The Successors 77 respect.” Similarly, Leila Ahmed, who takes a more critical view of women’s participation in Muslim intellectual life than Siddiqi, states that the female Companions’ precedent as transmitters of Muhammad’s reports guaranteed that women could serve in this capacity throughout Muslim history. Hence, “women traditionists, usually taught by their fathers, were found in Muslim societies in all ages, including the ‘Abbasid.” 9 A few scholars have remarked that women’s participation decreased after the Companion generation without assessing the trend further. v Given the neglect of this critical issue, I will first substantiate that there was indeed a precipitous decline and then explain why. The following points of clarification are necessary to understand the data drawn from the isnads and the method of analysis. Isnads generally record the intergenerational transfer of information, and each link in the chain theoretically moves the hadith text (matn) forward in time. The chains under analysis here are classified as marfvi' (i.e., going back to Muhammad) and muttasil (with a continuous chain of transmission); the first link generally connects Muhammad with a Companion, the second link connects the Companion to a Successor, and so on until the time of the compiler of each canonical work. There are, of course, instances of intra-generational transfer of information that do not conform to the ideal marfvt ‘ muttasil isnad. Bearing this in mind, we can still use the ideal type as a rough measure of women’s participation in successive generations after the Companions. Whereas there are approximately 2,065 hadith in which a woman is listed as the first authority after the Prophet, there are approximately 525 hadith in which a woman is listed as a second or later narrator in the isnads of the major Sunni collections. 5 The disparity between these 48 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 117. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 74. Ahmed characterizes the ‘Abbasid period as one of the most misogynist and oppressive ages for Muslim women. 50 See, for example, Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections , 66-67, and Sayyid al-Ahl, Tabaqat al-Nisa ’ al-Muhaddithat , 83-85. Both authors note that women’s participation diminishes after the Companions but do not substantiate their impressions, nor do they investigate the causes of this trend. Nadwi also notes that there was a decline, which he attributes primarily to the increased incidence of traveling in search of hadith. He also notes that while women continued to receive knowledge in this period, they were not transmitting it to others. He does not discuss these issues in detail nor does he explore other possible causes for the decline (Nadwi, al-Muhaddithat, 249-53). 51 The number of hadith cited is based on the classification by the editors of al-Musnad alJami ‘. As noted in Chapter 1, the number can vary, sometimes considerably, depending on how one chooses to distinguish between the various versions of any given hadith.