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When Prophet Muhammad compared men and women as follows in one of the hadith, which says women are weaker in reason and religious. While it is difficult to understand deficiency in religion I would like to know more about deficiency in reason.

"I have not seen anyone more deficient in ability to reason and deen than you. A cautious sensible man can be led astray by some of you.” It was said: “O Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him)! What is the deficiency in our reasoning and deen?” He said: “Is not the testimony of two women equal to the witness of one man?” It was said: "What is deficient in her deen?" The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Is not it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” [Al-Bukhari]

Are there studies which can prove or disprove this claim?

chatur
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    This is probably a better fit for Islam.SE, no? You're going to get downvoted into oblivion here. – Benjol Feb 12 '13 at 08:58
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    But perfect for good skeptical answers. I'm going to upvote just because I want to see those answers. – matt_black Feb 12 '13 at 09:00
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    @Benjol, You are correct about downvote but answer on the islam.SE will be based on Islamic scriptures(which may not be be agreed upon by universal audience) and answer here I get will be based on scientific study. – chatur Feb 12 '13 at 09:46
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    So we are taking that as a notable source? One individual coming up with a sexist comment? VTC! – Rory Alsop Feb 12 '13 at 09:49
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    This would seem like a subset of a more general question of "What are the inherent cognitive differences between men and woman?". It doesn't seem worthwhile to address this question since a hundred others with tiny variants could be proposed. – Ian Feb 12 '13 at 09:56
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    @matt_black, the skeptical answer could get you a death threat... – Benjol Feb 12 '13 at 10:01
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    No reason to restrict this to Islam, other religions have gender imbalance in their beliefs. – Nick Feb 12 '13 at 10:05
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    A good skeptical response to this question is to provide a relevant answer. Dismissing the question shows the same degree of prejudice and blind unthinking faith that many religious believers show when they simply accept the proposition. – matt_black Feb 12 '13 at 10:18
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    @matt_black: there is no way of giving a skeptical answer to this question as it is formulated. Religious scriptures are "obscurely" written for a reason, so that you cannot rationally interpret them. For instance, I don't see how being "weaker" in reasoning (i.e. having a low IQ) would have any type of correlation with being weak at religion, whatever that means. If we remove the sexist religious cover, this is just a duplicate of http://goo.gl/meKRA or any of the other (pointless IMO) "is women's brain different from men's brain" type of question. – nico Feb 12 '13 at 10:43
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    "Weak in reasoning" seems too vague, but I think there's potentially a good question in here somewhere. – Tom77 Feb 12 '13 at 10:46
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    There are already question dealing with this issue, the best IMO is http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14190/are-men-smarter-than-women. I'm voting to close as a duplicate. – SIMEL Feb 12 '13 at 11:00
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    @RoryAlsop considering that there's 1.6 billion Muslims, I'd say that Muhammad is somewhat notable. :/ – Andrew Grimm Feb 12 '13 at 11:33
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    Possibly related Islam.SE link: http://islam.stackexchange.com/q/182/301 – Andrew Grimm Feb 12 '13 at 11:39
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    Is this question being downvoted because they suspect the OP of agreeing with the claim? I can understand why people would do that, but I'm not sure it's a good reason to downvote. – Andrew Grimm Feb 12 '13 at 11:49
  • @Andrew - downvoted as it isn't a good question. Ilya's one is much better. – Rory Alsop Feb 12 '13 at 12:59
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    @nico Fair point on the duplicate issue. But I do think that skeptics have a duty to make sure that questions posed like this are *answered* not downvoted or deleted so future searches will find specific evidence. – matt_black Feb 12 '13 at 13:30
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    You can't _really_ be stronger at reasoning _and_ more religious at the same time, however. The more you reason about your religion, the more you end up distancing yourself from it. That's why the most developed countries in the world are mostly atheist. – T. Sar Jul 11 '17 at 18:23

1 Answers1

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Are women weak in religion

No idea, other than to note that some religions deny women the opportunity to become priests or theologians. Some cultures deny women the right to an education, which might make it difficult for them to demonstrate religious knowledge or expertise.

Are women weak in reasoning

IQ tests: women score higher than men Women have scored higher than men in intelligence testing for the first time since records began.

Are all women weaker (at some chosen measure) than the weakest man?

It is certainly very foolish to make generalizations about a group of people and then apply those generalizations to individuals.

RedGrittyBrick
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  • ad first point: IIRC, there are numerous studies stating that women are more religious than men. – vartec Feb 13 '13 at 13:05