36 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam The number and content of Umm Salama’s reports reveal the esteem accorded her by Companions and Successors. Including repetitions, she is credited with 175 traditions. While these span a wide range of subjects, most of her hadith occur in the categories of ritual purity (tahdra), prayer (salat), marriage (nikdh), and trials and tribulations (fitan). A major distinction between ‘A’isha and Umm Salama is that the latter’s reports overlap to a greater extent. For example, one-fourth of Umm Salama’s thirty-two traditions on prayer relate to the occasion on which she saw the Prophet performing additional cycles of prayer after the ‘Asr prayer. Similarly, seven of the nine traditions she narrates on funerary matters (jand’iz) relate to the death of her first husband, Abu Salama. While ‘A’isha’s traditions also overlap and contain repetitions, she is considered an authority on many more subjects than Umm Salama. Nonetheless, Umm Salama’s testimony was actively sought and considered decisive on several issues. In one account, a woman named Mussa al-Azdiyya relates that after she performed the Hajj, she visited Umm Salama and sought her advice on a matter of ritual practiced Mussa remarked to Umm Salama that Samura b. Jundab had told the women to make up the prayers they missed during their menstrual periods. In response, Umm Salama ruled against Samura and analogized the issue to that of postpartum women who, during the time of the Prophet, would abstain from prayer for forty days without making up the missed prayers. In another well-attested hadith, a difference of opinion occurred between ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abbas and Abu Salama b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Awf (d. 94/712) over the period that a woman who has given birth soon after the death of her husband must wait before remarrying.'1 Abu Hurayra joined the debate on the side of 58 Al-Musnad al-Jdmi 20:569-706. These hadith are related to approximately 140 different matters. Some traditions are repeated with variant narratives or related by different Successors. 59 Abu Dawud, Sunan (Beirut: Maktaba al-‘Asriyya, n.d.), 1:83-84. This type of narrative setting occurs frequently in women’s traditions, indicating that the Hajj provided an ideal time for garnering traditions and information from well-known authorities, among them Muhammad’s wives. 60 ‘Idda is the technical term for this waiting period. This tradition appears in the following collections: Malik, al-Muwatta’, 2:105-6; Muslim, Sahib , 5:2:90; al-Tirmidhl, Sunan (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1994), 2:406; and al-Nasa’I, Sunan , 6:192-93. In debating this issue, jurists were at odds over the interpretation of two apparently conflicting verses on the waiting period of a widow. In the Qur’an, 2:234, the waiting period is designated as four months and ten days, and in verse 65:4, the waiting period for a pregnant (divorced) woman is until she gives birth. See also Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni , 7:315-20, for an overview of the legal discussion on the waiting period of widows.