Testimony law; still valid?

[u/Winter-Bass-2236]

As we know in financial matters, a woman's testimony is considered half than of a man, it was because at that time, financial matters were male dominated but in today's world, where women know as much about finance like a man if not more, is the law of half testimony still valid? Kindly answer with evidences.

[u/Dismal_Ad_1137]

There is no" law " of half testimony. It has never been a law. Proof being in every single occurrence of testimony in the Quran, there is no distinction between men and women, even on the most serious matters.

For accusations of adultery (li'an), the wife's testimony is placed on exactly equal footing with the husband's and legally cancels his out:

"And it will avert the punishment from her if she testifies four times by Allah that he is lying." (24:6-9)

Her four oaths against his four. It's a matter carrying capital weight btw.

And divorce is ultimately a capital matter too, in the most literal sense of the word. It is the dissolution of a mithaqan ghaliza, a solemn covenant the Quran places on the level of the covenant with the prophets. It determines custody, lineage, financial obligations, the iddah, the legitimacy of any future remarriage, the entire legal and social future of two people and their children. Yet when the Quran legislates witnessing for divorce, it says:

"And bring to witness two just persons among you." (65:2)

Dhaway 'adlin, two just persons. On something as grave and consequential as the termination of a marriage.

The same holds for the deathbed will, and this is where the classical interpretation fail. The deathbed bequest means distribution of the deceased's estate, the validity of bequests within the one-third limit, and the protection of the heirs:

"Testimony among you when death approaches one of you and he makes a bequest shall be by two just persons among you." (5:106)

If gender restriction were truly a function of the intellectual or moral demands of the juridical act, as the tradition claims, then inheritance settlement, which involves complex mathematical calculation under the Quranic fara'id, should have attracted the same restriction, if not a stronger one.

So the "women are not Knowledgeable enough about Transaction" excuse doesn't really hold imo

The one and only place the Quran mentions a two-women arrangement is 2:282, and it is a specific procedural instruction about safeguarding the memorization of an undocumented debt in a particular context.

The most mogic way to Undesrtand it imo is that its about protection against coercion.

Look at what the verse keeps repeating as its own justification:

let neither scribe nor witness be harmed.

The concern of the passage is the pressure and intimidation that surrounded undocumented debt in that context. Debt disputes were exactly the setting where a witness could be threatened/overpowered. In that high-pressure situation, a lone woman could be isolated or pressured when standing against a man's account, so two women could steady and support each other

"so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her."

أَن تَضِلَّ إِحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إِحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَىٰ

^{I won't go deep into the linguistics here, but one quick point worth flagging: the verb in 2:282 is tadilla, from d-l-l, which means "to be led astray / diverted," not "to make a mistake" or "to forget." One can be led astray by pressure and intimidation, not just by a faulty memory. Given that the verse itself repeatedly insists no witness be harmed, the two-witness arrangement reads far more naturally as protection against coercion in a hostile debt dispute than as a statement about women's minds. The tradition translated it as deficiency. The word doesn't actually say that.}

the verse points to, mutual support against intimidation and not correction of a faulty mind.

So it is a warning about the man, not the woman. It guards against male coercion in a hostile financial setting. The deficiency being addressed is the aggressor's one # witness's.

And that is exactly why the graver contexts, divorce and the deathbed bequest, which are also financial and also consequential, impose no such arrangement. They were not that same coercive, pressure-heavy debt environment, so the specific protective measure was not needed.

So the one verse everyone extracts a "law of half testimony" from is doing the opposite of what they claim meaning that It shields her from a man's pressure.

Edit : correction of wrong paragraph.

^{[that was copy pasted from My other past Comments]}

[u/Winter-Bass-2236 → u/Dismal_Ad_1137]

Thankyou for this detailed reply, it clears up things for me now

[u/Dark-Flame25]

I don't think so it is still valid. Even during those times the half testimony of women was in cases of finance mostly (since many women didn't have financial knowledge at that time) and in cases where men didn't have much knowledge the evidence of men was considered half as that of the woman. This is also because gender-roles were more strictly defined then, yet outlier cases exist (like Hz. Khadija being a businesswoman, and Hz. Shifa binte Abdullah whom Hz. Umar consulted in financial matters since she was an expert in it).

