Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
4. The status of woman
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Recent research has testified to this law mentioned
in the Qur’an as being perfectly natural. A UPI
report quotes a Soviet scientist as saying that men
have a greater ability to memorize and process
mathematical information than women, but females
are better with words. Speaking to the Tass news
agency, Dr. Vladimir Konovalov said, “Men
dominate in mathematical subjects due to the
peculiarities of their memory. The stronger sex
shows greater difficulties in processing and
adapting language material.”
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As indicated in the Qur’anic verse initially quoted,
whenever there is to be any delay in payment after
the conclusion of a business transaction, there must
be witnesses to this, either two men, or one man
and two women. The phrase “so that if either of
them forgets the other will remember” makes it
quite clear that in such credit dealings, what has to
be considered next in importance to justice is
memory. When biological studies have shown a
woman’s memory to be weaker than a man’s, it is
quite in accordance with the facts of nature to
stipulate that there should be two female witnesses
in place of one man. This command thus sets a
