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Judgment of Shari’a on ‘Women’s Testimony to what they usually see’

By: Muhammad Hassan Aby Yahia

Assistant Professor

Jurisprudence and Legislation Dept.

College of Shari’a

Jordanian University

The most Important points contained in this paper are as follows:

1. An Introduction : Selection of topic:-

We chose this topic for our paper because of the widespread interest of Muslim Jurists in testimony of women in different areas. Acquainting the reader with judgment of women in testimony and clarifying unfounded misunderstandings about women’s testimony.

2. Defining the term “testimony” linguistically and offereing a definition of it in Shari’a. “Testimony” (as prevalent among Islamic Jurists) is “the right of an individual to report on another individual by introducing his/her report by saying : “I testifying that’………
3. To acquaint the reader with what women usually see.
4. Judgment of women’s testimony to what women usually witness-judgments on women’s testimony differ according to the cases in which women are called to bear witness. These cases are of two types:

1. What women usually see other than lactation and signs of life on the newly born baby boy, who is entitled to inheritance on his birth. Such as the hymen, women’s delivery and physical defects. Muslim Jurists agree that women may bear witness by themselves (i.e. without having men witnesses with them) in such cases. Only Zufar does not agree to women’s testimony alone.
2. Other cases such as sucking or lactation and signs of life on the baby boy, who is entitled to inheritance, on his delivery. Muslim Jurists differed in

having women alone as witnesses. However, the most prevalent opinion is that a woman’s testimony alone (without men) to what she usually sees is acceptable because there are evidences in Shari’a which confirm the prevalent opinion.

5. There are five opinions concerning the number of women who can testify to what they usually see. The most acceptable and prevalent opinion is the acceptance of the testimony of one virtuous Muslim woman (by jurists since they have evidence in Shari’s to what they say).
6. Conclusion: This is a summary of the results of the research, followed by a list of references arranged according to topic.