1211 – Abu Bakrah (may Allah be pleased with him) related that the Prophet ﷺ said, “A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never prosper.” Recorded by al-Bukhari. (1)

What is taken from the ḥadith:

1 – Allah the Exalted says: “Men are the caretakers of women because Allah has given some of them more strength than others and because they spend of their wealth” (al-Nisāʾ 4:34).

Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā commented: “That is, it is men’s well-known and customary role to look after women by protecting them, caring for them, exercising authority over them, and providing for them. A corollary of this is that jihad is prescribed for men and not for women, for it includes protecting them … The reason is that Allah has preferred men over women in their very creation and has granted them power and strength He did not grant women. The disparity in legal duties and rulings is therefore the result of the difference in natural disposition and aptitude: ‘The male is not like the female’ (Āl ʿImrān 3:36). Men are more capable of earning, inventing, and handling affairs; hence they are charged with supporting women financially, safeguarding them, and assuming general leadership within the clan. Linked to this leadership is the placement of the marriage bond in men’s hands: they are the ones who conclude it with the women’s consent, and they are the ones who dissolve it by divorce.

The majority of well-known exegetes list first among the domains of this divinely granted preference: prophethood, the supreme and lesser imamate, and the leading of public rites such as the adhān, the iqāmah, and the Friday sermon, among others. There is no doubt that these distinctions derive from the more complete aptitude men possess by virtue of their natural disposition.