Aisha bint Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hadi

Aisha bint Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hadi al-Maqdisiyya (723-816 AH / 1323-1413 CE) was one of the most distinguished female hadith scholars of her era. Born into the prominent Maqdisi scholarly family of Damascus — the same family that produced Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi — she grew up surrounded by scholarship and received her education from the greatest hadith authorities of the Levant and beyond.

She received ijazahs (scholarly licenses) from many of the greatest hadith masters of her time, including Zaynab bint Ahmad (known as Bint al-Kamal), one of the most renowned female scholars of the era. Through these chains she transmitted hadith narrations with high-quality isnads reaching back to the major collections of the Sunnah. Scholars traveled to Damascus specifically to receive hadith from her, as her chains of transmission were among the shortest and most authoritative of her time.

Her longevity — she lived to approximately ninety years — meant that she transmitted hadith for decades, and many of the major scholars of the late 8th and early 9th centuries AH received narrations from her. Among those who narrated from her was the celebrated hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, who held her in high regard and mentioned her in his biographical works including al-Durar al-Kaminah. She is an example of the distinguished tradition of female scholarship in Islamic history, especially in Damascus, which was a center of hadith transmission in the medieval period.

Aisha bint Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hadi passed away in Damascus in 816 AH and is remembered as one of the most authoritative hadith transmitters of her generation.