Witnesses: A Woman’s Testimony Is Worth the Same as a Man’s, Except in Two Cases Where It May Count for More or Less

The Qur’an speaks of giving testimony in the context of five specific situations. In only one of these five cases does it make a distinction between witnesses on the basis of gender, namely in the case that relates to financial transactions, where two women may be required to testify in lieu of one man. The famous phrase about two women witnesses in that case, “so that if one of them forgets/errs the other can remind her”, is a reference not to the inferiority of women’s intellect but rather to the fact that women at the time did not engage in borrowing or lending and were moreover mostly illiterate, making them less effective witnesses should a dispute arise. Meanwhile another one of these five cases outlines when a woman’s testimony is worth more than a man’s, namely when a husband accuses his wife of infidelity—although we never hear anyone mentioning this extraordinary verse or highlighting the principle behind it.

سامی مذاہب کے ماخذ اصلیہ کی روشنی میں عورت کی گواہی کی مشروعیت کا تحقیقی و تقابلی مطالعہ

This research has carried out to elaborate a comparative study regarding the permissibility of women witnesses in the original sources of the captioned Divine Religions, its authenticity, and use in various transactions. Judiciary is the milestone of peace alive in society while the witness is the backbone of every judicial system. Without witnesses never justice could be done nor can any right be proved or protected in the court of law. This article has defined evidence, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam respectively. Then permissibility, strength, originality, and qualifications of women witnesses in the original texts of these religions thoroughly. In the end the status of witness in those matters which are related to them comparatively. The social and legal status of women in cited religions is admissible but still, some critics mistrust that either her evidence is half to men or they have less status, low or no value regarding evidence in the court of law. So it is an esteem need of the day to understand the permissibility of the women's witnesses in the light of original texts and to avoid misdeems over it. What would be the weightage of her witness in various transactions related to them? Inductive and qualitative methods have been adopted. Access to original sources of the three religions has been acquired, data collected, scrutinized, elaborated and trinal compared. The women's witness plays a pivotal role in all evidential proceedings. It is unanimously admissible in women-related matters. It has been proved from original sources of trinal religion like Torah, Gospel, and the Holy Quran. A witness is a person who testifies what he has seen of a matter or an event.

Worthless Witnesses? Marginal Voices and Women's Legal Agency in Early Modern England

This article explores the distribution of women witnesses in a selection of English church courts between the mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries, in order to assess the extent to which women's participation as witnesses in these jurisdictions might be characterized as a form of legal agency. It shows that women's participation was highly contingent on their marital status and between places and over time and was shaped by the matters in dispute as well as the gender of the litigants for whom they testified. Although poverty did not exclude women witnesses (higher proportions of female witnesses than male claimed to be poor or of limited means), women were more vulnerable than were men to discrediting strategies that cast doubt on their authority in court. Such findings show that the incorporative dimensions of state formation did not deliver new forms of agency to women but depended heavily upon patriarchal norms and constraints.

In search of Islamic view of justice on women testimony

The most current challenges faced by Moslem in terms of Islamic religious discourse are religiousinterpretation on gender equality on position men and women. Among long crucial debate related tothe issue is position of men and women in testimony, when the place of two women witnesses whichare conceived equal to one man. It seems an ambivalent takes place regarding Islamic religious interpretationwhen many verses mentioned in the Quran and some hadiths have declared explicitly the sameshared opportunity and capacity as well as mutual relation between men and women as vicegerents(khalifah) of God on the earth, meanwhile in the practice which inherited over centuries demonstratedinequality of men and women. This contrast, however, ultimately indicates a tension between Islamthat ethically egalitarian and historically determined. This article tries to seek an Islamic view of justice onwomen testimony by arguing the importance of contextualizing interpretation by revitalizing appropriatemaxim of Quran exegetes and up grading maqasid studies in order to find a more equal and justreligious interpretation on women in Islam.

Tainted Witness in Law and Literature

Chapter five examines two examples of unsympathetic women witnesses and the transits of their testimony across an assemblage of legal and literary modes of judgment: 1) the rape case brought by Nafissatou Diallo against former head of the International Monetary Fund and former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Diallo and her testimony travelled from criminal court, through the court of public opinion, to civil court in search of an adequate witness and 2) the autobiographical fiction of Jamaica Kincaid, who offers a literary witness in contrast to the sympathetic, pure, young victims featured in humanitarian campaigns. The chapter argues that the dynamics of witness tainting previously analyzed make it imperative that we adopt an ethical response that is not primarily grounded in identification or compassion. The chapter concludes by arguing that sympathy fails to provide an adequate ground for ethical witnessing and that we must learn to engage with the unsympathetic woman witness.

Kesaksian Perempuan: Benarkah Separuh Laki-Laki?

The fact that the Qur'an explicitly mentions about women as witnesses, and have the rights to receive inheritance is in itself a revolutionary advancement steps promoted by Islam for women's rights in the era. This means that the Qur'an acknowledges and recognizes not only women as individuals but also women's legal capacity and rights in social life, ideas that have never been observed by Arabian society of the seventh century. In this era women were denied access to inheritance, even they were seen as parts of objects of inheritance. Islam has radically changed this tradition by elevating women to be autonomous subjects of legal entity. Although the Chapter of Al-Baqarah verse 282 mentions about the necessity to have two women witnesses to replace one male witness, this should not mean that women are inherently inferior than men in terms of their capacity and rights to legal engangement. But we should see the spiritual message of this revolutionary offer provided by the Qur'an, that women can act as witnesses in business, in public affairs. Nowadays women have achieved and showed their intellectual and social capacity to be autonomous legal subjects, therefore the paper suggests that women can be witnesses in any businesses as far as they are knowledgable about the issues.