An authentic Ḥadīth, narrated by Bukhārī (304, 1462, 2658), Muslim (86), and other Ḥadīth scholars, records the Prophet ﷺ saying to a group of women:
“I have not seen anyone with a reduction in mind and religion who is more able to take away the mind of a resolute man than one of you.”
They asked, “What is the reduction in our mind and our religion?”
He ﷺ said, “Is the testimony of a woman not half that of a man?”
They said, “Yes, it is.”
He ﷺ said, “That is the reduction in her mind. And is it not true that when she menstruates, she neither prays nor fasts?”
They said, “Yes.”
He ﷺ said, “That is the reduction in her religion.”
Many people ask what this Ḥadīth means. Does it say women are deficient compared to men? Were they created inferior? This article answers these questions.
Issue #1: The meaning of “Nuqṣān”
The Arabic word the Prophet ﷺ used is nuqṣān. It literally means “decrease” or “reduction.” Some translators render it as “deficiency,” and others translate part of the Ḥadīth as “lacking in common sense.” These translations suggest a meaning the word does not carry, may Allāh ﷻ forgive those who wrote them. Nuqṣān means a reduction, that is, having less of something.
The Qur’ān uses the same word in this plain sense. Allāh ﷻ says: “And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a naqṣ (loss) of wealth and lives and fruits” (Sūrah al-Baqarah, Āyah 155). No one reads this as “defective fruit.” It means less fruit. A glass that is half full holds less water than a full one, but the glass is not broken.
Issue #2: The meaning of “reduction in mind”
I see two ways to understand what the Prophet ﷺ meant by a reduction in mind:
- Fewer legal duties tied to the intellect. In some areas, such as financial transactions and witnessing, men carry more responsibility than women. The Prophet ﷺ was describing a lighter legal burden on women in matters that call for the use of the intellect. He was not saying that women lack intelligence or have an inherent defect. The Sharīʿah lifts other duties from women in the same way. A woman is not required to attend Jumuʿah, and she is not required to spend on the household; that duty is on the man. No one calls these exemptions an insult. The reduction in witnessing is the same kind of lighter burden.
- Emotion and reason. In general, women tend to be more emotional and men tend to be more rational. This is part of how Allāh ﷻ created us. Women generally have greater emotional intelligence, more compassion, and more love than men. The Ḥadīth may refer to this general pattern: in a woman, emotion tends to lead reason, and in a man, reason tends to lead emotion. Imagine a child falls and cuts his knee. The mother runs to hold him and calm him down. The father checks the wound and goes for the first-aid kit. The child needs both. Neither response is a defect. Each is a different strength.
The Qur’ān honours this strength of a mother’s heart. When the mother of Mūsā (AS) placed her baby in the river, Allāh ﷻ says: “And the heart of Mūsā’s mother became empty. She was about to disclose him had We not bound fast her heart, that she would be of the believers” (Sūrah al-Qaṣaṣ, Āyah 10). Her love nearly overcame her, and Allāh ﷻ did not blame her for it. He strengthened her heart.
The issue of testimony will be explained in a later article, inshā’Allāh.
Issue #3: The meaning of “reduction in religion”
The Ḥadīth itself explains this one. The reduction in religion refers to acts of worship: a woman does not pray or fast while she is menstruating. She is not blamed for this, because she is following the command of Allāh ﷻ. It is not an inherent disadvantage. It does mean that women generally have fewer obligations, and so they end up performing fewer of these acts.
The traveller and the sick person are in a similar position. A traveller shortens his prayers and may leave the fast, and a sick person may leave the fast and pray sitting. No one says their faith has decreased. The Prophet ﷺ said: “When a servant falls ill or travels, he is credited with the same deeds he used to do when he was at home and healthy” (Bukhārī 2996). A reduction in the number of acts is not a reduction in a person’s worth before Allāh ﷻ.
Issue #4: Why did the Prophet ﷺ say this?
The context of the Ḥadīth explains why. The Prophet ﷺ begins by saying: “يَا مَعْشَرَ النِّسَاءِ تَصَدَّقْنَ” (O group of women, give charity). He was commanding the women to give charity and encouraging them through admonition. Criticism is a common way to motivate people.
The Prophet ﷺ used strong words with men as well. He passed by a man selling food who had hidden the wet part of his grain at the bottom of the pile, and he said: “Whoever cheats is not of me” (Muslim 102). He also said: “He is not a believer whose stomach is full while his neighbour goes hungry” (al-Adab al-Mufrad 112). This was his way of urging people to do good. It was not aimed at women alone.
Even his words to the women carry a compliment. He said that no one is “more able to take away the mind of a resolute man than one of you.” In the same breath as the admonition, he acknowledged that a woman can overwhelm the most level-headed man.
The women understood the purpose of his words. Ibn ʿAbbās narrates that after the Prophet ﷺ admonished them and commanded them to give charity, the women began throwing their earrings and rings into the cloth of Bilāl (Bukhārī 98). The admonition did exactly what it was meant to do. When our Prophet ﷺ admonished these women to encourage them to give, there is nothing in it for us to object to.
Conclusion
The claim that Islām teaches male supremacy, or that women are inferior to men, is false. It comes from misreading Aḥādīth like this one and taking them out of context. As Abu Amina Elias puts it: “They are only different in so far as there are natural differences between genders, and even these natural differences, while generally true, always have exceptions.” For more detail, read his articles on this Ḥadīth and on whether men are better than women in Islām.
