28 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam not just narrate about conjugal relations, ritual purity, and the supererogatory devotions that Muhammad performed at home, topics on which we expect her to be authoritative. Her voice is also evident in traditions on fasting, pilgrimage, inheritance, and eschatology, among other subjects. Biographers, assessing the contributions of various Companions, male and female, and those of traditionists of subsequent generations, explained the numerical and qualitative disparity between ‘A’isha and her contemporaries through reference to her superior intellect. ’2 The narrative details in her reports give us frequent glimpses of a woman who was quick to correct erroneous traditions and anxious to check impulses of the community that she felt were not in tune with the Prophet’s legacy. Al-Zarkashl’s (d. 794/1392) medieval compilation, alljdba li-Irad ma Istadrakatbu A ’isha ‘aid al-Sababa, is a unique testament to ‘A’isha’s historical presence as a critic of reports who also displayed legal discernment. ’ Al-Zarkashi documents numerous instances in which she is said to have corrected or contradicted traditions and rulings of other Companions and Successors, many of them of considerable stature such as ‘Umar b. al-Khattab (d. 23/644), ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abbas (d. 68/687f.), and ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Umar (d. 73/693). In the traditions collected by al-Zarkashl, her forceful personality is amply evidenced. For example, she frequently corrects the traditions narrated by the prolific Abu Hurayra (d. 58/677f.). The following incident demonstrates well the tension between them: ‘Alqama b. Qays reported, “We were with ‘A’isha, and Abu Hurayra was also there. ‘A’isha asked him, ‘O Abu Hurayra, are you the one who narrates from the Prophet about the woman tormented [in Hell] because she did not give food or drink to her cat [leaving it hungry and thirsty] and did not let it out to feed on small creatures until it died?’ Abu Hurayra said, ‘I heard it from the Prophet.’ ‘A’isha responded, ‘A believer is too dear to God that he/she be tormented on account of a cat. On account of this, it must have been that the woman was a disbeliever. O Abu Hurayra, when you relate traditions from the Prophet, be careful of what you say!””4 32 She generally ranks among the top five narrators of Muhammad’s traditions. See, for example, the list in Muhammad Z. Siddiqi’s work Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special Features, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993), 15-18. 33 Muhammad b. Bahadur al-Zarkashl, al-ljdba li-Irad ma Istadrakatbu 'A’isba ‘ala al-Sababa (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islami, 1970). 34 al-Zarkashl, al-ljdba, 118.