Part II: The Women Around
Behind every sacred text lies an invisible network of preservation: the scribes who copied manuscripts, the teachers who memorized verses, the patrons who funded temples, the mothers who whispered prayers into children's ears. This section illuminates the women who surrounded and sustained sacred traditions without formal recognition. From Christian mystics illuminating Gospels in medieval scriptoriums to Islamic women preserving hadith through oral chains of transmission, from Hindu temple singers keeping epic stories alive to Jewish women carrying liturgical memory through generations of exile—these are the hidden guardians whose devotion shaped what we now call sacred, even when their names were lost to history.