Equal Before God, Unequal Before Man: Reflections on My Dissertation Journey.

This post has been contributed by Wania Niaz, an Undergraduate Laws student.

While exploring my dissertation topic, one heading caught my eye: “Equal before God, Unequal before Man”. It wasn’t just a title; it was a challenge. Could I make sense of that tension in the context of women’s testimony in Islam? That question stayed with me, shaping both my research and the lessons I learned along the way. 

Lesson 1: Don’t chase everything; follow what keeps you awake at night.
When I first drafted my proposal, I listed every possible angle I could take. It was tempting to keep my scope wide, but the turning point came when I leaned into the question that intrigued me most: the historical context of the verse on testimony and whether it could withstand Western critiques of human rights and feminism. Going deep rather than broad made the whole project possible.

Lesson 2: Don’t just read what scholars say; ask why they say it.
At first, I got lost trying to keep track of who said what about the verse. The breakthrough came when I stopped focusing only on what was being argued and started asking why. Was it apologetics? Benevolent sexism? A human rights critique? Once I spotted those patterns, I realized interpretation is never neutral; it always reflects a worldview. That shift turned my research from passive reading into active critique.

Lesson 3: Stuck doesn’t always mean stuck.
When I sat down to write, I froze. Despite months of research, I couldn’t turn it into sentences. For a week, I opened my laptop, stared at the screen, and went back to rereading my notes again and again. It felt like wasted time, and the anxiety of “not producing” kept growing.

But here’s what I learned: what feels like delay is often preparation. It was only after rereading the same material over and over that I began to see patterns, connections, and contradictions I had missed before. Once those clicked, the writing finally flowed.

So if you find yourself stuck, don’t panic. The frustrating pause is part of the process. Repetition wasn’t wasted effort; it was the secret weapon that built clarity.

A Final Reflection
If there’s one piece of advice I’d leave with anyone starting a dissertation, though simple, it is this: choose a topic that speaks to you. For me, as a Pakistani Muslim woman aspiring to become a lawyer, the rule of unequal testimony wasn’t just an abstract legal question, it was a personal one. The more dismissive or reductive the arguments, the more determined I became to dismantle them piece by piece.

In the end, the phrase that first caught my attention, “Equal before God, Unequal before Man” summed up more than my dissertation. It captured the broader challenge of reconciling faith, law, and lived experience. And that is the lesson I would pass on: do research that speaks to who you are and the world you want to help shape.