Status of women's testimony in Islam
The status of women's testimony in Islam is disputed. Muslim societies' attitudes range from completely rejecting female testimony in certain legal areas, to conditionally accepting (half-worth that of a male, or with a requirement for supporting male testimony), to completely accepting it without any gender bias.[1]
In
In the second chapter of the Quran,
O you who believe! When you contract a debt for a fixed period, write it down. Let a scribe write it down in justice between you. Let not the scribe refuse to write as Allah has taught him, so let him write. Let him (the debtor) who incurs the liability dictate, and he must fear Allah, his Lord, and diminish not anything of what he owes. But if the debtor is of poor understanding, or weak, or is unable himself to dictate, then let his guardian dictate in justice. And get two witnesses out of your own men. And if there are not two men (available), then a man and two women, such as you agree for witnesses, so that if one of them (two women) errs, the other can remind her.
Financial documents
In case of witnesses for financial documents, the Qur'an asks for two men or one man and two women.[4][5] This is interpreted by a number of Muslim scholars so as to imply testimony of two women being equal to a single man's. Tafsir Ibn Kathir states: "Allah requires that two women take the place of one man as witness, because of the woman's shortcomings, as the Prophet described [in a hadith]."[6]
On the other hand,
Regarding the
According to Ghamidi, regarding the verse
"فَمَا كَانَ مِنْ الشَّهَادَاتِ لَا يُخَافُ فِيهِ الضَّلَالُ فِي الْعَادَةِ لَمْ تَكُنْ فِيهِ عَلَى نِصْفِ رَجُلٍ" "Whatever there is among the testimonies of women, which there is no fear of habitual error, then they are not considered as half of a man."[18]
Ibn al-Qayyim writes:
"وَالْمَرْأَةُ الْعَدْلُ كَالرَّجُلِ فِي الصِّدْقِ وَالْأَمَانَةِ وَالدِّيَانَة إلَّا أَنَّهَا لَمَّا خِيفَ عَلَيْهَا السَّهْوُ وَالنِّسْيَانُ قَوِيَتْ بِمِثْلِهَا وَذَلِكَ قَدْ يَجْعَلُهَا أَقْوَى مِنْ الرَّجُلِ الْوَاحِدِ أَوْ مِثْلَهُ" "The woman is equal to the man in honesty, trust, and piety; otherwise, whenever it is feared that she will forget or misremember, she is strengthened with another like herself. That makes them stronger than a single man or the likes of him."[19]
Criminal offences
As an extension to the limitation claimed in financial contracts, a significant number of conservative Muslim scholars also argue for discrimination against female testimonies in hadd and qisas cases too though not in tazir.[9]
In cases of
According to classical interpretations which disallow female testimony in hudud cases, enforce the gender difference on the matter of deciding what punishment is to be delivered, and not on proving guilt. In this context, female testimony would be acceptable in order to prove the guilt of the defendant, however, in the absence of male testimony, the guilty party will be liable to only the taziri punishment, instead of the divinely ordained hadd punishment.[9](28:42)
Other cases
Ibn al-Qayyim comments on the verse as follows:
There is no doubt that the reason for a plurality [of women in the Qur’anic verse] is [only] in recording testimony. However, when a woman is intelligent and remembers and is trustworthy in her religion, then the purpose [of testimony] is attained through her statement just as it is in her transmissions [in] religious [contexts].
