• About
    LeConte-Menu-sm-300.jpg

    In 2009, Zaytuna College was founded in Berkeley, California, with a mission that called for grounding students in the Islamic scholarly tradition as well as in the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.

  • Academics
    student-book-writing-small.jpg

    As a Muslim liberal arts college in the West, Zaytuna offers a curriculum that provides its students with a foundation in the intellectual heritage of two major world civilizations: the Islamic and the Western.

    .

  • Admissions & Aid
    teacher-students-sisters-small.jpg

    Our mission is to educate students to become morally, intellectually, and spiritually accomplished individuals ready to contribute to our contemporary world in ways that are proportionate to their gifts and to the needs of human society.

     

    .

  • Campus Life
    sisters-looking-out-window-small.jpg

    Zaytuna’s campus is on Holy Hill and students enter the College as part of a cohort, a community of learners that travel together through the curriculum.

Hearts of Wisdom: A History of Women’s Scholarship in the Islamic Tradition

Hearts of Wisdom: 

A History of Women’s Scholarship in the Islamic Tradition 

10:30 AM - 4:30 PM | Saturday, September 6, 2025
Join Us for a Seminar with Special Guest Dr. Akram Nadwi

In this seminar, Dr. Akram Nadwi will go through select biographies of Companions, their disciples and notable figures of the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, highlighting finer details that are worth exemplifying today. He will also address key questions related to women's rights and education, the journey to hadith scholarship, the sources he used in compiling his work, distinctions between Islam and other religions on this wider topic and propose action items on how modern Muslim society can have a renaissance in female hadith engagement similar to key moments of the Islamic past.

Lunch and light refreshments will be served. Registration is limited. All are welcome.

About the Speaker

Screenshot_2025-08-13_at_4_43_18 PM.png

Dr. Akram Nadwi

Dr. Akram Nadwi spent two decades researching female hadith transmission which culminated in a 43 volume Arabic biographical dictionary listing around 10,000 female narrators over 13 centuries of Islamic history. In fact, after the publication of his magnum opus, he encountered even more figures that were not included originally. This tome of data is ripe for various research topics including why women were prolific in hadith compared to other genres, what epochs had a rise in such scholarship and when were declines noticeable, what were some remarkable pathways women took to acquire this knowledge and much more. Prior to the publication of this encyclopedia, Dr. Nadwi released a one volume primer in English to introduce key figures, such as Karima bint Marwaziyya, and ideas on women and scholarly pursuits.