4 6 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam participated in transmitting through his wives. However, no such endeavors are recorded in the Sunni collections analyzed here. Another striking absence in the selected hadlth compilations is that of Muhammad’s paternal aunt, Safiyya bint ‘Abd al-Muttalib, who died during the caliphate of ‘Umar (r. 13-23/634-44). ’ She is celebrated in the sources for her valor during the Battle of Uhud. There, brandishing a spear, she ridiculed the deserters and did not shudder at the sight of her brother Hamza dying on the battlefield (Hamza is reported to have had his liver torn out and eaten by Hind bint Umayya after his death on the battlefield). She is also commended for killing a prowler near the fortress sheltering the women and children.94 In biographical accounts, her bravery is juxtaposed with the cowardice of Hassan b. Thabit, who had been left to protect the women and children but who refused to attack the intruder. Safiyya is said to have lived for approximately a decade after Muhammad’s death, providing ample opportunity for hadith enthusiasts to collect and record her memories. Ibn Sa‘d and Ibn Hajar both assert that she narrated traditions. None of these, however, appear in any of the collections included in this study. ’5 The most prolific female narrator of Muhammad’s agnatic clan is Fakhita bint Abl Talib, the sister of ‘All b. Abl Talib. ' She is better known by her kunya, Umm Hani’. Credited with twenty-eight traditions on thirteen different matters, Umm Hani’ is the preferred female source of the Prophet’s clan. Her biographers describe her first and foremost as a woman whom Muhammad wanted to marry but who was denied to him, first by her father, who wanted to marry her to a suitor of her own 93 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Tabaqat, 8:27-28; Abu Nu‘aym al-Isbaham, /VI. 7 ‘rifat al-Sahdba, 6:3377-78; ‘Izz al-Dln ‘All b. Muhammad b. al-Athlr (d. 630/1233), Usd al-Ghaba fi Ma'rifat al-Sahdba (Tehran: al-Maktaba al-Islamiyya, 1958), 5:492-93; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, alIstVab , 4:1873; Ibn Hajar, Tahdbib , 12:19-20. Ibn Sa‘d, Abu Nu‘aym, and Ibn Hajar do not assign a specific death date to her within this time period. Ibn al-Athlr and Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, however, write that she died in 20 AH at the age of seventy or seventy-three, respectively. This incident occurred when Muhammad left Medina for a battle. It is disputed whether this was during the Battle of Uhud (as Ibn Sa‘d writes) or during the Battle of the Khandaq (as Ibn al-Athlr maintains). 95 Ibn Hajar alludes to her transmission of reports in al-Isaba , 12:20. It may be that her words were incorporated into traditions narrated on the authority of other Companions or that they appear in collections other than the selected ones. Her biography is available in the following sources: Ibn Sa‘d, al-Tabaqat , 8:32, 8:108-9; al-MizzI, Tahdbib , 35:389-90; Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba , 13:300-1; and Kahhala, A‘lam alNisd ’, 4:14-16. 97 See al-Musnad al-]ami \ 20:437-58.