Women and the moon

Ok...so now I'm back from America and I'm going to move onto the next chapter of Saanei's book: "The testimony of women in sighting the crescent".

The main value for me in discussing this part of the book is threefold:
1. Reinforce the methodology of Saanei in a (slightly) different context
2. Topical (as the moon issue will undoubtedly rear its head again as Eid is coming again!)
3. It's the next chapter of the book!

The potential problem here is that there are riwayaat (reports from the Prophet/Imams), and consequently fatawa (religious rulings) that give no value at all to women's testimony in this field.

For example, there is a sahih (chain is authenticated) hadith from Jaffar al-Sadiq (reported by Hammad bin Uthman in Jawahir al-Kalam [apologies for lack of lines in transliteration], Page 355, Hadith 17):

"The testimony of women is not accepted concerning the sighting of the crescent, and only two just men's testimony are accepted."

However, there is one hadith that Najafi (the author of Jawahir al-Kalam) includes and that is of Dawud bin Hasin from Jaffar al-Sadiq (Page 361, Hadith 36), which says:

"The testimony of women is not allowed for Eid al-Fitr - only two just men [are allowed]. [But] there is no problem of women's testminoy when it comes to the [first] fast, even if it is just one woman"


Because of this apparent contradiction, there are three opinions in this regard:

1. The testimony of two just men is sufficient (prevalent opinion amongst scholars)
2. The testimony of two just men is not sufficient if there was something preventing them seeing the moon e.g. clouds/fog; but otherwise, it is sufficient (opinoin of Saduq, Tusi..)
3. The testimony of two just men does not count at all, as you cannot be sure of what they see exacfly (Muhaqqiq al-Hilli)


In terms of Shi'i scholars nowadays, I can quote:
1. Ayatullah Seestani: [Sighting the moon] "is not confirmed by the testimony of women" (Minhaj al-Salihin - http://www.najaf.org/arabic/book/1/, Book of Fasting, Confirming the moon is sighted number 1)
2. Ayatullah Fadlallah: "The testimony of women is not sufficient, even if they are just, unless you reach Itmi'nan*, then you can accept it, as reaching Itmi'nan itself by any method is sufficient..." (http://arabic.bayynat.org.lb/marjaa/fekhalshari3a-1.pdf, Page 384)
3. Ayatullah Khamanei: "The testimony of 4 women, or 2 women and one man...is not counted with regards to confirming the sighting of the moon" (http://www.leader.ir/tree/index.php?catid=13, Book of Fasting, Method of confirming the crescent's sighting for Ramadan and Shawwal, Issue 3)

*Itmi'nan is a term used to basically mean "peace of mind". Some try and say it is 90%+ certainty but I think that peace of mind is sufficient in this regard.

As a side point, it is important to note that Fadlallah here is not accepting women's testimony but he is saying that reaching peace of mind is enough by any means (he includes calculations as a possibility here).

Saanei then goes on to discuss the methods used by the scholars to reach this conclusion and critiques it....which will be the next blog!


Finally, (I am going to put this at the bottom of every few posts now!) I am in the process of creating an e-group, which will supplement this blog. The e-group is there specifcally to identify areas where the current methodology is failing and where it seems that the spirit of the Islamic way of life is being lost. Having identified several rulings, the aim will be to rationally consider possible alternatives, and scholars amongst the group will be there to put their point of view (whether they believe it is in line with their philosophical grounding). The ideal of course is to have a philosophical framework, which would feed this discussion, but even without it, the exercise is still useful as the thing that has not yet been done is think about these issues in a critical manner. Anyone interested in this - please just email me....