Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics

(Jacob Rumans) #1

(see Mt 19:8–9). He goes on to quote Genesis (‘‘the two
shall become one flesh’’), indicating that marriage is by its
very nature an indissoluble and permanent union.



  1. Is it true that the testimony of a woman in court
    does not carry the same weight as that of a man?


Yes, and this unjust practice can have dramatic effects.
One of these effects is the situation of rape as it plays out in
conjunction with Islamic restrictions on the validity of a
woman’s witness. In court, a woman’s testimony is worth
half as much as that of a man. Says the Koran: ‘‘Call in two
male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be
found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to
act as witnesses; so that if either of them commit an error,
the other will remember’’ (Sura 2:282).


Islamic legal theorists have restricted the validity of a
woman’s testimony even further by limiting it to, in the
words of one Muslim legal manual, ‘‘cases involving
property, or transactions dealing with property, such as
sales.’’[54] Otherwise only men can testify. And in cases of
sexual misbehavior, four male witnesses are required. They
must not merely be witnesses who can testify that an
instance of fornication, adultery, or rape happened: these
witnesses must have seen the act itself.


This peculiar and destructive stipulation had its genesis in
an incident in Muhammad’s life: his wife, Aisha, was
accused of infidelity. The accusation particularly distressed
Muhammad because Aisha was his favorite wife. But in this
case as in many others, Allah is said to have come to the aid

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