Women in Hell and “deficient in intelligence”: 6 points on the hadith

In al-Bukhari, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī reports that the Prophet ﷺ went out to the prayer ground on a feast day and passed the women, and said, “O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women).” They asked why, and he said, “You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.”^[1]

The same report stands elsewhere in al-Bukhari with the added scene of Zaynab, the wife of Ibn Masʿūd, who came to him afterwards and said that her husband had told her that he and his children had more right to her ornament than the poor. The Prophet ﷺ replied, “Ibn Masʿūd had spoken the truth. Your husband and your children had more right to it than anybody else.”^[2] A shorter report has him say that he was shown the Fire, “and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful”.^[3]

The report is sound by the scholars’ standards and appears in the Sahihs. This article does not say otherwise. Verdict: the report is real, and the exact words are as quoted.

The Prophet ﷺ was preaching on a feast day, and he turned to the women after he had finished the sermon for the people. His purpose, which the report states at the start, was to urge them to give charity. The warning about Hell is the argument for giving. The audience was a crowd of women at a feast, and the words were a rebuke to them that day, in the manner of a preacher.

The women did not stay silent. They asked, “What is the reason for it?” and then “What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He explained, in the answers set out in the next entries. A woman came to his house afterwards to contest a point of household charity, and he told her the truth as he saw it. This is a record of women who answered the Prophet, and of a Prophet who answered them.

It matters for the reading. A reader who takes the sentence as a statement made to a mixed audience about the whole female sex has dropped the setting. A reader who takes it as a sermon to one crowd to get them to give has the setting the report supplies. Verdict: the report is occasional. It is a direct address, and it is joined to a command to give alms.

The women asked what the deficiency was, and the report records his reply: “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They said yes. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence.”^[4] The Prophet ﷺ defined his word. The word is tied to the rule of testimony in a debt contract, which the Quran states in 2:282: when two men are not available, “a man and two women from those whom you accept as witnesses – so that if one of them [i.e., the women] errs, then the other can remind her”.^[5]

The verse gives its reason in the clause: a second woman is there to remind the first if she errs. It concerns memory and error in a written debt. It does not describe female minds, and it is limited to that kind of contract. In other matters the sources take a woman’s word alone. The reports of ʿĀʾisha on the Prophet’s household are a major source of the law, and the Companions went to her for rulings. This last point is stated from general knowledge and was not checked on a page for this article.

The Prophet ﷺ took women’s counsel when it was sound. At Ḥudaybiya, when his companions would not rise to sacrifice after the treaty, he went to Umm Salama, who told him to say nothing, sacrifice and shave, and when he did so the people followed.^[6] A man who held that women’s judgment was defective would not have staked the cohesion of an army on one.

There is a hard point, and this article states it. The word translated “intelligence” is ʿaql, and the report uses a comparative with it. Many readers take it as a plain statement that women have less. The Prophet’s own gloss narrows it to a rule of evidence, and the rule has a stated reason. Verdict: the word is defined by the report, and the definition is narrow.

The next question was about religion, and the answer was: “Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women said yes. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”^[7]

The days in question are days on which God has lifted prayer and fasting from her. The lifting is a mercy and a ruling, and no blame attaches to a woman who observes it. If she did pray in those days she would disobey. The “deficiency” is a description of the number of acts of worship that can be counted to her in a month, set against a man’s.

The jurists drew no sinful status from the passage. It is stated from general knowledge that the commentators on the report explain the phrase as a statement of the rule, and it was not checked on a page for this article. The Prophet ﷺ himself told the women to give charity, which is a way to make up in merit what the days omit. Verdict: the phrase describes a concession. It does not describe a fault of character.

The reason the Prophet ﷺ gave in the report is conduct: cursing a great deal and ingratitude to a husband. In the shorter version, the ingratitude is expressed in the words of a woman who says, after years of kindness, that she has never seen any good from him.^[8] These are habits of speech and character, and men share them. The report does not say they belong to women by nature.

The same Prophet ﷺ is reported to have seen other things in the same vision. He said that he looked at Paradise and found “poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants”, and at Hell and found “the majority of its inhabitants were women”.^[9] In another report he says the wealthy were held back at the door of Paradise.^[10] A vision of the Fire is a warning given to an audience at a moment. No census of souls can be derived from it.

The Quran, which the Prophet ﷺ transmitted, gives men and women the same promise, and says it in many verses. “Whoever does righteousness, whether male or female, while he is a believer – We will surely cause him to live a good life” (16:97). “Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another” (3:195). Those who do righteous deeds, “whether male or female”, will enter Paradise “and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed” (4:124).^[11] Verse 33:35 lists ten qualities for men and women alike, from faith to remembrance of God.^[12] Verdict: the vision is a warning about conduct. It does not rank the sexes.

The phrase has been quoted in law to bar women from certain offices. Some jurists in earlier centuries read it to limit women in judgeship, and the rule is still quoted by some regimes today. This is stated from general knowledge and was not checked on a page for this article. A concession is owed here: the phrase has been used in that way, and the use is not invented by critics.

The jurists were not agreed. Some schools allowed women to judge in some matters, and the Quran gives a woman, the Queen of Sheba, a wise and consultative rule in 27:32-35.^[13] A rule that reasons from a phrase in a sermon to the whole range of public life draws a very large conclusion from a very small base. The Prophet’s own gloss is about testimony in one kind of contract and about days when prayer is lifted. It is not about leadership, learning or judgement.

For the reader who left Islam because this phrase was used on him or on his sister, the sources do not give what was said. They give a sermon, a reply, a definition and a Quran that promises the same to both. Verdict: the phrase has been stretched far past what the report supports. Where that stretching is called Islam, it is a custom wearing the name.