The Meaning of Women’s Deficiency of Intellect in the Four Sunni Schools of Jurisprudence and Its Applications to Jurisprudential Issues
Keywords:
Intellect, Deficiency, Restraint, Control, Cognition, Faculty, Acquisition, Innate CapacityAbstract
Abstract:
This study aims to examine the meaning of women’s deficiency of intellect (nuqṣān al-ʿaql) as understood in the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence: the Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, and Ḥanbalī schools. It does so by investigating their definitions of ʿaql (intellect), then exploring what they specifically mean by its deficiency in women, based on their discussions and legal opinions related to jurisprudential matters connected to this notion.
The importance of this topic becomes evident given the extensive debate and controversy surrounding the meaning of women’s deficiency of intellect and its use as a rhetorical tool in ways that may shake the faith of some Muslims regarding the Islamic view of women.
The study seeks to answer the key question: What is the meaning of women’s deficiency of intellect according to the jurists, as mentioned in the Prophet’s hadith: “I have not seen anyone more deficient in intellect and religion, who can rob even the mind of a resolute man, than one of you”?
The researcher follows an inductive and deductive methodology and arrives at several important conclusions, among which is that the term ʿaql is a shared term with multiple meanings. Broadly, it refers to two things: (1) the perceptive faculty, which is divided into innate intellect and acquired intellect; and (2) a level of cognition, known as ʿaql al-maṣdar, understood in its linguistic sense as restraint and control.
As for the ʿaql mentioned in the hadith “deficient in intellect,” it refers to ʿaql al-maṣdar — meaning that a woman is not deficient in her intellectual faculty or in her ability to acquire and process information or engage in the realities of life. The deficiency mentioned is not intended as blame and is attributed to the general category (jins), though individuals may vary, such that some women may exhibit more control, retention, and precision in their affairs than certain men.
