A Tradition Invented 59 Companions differed over whether divorced women should observe their waiting periods in their husbands’ homes or whether they should move back to their family residences. ‘Umar and ‘A’isha, for example, held that triply divorced women were entitled to lodging and maintenance during their waiting periods.150 Further, a Qur’anic verse forbade men from evicting women who were observing these periods. ! Thus, the weight of divine command as well as the opinion of respected authorities dictated that Fatima’s case could not be considered a general ruling. Nonetheless, Fatima staunchly asserted that her precedent was broadly applicable. According to one tradition, she took the initiative of transferring her niece who had been irrevocably divorced to her own home. Marwan b. al-Hakam, the governor of Medina at the time, sent a messenger to Fatima to ask her why she had not allowed her niece to observe her waiting period in her husband’s home. Fatima sent the messenger back with her own argument citing other Qur’anic verses in favor of her position. She is credited with saying, “I will debate you on the basis of the Book of God,” before laying out her case and augmenting it by citing Muhammad’s fatwa in her own cased Marwan, however, was not persuaded by her logic. She had met with similar failure in asserting her case before ‘Umar. Irrespective of the disapproval of Companions, Fatima is portrayed as a woman who was cognizant of the importance of her case and who presented her precedent in the hopes of influencing the outcome of legal debates. The portraits of women such as Fatima and about the Rights of a Divorced Woman during her ‘Waiting Period’ ( ‘ Idda ),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 52 (1989): 430-45; and Scott Lucas, “Divorce, Hadith- Scholar Style: From al-Dariml to al-Tirmidhl ” Journal of Islamic Studies 19, no. 3 (2008): 333-37. 150 The term “triply divorced” is a technical one referring to cases wherein the intent to divorce has been articulated thrice by the husband. According to majority juristic opinion, this triple pronouncement of divorce renders it irrevocable and the spouses cannot remarry unless and until the wife marries someone else and that marriage is dissolved. For an analysis of this practice in the Mamluk period, see Yossef Rapoport, Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 69-110. 151 Qur’an, 65:6. 152 Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 6:463, #27329. A version with similar import is found in Ibn Hanbal, Musnad , 6:463, #27327, and Muslim, Sahih , 5:2:83. 153 Fatima is said to have cited Qur’an 65:1 and argued that the wording of this verse limits the obligation of providing maintenance and lodging only to cases of divorce that are not final, in which it is possible that something new (i.e., reconciliation) will come about. 154 I have analyzed the significance of the early rejection of Fatima’s hadith in “Gender and Legal Authority: An Examination of Early Juristic Opposition to Women’s Hadith Transmission,” Islamic Law and Society 16, no. 2 (2009):1 15-50.