24 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam more geographically dispersed due to the popularity of journeys to collect badith (rihlas). In this chapter, I group the female Companions into three types: (1) Muhammad’s wives, (2) his female kin, and (3) other women whose participation merited the attention of legal scholars and historians, either because they sought fativas that became legal precedents or because their participation in battles and in other aspects of the life of the early community was noteworthy. 15 I round out the analysis with a consideration of the transmission activity of more obscure women. THE WIVES OF MUHAMMAD Muhammad’s wives are distinct among the female CompanionNarrators. The Qur’an refers to them as the Mothers of the Believers (; ummahat al-mu ’miriin) and states that they are unlike other women of the community in terms of duties and privileges.1 Elevated as unrivaled models for the Muslim community, the wives represent a different paradigm from that of other women. It is not only through transmitting Muhammad’s traditions that they participate in shaping religious knowledge. Their own actions and preferences are part of the sunna that was scrutinized by later generations for legally significant precedents.1 In addition, the Prophet’s behavior with them concerning conjugal or domestic matters was the focus for believers wishing to execute the minutiae of daily life according to the Prophet’s model. Paradoxically, even as Muhammad’s wives were repositories for information about him, divine command restricted their interaction with male tradition-seekers. One Qur’anic verse enjoins the wives to “stay quietly in your homes and do not flaunt your charms as they used to flaunt them in a predominantly tribal society. For a more detailed explanation and historical overview, see El2, s.v. “ mawla .” 5 I provide the names of all these women and brief biographies for them in Appendices A-l and A-2 of my dissertation “Shifting Fortunes” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005). 16 While there is disagreement over the number of women Muhammad is said to have married, the general consensus is that he was survived by nine wives. The most direct Qur’anic reference is Surat al-Ahzab, 6:28-34. A fuller treatment of the position of the wives of the Prophet as set forth in the Qur’an may be found in Barbara Stowasser, Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 85-103. 18 I use the term sunna to refer to the normative behavior of the Prophet and members of his community who were deemed exemplars for later Muslims.