How does a woman take bay’ah?

The Beloved Prophet ﷺ took the pledge, bay'ah (also written bai'at, bay'at, baiat or bayt), from women verbally, and a female seeker is not supposed to perform it by holding the hand of a shaykh who is not her mahram, related as per the Shariah law.

There are examples of the pledge taken from women, as Allah mentions in the Qur'an: "O Prophet ﷺ! When the believing women come to you, pledging to you that they will neither associate anything with Allah ˹in worship˺, nor steal, nor fornicate, nor kill their children, nor falsely attribute ˹illegitimate˺ children to their husbands, nor disobey you in what is right, then accept their pledge, and ask Allah to forgive them. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful." [Qur'an, al-Mumtahanah 60:12]

Before the Beloved Prophet ﷺ migrated to Madinah, women from Madinah came to Makkah to meet him, and he took the oath from them.

It is the practice of certain ignorant and imprudent men to hold the hands of women while taking bay'ah. This is completely unacceptable in the Shariah, as it is prohibited to touch an unrelated woman.

Sayyidah Ayesha may Allah be pleased with her narrated the Beloved Prophet's ﷺ own practice: "Never once in his life did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ touch the hand of a woman who was not related to him. He took Bayá from them verbally and when a woman pledged, he would then say to her, 'Go, I have accepted your pledge.'" [Sahih al-Bukhari 2713] No one is more chaste than the Beloved Prophet ﷺ and he was extremely cautious, therefore one must follow in his footsteps.