fit to attend the gatherings of men, and her testimony is not accepted even if a thousand women like her are with her, unless there is a man with them. Allah the Almighty has cautioned against their straying and forgetting, by His saying, the Almighty: {lest one of them err, and one of them remind the other} (4). She is not suitable for the supreme imamate, nor for the governance of lands; for this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), none of his successors, nor those after them have ever appointed a woman to a judiciary or a governorship, as far as has reached us. Had that been permissible, it would not have been devoid of such cases throughout all time, typically. As for the perfection of creation, it is that one be capable of speech, hearing, and seeing; because the mute cannot articulate the judgment, and not all people understand his gesture; the deaf cannot hear the words of the two litigants; and the blind cannot distinguish between the plaintiff and the defendant, the one affirming and the one in whose favor the affirmation is made, and the witness from the one for whom testimony is given. Some of the associates of al-Shafi'i said: It is permissible for him to be blind; because Shu'ayb was blind. They have two views regarding the mute whose gesture is understood. Our view is that these senses affect the testimony, so their absence prevents the authority of the judiciary just as it does [the capacity for] hearing; this is because the position of a witness is lower than the position of a judge, and the witness testifies in minor matters in which he is needed and may encompass the truth of their knowledge, whereas the judge’s authority is general, and he judges in the general affairs of people; if testimony is not accepted from him, then [disqualification from] the judiciary is more appropriate. As for what they mentioned regarding Shu'ayb [peace be upon him] (5), we do not concede it, for it has not been proven that he was blind. And if it were proven, it does not apply here, for Shu'ayb, peace be upon him, had only a few people who believed in him, and perhaps they did not need a judge among them due to their fewness and their fairness to one another, so it cannot serve as an argument in our issue. The second condition is justice ('adalah), so it is not permissible to appoint a profligate (fasiq), nor one who has a deficiency that prevents testimony, and we will mention that in [the section on] testimony, if Allah the Almighty wills. It was narrated from al-Assam that he said: It is permissible for the judge to be