A Tradition Invented 2-7 was knowledgeable in this matter and that the older Companions referred to her as an authority.- Given the complex nature of Muslim inheritance regulations, ‘A’isha’s proficiency in this area indicates her advanced abilities in mathematics. Whereas Ibn Sa‘d makes only passing reference to her intellect and focuses more on her relationship with Muhammad and her often stormy interactions with her co-wives, biographers from the fifth/eleventh century onward devote steadily increasing attention to her legal expertise. Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr expands on evidence of ‘A’isha’s intellect by citing the Masruq tradition mentioned earlier, as well as others related by early luminaries, among them ‘Ata’ b. Abl Rabah (d. 1 14/732f.) and ‘Urwa, who asserts, “I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable in matters of fiqh, medicine, and poetry than ‘A’isha.” He also includes the assessment of the famed scholar al-Zuhrl (d. 124/742) that “if the knowledge of ‘A’isha were to be weighed against that of all the wives and the other women combined, the knowledge of ‘A’isha would be greater.’’ Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s representation of ‘A’isha’s intellectual contributions is elaborated upon by his successors, including al-Mizz! and Ibn Hajar.- The trend culminates with Kahhala in the modern period. He begins his biography with superlative praise of her as “the greatest muhadditba of her age, distinguished by her intelligence, fluency, and eloquence, who had a profound influence in the dissemination of knowledge from the Prophet.”24 She is also the only woman of the early Islamic period whose legal thinking has been documented and analyzed in a modern compilation of fiqh. The evolution of ‘A’isha’s intellectual biography, through which she becomes the muhadditba and faqiha par excellence of Muslim history, was in large part a by-product of the efforts of hadith compilers who, from the late second/eighth century to the end of the third/ninth century, produced a large corpus of authoritative collections. Ahmad b. Hanbal, for example, enumerates approximately 2,400 hadith on her authority. ’1 ‘A’isha does 27 Muhammad b. Sa‘d, al-Tabaqat (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1904-18), 8:45. 28 Yusuf b. ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-Barr, al-IstVab ft Ma'rifat al-Ashab (Cairo: Maktabat Nahdat Misr, 196-), 4:1881-85; al-MizzI, Tahdhtb al-Kamal, 35:227-36; Ibn Hajar, alIsaba , 13:38-42. 29 Kahhala, A iam al-Nisa 3:9-131. 30 See Sa‘Id Fayiz Dukhayyil, Mawsu'at Fiqh ‘A’isha Umm al-Mu’miriin: Hayatuhd tuaFiqhuhd (Beirut: Dar al-Nafa’is, 1989). 31 Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 6:37-319. See Scott Lucas, Constructive Critics, Hadith Literature, and the Articulation of Sunni Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2004), for a detailed analysis of how the efforts of scholars such as Ibn Sa'd, Ibn Ma'In (d. 233/848), and Ibn Hanbal were critical to the project of fashioning Sunni orthodoxy.