16.11.2023

On Thursday, November 16th, 2023, The Institute of Islamic Thought hosted Indian scholar and muhaddith Mohammad Akram Al-Nadwi to give a lecture on the role of Muslim women in the science of hadith under the title ‘‘Women’s Contributions to the Science of Hadith in the Historical Process’’. Describing the genesis of the idea for his monumental work ‘‘al-Wafa fi Asma al-Nisa’’, Al-Nadwi said that in 1994, he read two articles in the UK that concluded that Islam restricted women’s rights and that Islamic society lacked educated and scholarly women, but during his journey in the science of hadith, he came across women who were prominent in this science, both diraya and riwaya, and this prompted him to compile a 43-volume encyclopedia in which he collected the biographies of nearly then thousand women who were engaged in the science of hadith. Al-Nadwi wrote this encyclopedia to refute these claims and to encourage the work of Muslim women today.

Al-Nadwi pointed out that many rulings in Islam were transmitted only through female reporters and we should express our gratitude to them for preserving our religion. This is confirmed by Hakim An-Nisaburi’s statement that Muslims need hadiths reported by women, which constitute a quarter of the Islamic hadith corpus. Among them is the issue of the number of rak’at of the salat al-zuhr according to the Hanafi sect, which differed from the republic by making the salat al-zuhr four rak’ats instead of two rak’ats, and this is based on the narration (riwaya) reported by the women in Imam Abu Hanifa’s house.

The Role of Female Reporters in the Sahih al-Bukhari

Women were more interested in Sahih al-Bukhari than men. Al-Nadwi, in his study on the copies of Sahih al-Bukhari, published under the title ‘‘Madhal Rai ila Sahih-i Buhari ve ma fihi Min Esrar ve Senai’’, concluded that the most authentic copy of Sahih al-Bukhari was based on a female reporter named Qarima al-Mirwaziya. It has also been reported that Fatima al-Bataihiyya, who had a great isnad in the narration of Sahih al-Bukhari, gave Sahih al-Bukhari lectures in Damascus and even made people read Sahih al-Bukhari in Madinah when she went on Hajj. She used to sit in front of the wall of the tomb of the Prophet (SAW) with her face turned towards the head of the Prophet (SAW), teaching and giving ijazah to her students. If this indicates anything, it is the respect for women at that time. There was no mosque or madrasa in Hijaz, Damascus or Egypt that did not have women scholars. Zehebi, for example, stated that he read about 400 books under the tutelage of Zaynab bint al-Kamal al-Maqdisiyah, one of the scholars of Damascus, who was also his teacher.

Nadwi concluded his speech by pointing out that there are many fabricated hadiths (maudu hadiths) in the reports of men, but none of them are found in the isnad of any of the hadiths reported by women.