Notable Women within the Zaydi School

• Queen Sharīfa Fāṭima bt. al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad (d. 1298 AH) — An example of how women played an active role in political affairs within the Zaydī school. She led a political movement and successfully conquered Ṣanʿāʾ as well as other large parts of Yemen.
• Shams al-Ḥur bt. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Mutawakkil (d. 1298 AH) — A pious woman renowned for her wisdom. She reached the rank of mujtahida, and was also a writer and poet. She mastered numerous Islamic sciences and was known for teaching jurisprudential texts to male students who sought her knowledge.
• Zaynab bt. Muḥammad al-Shahāriyya (d. 1114 AH) — A scholar, writer, and poet born in Shahārah, Yemen, and raised by her mother. She studied logic, Arabic grammar, and uṣūl. She excelled especially in literature and poetry, becoming recognized as the most famous female poet of the second millennium.

The biographies of many other such women are preserved in works such as Muʿjam al-Nisāʾ al-Yamaniyyāt by ʿAbdullah Muḥammad al-Ḥabashī (b. 1368 AH) and Aʿlām al-Muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya by ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh (b. 1376 AH).

References

📕 — Al-Qānūniyya fī al-Dawla al-Zaydiyya wa Maẓāhir al-Ḥuqūq wa al-Ḥurriyyāt, Jamāl al-Shamy (b. 1409 AH), p. 52.
📕 — Aʿlām al-Muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh (b. 1376 AH), p. 481.
📕 — Aʿlām al-Muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbbās al-Wajīh (b. 1376 AH), pp. 451–452.