Imam Malik, on the contrary, believes that their testimony remains unacceptable. For bodily affairs about which men can have no information in ordinary circumstances, such as the physical handicaps of women and the crying of a baby at birth, the majority of scholars hold that the testimony of women alone is acceptable. In certain situations, the scripture accepts the testimony of a woman as equal to that of a man's and that her testimony can even invalidate his, such as when a man accuses his wife of unchastity.[24]When it came to legal testimony that was relegated to the private domain (e.g., birth), the testimony of one woman was equal to, and often more worthy than, the testimony of one man since there was no doubt that a woman was more experienced in that arena. Ibn Qudamah (d. 620 H), in his most famous compendium on Islamic jurisprudence al-Mughnī, explained that n matters of nursing, childbirth, menstruation, chastity, and physical defects, a male witness is not accepted entirely while a single female witness is. Not all scholars, however, insisted on the political and normative dichotomy, nor the public versus private realms. Hanbalite scholars Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim rejected these categorizations and argued that if either (testimony or narration) were to be more important, narrating a hadith would require more care because it deals with the words and actions of the Prophet.[22]
Classical commentators
Classical commentators commonly explained the unequal treatment of testimony by asserting that women's nature made them more prone to error than men. Muslim modernists have followed the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh in viewing the relevant scriptural passages as conditioned on the different gender roles and life experiences that prevailed at the time rather than women's innately inferior mental capacities, making the rule not generally applicable in all times and places.[25]
Legal status
Based mostly on a 2011 UNICEF report, partial list of countries where a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man:
- Bahrain (in Sharia courts for hadd and qisas)[26]
- Egypt (in family courts except for divorce)[27]
- Iran (in most cases except tazir)[28]
- Iraq (in some cases)[29]
- Jordan (in Sharia courts for marriage)[30]
- Kuwait (in family courts)[31]
- Libya (in some cases)[32]
- Morocco (in family cases though not for divorce)[33]
- Palestine (in cases related to marriage, divorce and child custody)[34]
- Qatar (family law matters: in some cases, half, and in hadd, unacceptable)[35]
- Saudi Arabia[36]
- Syria (in some cases)[37]
- United Arab Emirates (in criminal matters and in some civil matters)[38]
- Yemen (in some cases, half, and in cases of hadd and qisas, unacceptable)[39]
OICcountries where women's testimony is known to be equal to a man's in all cases:List is incomplete
Details
Tunisian and Turkish laws give equal treatment to women in matters of testimony.[1]
See also
Application of sharia law by country- Verse of Loan
- Women in Islam
- Hermeneutics of feminism in Islam
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
- Women related laws in Pakistan § Law of Evidence
- Islamic inheritance jurisprudence § Women and inheritance
Bibliography
- Fadel, Mohammad. “Two Women, One Man: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in Medieval Sunni Legal Thought.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, 1997, pp. 185–204., doi:10.1017/S0020743800064461.
References
- ^ )
- ^ Wael B. Hallaq (2009). Sharī'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge University Press. p. 347.
SSRN 1113891.- ^ See also [Quran 2:282]: "... and call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the second of the two may remind the other...".
Ibn Rushd. Bidayatu’l-Mujtahid, 1st ed., vol. 4, (Beirut: Daru’l-Ma‘rifah, 1997), p. 311).- ^ Ibn Kathir. "Tafsir Ibn Kathir (English): Surah Al Baqarah Pt II". Quran 4 U. Tafsir. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
Al-Mawrid- ^ a b Is the testimony of women half that of men in Islam | Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, retrieved 2019-12-24
- ^ a b c d e f Is woman's testimony half the weight of man's?, retrieved 2019-12-24
- ^ Javed Ahmed Ghamidi (2012-03-28), Kia Aurat ki Gawahi Adhi hai - Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, retrieved 2016-05-03[dead link]
- ^ "The Woman and the Islamic Law (Part 1/2) - Javed Ahmad Ghamidi". www.javedahmadghamidi.com. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
- ^ "Questions | Al-Mawrid". www.al-mawrid.org. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
- ^ MaulanaIshaqURDU (2011-10-13), Islam Main Kya Aurat Ki Gawahi Aadhi Hai - maulana ishaq urdu, archived from the original on 2021-12-12, retrieved 2016-05-03
Ibn al-Qayyim, I‘lam al-Muwwaqi‘in, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Jayl, 1973), 91. Renaissance - Monthly Islamic Journal, 14(7), July 2004 S2CID 143083939. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2020-12-30. Retrieved 2016-05-03. S2CID 143083939. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2020-12-30. Retrieved 2016-05-03.- ^ Turuq Al Hukmiya 1:128
- ^ al-Jawziyya, Ibn Qayyim. الطرق الحكمية في السياسة الشرعية. p. 430.
- ^
Ibn Rushd. Bidayatu’l-Mujtahid, 1st ed., vol. 4, (Beirut: Daru’l-Ma‘rifah, 1997), p. 311.- ^ Khan, Muhammad Farooq. "7". Islam and Women.
- ^ a b "Women in Islamic Law". Yaqeen Institute. 2019-07-24.
- ^ Ordinary Muslims also challenge the extent of the application of the verse; see, e.g., [1]
- ^ "Women In Islam Versus Women In The Judaeo-Christian Tradition". www.twf.org.
JSTOR 164016.- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Right to equal protection by the law". BBC World Service. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Algeria" (PDF). United States Department of State. 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
The testimony of men and women has equal weight under the law.- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Gender Equality Profile" (PDF). UNICEF. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-12. Retrieved 16 February 2014.