52. Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam speech during his Farewell Pilgrimage. 1 8 These examples, however, are not characteristic of the majority of women’s traditions, which recount personal encounters with the Prophet. That Asma’ was not alone in narrating the solar eclipse traditions reveals that female Companions did not have to claim the privilege of an exclusive encounter with Muhammad in order to serve as an authority on that encounter. Like the salat khusiif al-sbams cluster, the traditions in which Asma’ denounces al-Hajjaj evince a core narrative with embellishments. The background to the tradition is the suppression of ‘Abd Allah b. alZubayr’s revolt during the reign of the fifth Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65-86/685-705) and his subsequent killing by the governor al-Hajjaj. In the four traditions that Asma’ narrates on this topic, the common element is her confrontation with al-Hajjaj, in which she informs him that Muhammad predicted that a liar and a tyrant would emerge from the tribe of Thaqlf. The tyrant is none other than alHajjaj. In all the versions, al-Hajjaj is rendered powerless to defend himself in the face of her verbal assault. Asma’ uses her close association with the Prophet to counter al-Hajjaj ’s political and worldly authority. The contradictions and mutations in this core occur in the details of her confrontation with al-Hajjaj. In one version, after Ibn al-Zubayr’s death, al-Hajjaj summons Asma’ to come to him. She refuses, and ultimately he is forced to go to her to express his disgust with her son. In another narrative, she goes with her servant girl (because she herself is blind) to reproach al-Hajjaj while he is preaching from the minbar. In front of the entire congregation, she brands him as the tyrant about whom Muhammad had warned in his haditb. As in the case of the solar eclipse traditions, one can come to divergent conclusions about the contradictions in these versions depending on one’s stance in the authenticity debate. In most scenarios, however, there would be agreement that a common perception of Asma’ as an assertive, courageous woman underlies the traditions. It is this communal memory of Asma’ that allowed her to serve as an acceptable authority figure for the Prophet’s traditions on a variety of subjects. Despite Asma”s reputation, there are limits to her authority. Asma’ rarely functions as a mediator for legal disputes, and her narration network is 118 For Safiyya bint Shayba, see al-Musnad al-Jami', 19:232-33, #15979-80. For Umm alHusayn, see al-Musnad al-]dmi‘, 20:722-24, #17680-87. 119 Muslim, Sablh, 8:2:85-86.