Women Travelling in Pursuit of ʿIlm…

In the early and later periods, the Hajj served as an opportunity to meet scholars and learn from them. One example is Maryam bint Nūr ad-Dīn al-Hūrimiyyah [d. 871 AH]. Her maternal grandfather was especially solicitous of her education and took her to Makkah, where she studied ḥadīth with ʿAfīf ad-Dīn an-Nashāwarī, Abu 'l-ʿ Abbās ibn ʿAbd al-Mutī, Shihāb ad-Dīn Zahīrah and Muḥib ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭabarī. She continued her studies in Egypt.

The famous expert of ḥadīth, much sought after her for high isnād, Shaykha Karīmah al-Marwaziyyah [d. 463 AH] travelled in the path of knowledge to Sarakhs, Isfahan, Jerusalem, and then to Makkah. Adh-Dhahabī says: "Her father was from Kushmīhan, then travelled with her to Jerusalem and returned with her to Makkah. She studied Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī with Abū l-Haytham al-Kushmīanī; she also studied with Zahir ibn Ahmad Sarakhsī and ʿ Abdullāh ibn Yūsuf ibn Bāmūyah al-Asbahānī."

Another scholar is the Shaykha of high isnad Umm ʿ Abd al-Karīm Fāṭimah bint Saʿd al-Khayr al-Andalusī al-Balansī (525-600 AH). Her life's work contributed greatly to consolidating and extending the knowledge of Baghdad and the Islamic east before the catastrophe brought to this region by the Mongols. She was following in the wake of other great scholars who responded to the (earlier) disruption and destruction wrought by the Crusaders and their occupation by carrying 'the knowledge' westwards through Syria and the Levant to Egypt.

(Al-Muhaddithaat: The Women Scholars in Islam by Muhammed Akram Nadwi, p.75)