and the like. Thus, they explain “Allah makes things clear to you, lest you go astray” as meaning “for fear that you may go astray,” or “out of aversion to your going astray,” and so forth.

This interpretation, however, presents a difficulty in His words, “that one of them may forget.” If they understand it as “out of aversion to one of them forgetting,” then the coordinated clause—“so that the other may remind her”—must have the same status, making the reminding something disliked. But if they understand it as “willing that one of them should forget,” then forgetting becomes something intended.

The answer is that the wording is construed according to its intended meaning. The sense is: “so that one of them may remind the other if she forgets.” This is unquestionably intended.

Shaykh Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

Allah’s words, “If there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you approve as witnesses, so that if one of the women forgets, the other may remind her,” indicate that two women are called as witnesses in place of one man so that one may remind the other if she forgets. This applies only to matters in which such lapses ordinarily occur, namely forgetfulness and a lack of accurate retention. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, pointed to this meaning when he said:

“As for the deficiency in their intellect, the testimony of two women is equivalent to that of one man.”

He thus explained that the evidentiary weight of their testimony is halved only because of weakness in intellectual capacity, not weakness in religious commitment. It follows that women’s moral probity is on a par with that of men; it is only a woman’s intellectual capacity that falls short of a man’s. Thus, in testimony concerning matters where such lapses are not ordinarily feared, her testimony does not carry half the weight of a man’s.

The matters in which women’s testimony is accepted independently are things a woman sees with her own eyes, feels with her own hands, or hears with her own ears, without depending on reasoning: childbirth, a newborn’s first cry, breastfeeding, menstruation, postnatal bleeding, and physical defects concealed beneath clothing. Such things are not ordinarily forgotten, nor does recognizing them require full intellectual capacity, as is required to grasp the meanings of statements she hears, such as acknowledgments of debt and the like. These are meanings that must be understood through reasoning, and generally a long interval elapses thereafter.