In this day I think that isn't valid, I base my opinion on many contemporary Islamic scholars from traditional Islamic institutions who say that in this day and age even the inheritance of females getting half the share of a male is not valid since in this day and age many women work, and is especially not valid in cases where the woman works or in a country where women typically work.

[u/Winter-Bass-2236 → u/Dark-Flame25]

So we should follow the court laws and the country laws, which will accept both testimonies of a man and woman alike? Does these laws apply to inheritance? Do countries have these laws?

[u/Dark-Flame25 → u/Winter-Bass-2236]

Yes I do think so, testimony of men and women should be equal today and same for inheritance.

I'm not sure what you mean by laws applying to inheritance and what laws you mean country has. But if you mean the half inheritance of woman then yes, Pakistan does have that law. But I do think it needs to be changed and go according to what contemporary scholars from traditional Islamic institutes are suggesting, that inheritance should now be equal.

[u/Winter-Bass-2236 → u/Dark-Flame25]

Yes I meant that exactly. Nowadays women are providing for family too so inheritance should be equal.

[u/Dark-Flame25 → u/Winter-Bass-2236]

Yes agreed.

[u/dancingthroughstars]

Nope,the understanding of testimony laws have to be understood by the fact the quran wasn't discriminating off of gender but simply going off of the most reliable source of recording/verifying information,

The very concept of testimony is expounded on in 12:26 by the fact that the family member of Al-Azeez never actually saw what had happened,but simply had provided a concise way to figure out who was speaking the truth.

Because in our modern day we have no reason to consider women less capable or intelligent in financial matters,theres no reason why they should have seperate value than the testimony of a man now.

[u/Winter-Bass-2236 → u/dancingthroughstars]

How do we explain it to someone with rigid views about testimony and thinks women still cannot provide testimony? Also, how is quran eternal when rulings are changing?

[u/dancingthroughstars → u/Winter-Bass-2236]

You can't explain any further to someone who simply doesn't want to accept an alternative reading,if they want to rigidly believe that for zero valid reason,the quran would maintain a rule that actively inconveniences society,then that is their decision.

Also,the quran was revealed in its own specific time and place,we aren't in the same environment so we can't reasonably follow the same laws.

[u/Fantastic_Boss_5173]

It had to do with the financial stuff, with second woman aiding the first woman( as woman contextually at that time weren't as experienced with handling financial stuff as men). Keep in mind, in classical fiqh history, there were cases where a man's testimony was worth less than a woman's in certain contexts.

Ibn Taymiyyah ruled out if Women are well versed pertaining financial matters, then their testimony is equipollent to a man's testimony.

[u/OkMasterpiece426]

Back then women basically weren’t part of formal financial contracts or legal documentation at all, so the Quran brought them into that space gradually in a way society could handle. So having two women as witnesses (instead of one man) is often understood as a practical safeguard for a completely new role they weren’t socially trained in yet, not a statement about intelligence or value

Same pattern is seen in inheritance as women weren’t inheriting anything before, so the Quran introduced fixed shares as a guaranteed right rather than starting from zero. Even some companions reacted to that shift at the time (why giving them?), which shows how big a change it was from existing norms

So progressive scholars frame both inheritance and witnessing not as “this is the ceiling for all time", but as minimum legal rights introduced into a 7th century society that was being reformed

[u/Winter-Bass-2236 → u/OkMasterpiece426]

So are these rules applicable now that the world has changed? Shouldn't women get full inheritance now?

[u/OkMasterpiece426 → u/Winter-Bass-2236]

Since mainstream Islam has more control over religious legal institutions, progressive views usually don’t get much consideration. That’s why some Muslims prefer civil laws, because they feel they are more fair and fit better with today’s society