Musnidah in Shahīh al-Bukhārī

The 5th-century female scholar of Ḥadīth and Musnida from Merv, Umm al-Kirām Karīma bt. Aḥmad al-Marwaziyya (d. 463 AH) was one of the most important transmitters of Imām al-Bukhārī’s magnum opus. From the myriad recensions of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, few reach the level of precision and attention to detail typified in al-Marwaziyya’s transmission. Having lived for nearly a century, she dedicated her life to the teaching of Ḥadīth in the sacred precincts of Mecca. Her passion to disseminate the Prophet’s legacy (peace be upon him) led her to live a life of celibacy. Despite her failing health and old age, she held a Ḥadīth-audition five days before her passing, in which al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463 AH) recited Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī to her. [1]

We are able to date one of the few surviving manuscripts of the Ṣaḥīḥ transmitted via Karīma al-Marwaziyya’s recension to at least 663 AH thanks to a marginal note written by another female scholar of Ḥadīth: the Damascene Fāṭima bt. Sulaymān al-Anṣāriyya (d. 708 AH). While comparing the present manuscript with its exemplar to ensure textual accuracy, Fāṭima al-Anṣāriyya notes that in 4 Ṣafar 663 AH she reached the chapter on bathing when entering Mecca. Interestingly, she was the student of another Musnida of the Levant, coincidentally named Karīma al-Zubayriyya (d. 641 AH). She was a wealthy woman, who spent her fortune to build institutions of learning, hospices, and endowments for her community. [2]

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[1] al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 18:233–235; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, 7:127; Abū Ghudda, al-ʿUlamāʾ al-ʿuzzāb, 127–128; also see the author’s comments on celibacy in Islam in ibid., 7ff, 128–130.

[2] al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, 5:131. Credit for this folio goes to Dr. Shifāʾ al-Faqīh’s phenomenal doctoral thesis, in which she studies Abū Dharr’s recension of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. See Shifāʾ al-Faqīh, Riwāyāt al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ li-l-Imām al-Bukhārī: Riwāyat Abī Dharr Namūdhajan, 120, 484.