THE TESTIMONY OF WOMAN

4. The status of woman ~ 66 ~ Recent research has testified to this law mentioned in the Qur’an as being perfectly natural. A UPI report quotes a Soviet scientist as saying that men have a greater ability to memorize and process mathematical information than women, but females are better with words. Speaking to the Tass news agency, Dr. Vladimir Konovalov said, “Men dominate in mathematical subjects due to the peculiarities of their memory. The stronger sex shows greater difficulties in processing and adapting language material.”57 As indicated in the Qur’anic verse initially quoted, whenever there is to be any delay in payment after the conclusion of a business transaction, there must be witnesses to this, either two men, or one man and two women. The phrase “so that if either of them forgets the other will remember” makes it quite clear that in such credit dealings, what has to be considered next in importance to justice is memory. When biological studies have shown a woman’s memory to be weaker than a man’s, it is quite in accordance with the facts of nature to stipulate that there should be two female witnesses in place of one man. This command thus sets a