It all depends on the case and the circumstances surrounding it.

It all depends on the case and the circumstances surrounding it. Most importantly, when it comes to witnessing or testifying, regardless of the gender or suit, the parties that are involved in the hearing would be thoroughly scrutinized; therefore, the testifiers will be contested in order to prove their legitimacy.

If the judge proved that the testifiers were incompetent or unreliable, irrespective of whether the testifiers were several men, or the judge suspected uncertainty, then the judge would disregard all of their testimonies. Again, it is not merely gender based; credibility also plays a significant role. Fatma: It seems that most of the injunctions, exclusions, and guidelines for women in Islam appear to encircle their dispositions —their physiological and psychological states.

Islamic scholars attempt to justify the logic of the rules or guidelines as being based on a woman’s nature, in particular with the injunctions on witnessing or judging matters. Islamic scholars claim most of a woman’s judgments are governed by her emotions, such as a female’s fluctuating mental and emotional states before or during menstruation and stages of pre-and post-natal pregnancy, as justification to the status quo on witnessing or exclusions to judge.

Since you have clarified that testimony is heavily dependent upon the case and credibility of the individual, not necessarily gender in all cases, could you then elaborate upon the subject of women judges in Islam and the claim of emotionalism? Sayyid: Let me share with you a story. Years ago, when I lived with my parents and siblings, one night we heard an intruder in one of the back rooms. When we went to investigate, we found a young man in the process of stealing our television.

We caught him and wanted to call the police when he began to sob and cry that if we turned him in he would be sent to prison. Upon hearing his weeping, pleading, and apologies, my mother who had witnessed the whole incident felt compassion and sympathy for him. She appealed to us not to call the authorities and to release him. Although, my brothers also felt sympathy for him, they knew that his actions had consequences for which he should be accountable.

The story is not related to our discussion; nonetheless, the incident demonstrates well the sensitive qualities of women, in general. Emotional qualities of women are not a mark of perceptual incompetence or limitation of intelligence.