Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam
A landmark study of the women scholars of hadith across Islamic history.
This book is an English introduction to Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi’s 43-volume Arabic compendium of female hadith scholars. Dr Nadwi’s work reveals the high public standing and authority enjoyed by learned women in the formative years of Islam. For centuries thereafter, women travelled extensively to seek religious knowledge and routinely attended the most prestigious mosques and madrasas across the Islamic world, teaching, learning and making important contributions to the study and transmission of Prophetic hadith.
This previously unexplored history is uncovered through painstaking analysis of documents such as class registers and ijazahs from women authorizing men to teach, and the glowing testimonies from the most revered ‘ulema about their female teachers. “Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam” gives the reader a real insight into the most important lessons from Dr Nadwi’s extensive research on this issue, and is essential reading for anyone interested in developing a balanced understanding of the role of women in Islamic societies, past and present.
