Women witnesses

18-5-2004 | IslamWeb

Question:

Is it necessary to have 2 women witness in every legal a fair or just in financial matters?

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Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the World; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.

The testimony of women is not valid except in financial matters or in things related to women and which men cannot know.
These things are five:
- Giving birth
- Knowing whether the baby was born alive or dead testifying that it actually cried.
- Testifying about breast-feeding.
- Testifying about defects that could be under the clothes of the woman.
- Testifying about the expiration of Iddah.
Some scholars believe that the testimony of one woman is sufficient in these things including Tawuss and it is even a narration from Ahmad Ibn Hanbal .
But most Fuqaha are of the opinion that the testimony of one woman is not acceptable in any of these things just as only the testimony of two women is accepted in financial matters.
This was narrated from Abu Laila , Ibn Shuberma , Malik and al-Thawri . Abu Hanifa said: 'The testimony of one woman is accepted in matters related to the delivery of married women unlike divorced ones. The evidence for this is the Hadith reported by al-Daraqutni in the book of Aqdiya and rulings from Huzaifa that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) allowed the testimony of the midwife (accoucheuse)' .
Anyway, the majority of Fuqaha do not accept the testimony of less than two women in financial matters, etc. except breast-feeding.
The most preponderant opinion about breast-feeding is that the testimony of one woman about it is accepted. The evidence of this is the Hadith narrated " Uqbah Ibn Harit married the daughter of Abu Ihab bin Aziz , and then a woman came and said, "I suckled 'Uqba and his wife." 'Uqba said to her, "I do not know that you have suckled me, and you did not inform me." He then sent someone to the house of Abu Ihab to inquire about that but they did not know that she had suckled their daughter. Then ' Uqba went to the Prophet in Medina and asked him about it. The Prophet said to him, "How (can you keep your wife) after it has been said (that both of you were suckled by the same woman)?" .      
Allah knows best