No, a woman did not "Edit the Qur'ān": Towards a methodologically coherent approach to a tradition portraying a woman and written quranic materials

Some traditions found in classical Muslim sources that variously depict the quranic text's oral and written transmission and canonization portray female figures as involved in these processes. This suggests that in the academic study of such traditions, gender should be utilized as an analytical category. However, a recent feminist study treats them as historical reports. This article makes several propositions as to what a coherent methodological approach to such traditions entails. Then, using a tradition in which Hafsa bt. 'Umar (d. ca. 665 CE) is directed by her father to verify the "correct" rendering of a quranic verse as a case study, it shows why this cannot be read as straightforwardly historical, and demonstrates the potential of gender-focused analyses for the critical study of such traditions