was more leeway among hadith critics in accepting or rejecting them.