Abu Dawud

Benefits and Issues:
➊ A woman leaving off prayer and fasting, although it is a legitimate, reasonable, and acceptable excuse in the Shari‘ah, nevertheless has an effect on her acts of servitude as a whole. Where a man continues to act without interruption, a woman’s acts do not have such continuity, and this is itself a sign of her deficiency in religion and the man’s completeness in religion.

➋ The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) declared a woman’s testimony to be half because their memory and recollection are weaker. As Allah the Exalted has said in the Noble Qur’an: (أَنْ تَضِلَّ إِحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إِحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَى) “If one of them errs, then the other can remind her.” Forgetting is itself their deficiency in intellect, and this is a reality which, no matter how much the modernists wish to deny, many of their own Western thinkers have also acknowledged and openly expressed.

Benefits and Issues:

➊
Sins are forgiven through seeking forgiveness (istighfar) and giving charity (sadaqah).

➋
Paradise and Hell were shown to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as a direct observation, so whatever he stated about them, he stated as an eyewitness.
It is our duty to have faith in this.

➌
What is meant by deficiency in intellect is that women are, by nature, more governed by emotions.
Allah the Exalted has assigned women the duty of nurturing children, for which this predominance of emotion is necessary. However, the responsibility of collective affairs cannot be placed upon them, because emotional decisions are not beneficial in such matters.

➍
The reason that the testimony of two women is equal to the testimony of one man is that Islam has freed women from responsibilities outside the home; matters such as testimony are outside her sphere.
The need for a woman’s testimony arises only in specific circumstances, i.e., when there are not two men present who can serve as witnesses.
Considering the overall features of the Islamic system and society, this law is the most suitable.

➎
A woman cannot perform prayer (salah) or observe fasting (sawm) during her menstrual period (hayd).
This natural weakness is not her fault; it is similar to how a physically weak Muslim cannot perform many good deeds that a physically strong Muslim can. In this respect, the strong one is better and superior, but the weak Muslim is not blameworthy.

➏
Sometimes, due to his love for a woman, a man accepts a request that he knows is not the best.
If there is no major worldly harm or religious harm in it, then it is permissible to accept it so that the household remains harmonious.