Palestinian Woman Is First to Oversee Muslim Wedding Vows

posted on: Sep 24, 2015

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Tahrir Hammad thinks women, including herself, are too emotional to serve as judges, and accepts without question an Islamic legal dictate that sees two women as equivalent to one male witness for official ceremonies.

Yet Ms. Hammad, 36, is a pioneer, having recently become the first woman to be permitted to perform Muslim marriages in the Palestinian territories. She seems not to be bothered by the subsequent criticism, even from a former professor of hers, Hussam el-Deen Mousa Afana, who described her appointment as “opening a door of a metastasizing evil” in a post on Facebook on Aug. 14.

“Honestly, I didn’t think of what people would think,” Ms. Hammad said recently. “I like taking risks.”

She added, with a laugh: “I wanted to show that women could do it. I wanted to ignite sparks. I wanted to throw a bomb.”

Ms. Hammad is not the first Palestinian woman to occupy a position traditionally reserved for men in Muslim societies. In 2009, a liberal-minded jurist, Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, appointed the Palestinian territories’ first two female Islamic court judges, who now rule on divorce, custody and inheritance. Islamic courts oversee all family affairs for Muslims in the territories.

As with Ms. Hammad, the appointment of the female judges was initially met with derision. But they are now an accepted part of the landscape, alongside the growing numbers of women who preach Islam to other women at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third-holiest site.

Advocates for women’s rights welcomed the appointments but said they were only a start in addressing myriad problems in marital law and the marriage process, unfair custody and alimony rules, and the failure to inform women of their rights. Those obstacles cannot be overcome, advocates say, because of deep resistance from conservative judges and paralysis in the Palestinian Parliament.

But progressive Muslim scholars hope pioneers like Ms. Hammad will encourage more women to seek positions within the Islamic judicial system. That would provide a more empathetic space for women to assert their rights, they said.

“This is a blessed beginning,” said Sheikh Tamimi, the former top Islamic Palestinian judge. “When a woman is explaining herself to a woman, to a person of her own gender, it is much easier than her explaining herself to a man.”

Since Ms. Hammad’s appointment, two more women have applied to become marriage celebrants. A government committee is considering their applications.

Palestinian wedding celebrations are typically elaborate, multiple-day affairs involving meaty feasts and hundreds of guests, with the bride wearing a series of ornate dresses topped with head scarves. But couples are officially married in a minutes-long ceremony in a drab office where the groom and the bride’s father sign a marriage contract.

That is where Ms. Hammad comes in. On a recent day, she sat at a large desk, in a brown-and-green head scarf and long robe, as cheery men and women squeezed into the room.

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The mother of the bride remarked excitedly that a woman was going to officiate the marriage, and began cracking jokes about throwing her husband out of the window and starting over.

Ms. Hammad asked the bride, Saja Harfoush, 22, if she consented to being married to a 23-year-old municipal worker. Ms. Harfoush muttered inaudibly.

Ms. Harfoush’s mother, emboldened by Ms. Hammad’s presence, called out to her daughter, “Raise your voice!”

Later, the families thanked Ms. Hammad for asking the bride clearly if she consented to the ceremony.

“She gave space to ask the bride what she wanted,” Ms. Harfoush’s mother said. “When I was married, the celebrant didn’t let me speak. It wasn’t like what our sister Tahrir just did.”

On the same day, the families of Munif Qamish, 22, the groom, and Raghad Qamish, 17, the bride, filed into the tiny office. The couple share the same last name because they are first cousins, a traditional pairing in Palestinian society.

Ms. Hammad began the ceremony by explaining the importance of marriage in Islam but then paused, realizing there was only one male witness when two were needed.

Then Ms. Hammad recalled that the two women in the room could act as a witness under Islamic law as practiced by Palestinians, which states that two female witnesses are the equivalent of one man.

“We could have two women, but then we’ll have to squeeze in the signatures,” she said, tapping on the official ledger before her.

The groom’s brother hastily found an older Palestinian man who would act as a second witness.

The ceremony resumed. Ms. Hammad turned to the teenage bride, asking if she had any conditions she wanted stipulated in her marriage contract. Ms. Qamish whispered, “I would like to finish my education.”

Later, Ms. Qamish said she had not realized she could make her marriage conditional on her right to finish her studies until Ms. Hammad had asked her.

Ms. Hammad said Sheikh Tamimi, the former judge, had first urged her to seek a celebrant’s position in 2009. But it took her years of working as a high-level scribe, not really advancing professionally, to realize she wanted the job. Then, this year, Ms. Hammad said, she walked into a room where two Islamic judges were talking about marriage celebrants. She interjected, “So you think a woman can do it?”

“They said: ‘Yes. Do it. Apply,’ ” she said.

In a gush of courage, Ms. Hammad filed an application. That part was easy, in that any Islamic court official can apply to be a celebrant.

Her application was passed to a government committee of Islamic judges who met twice over two months to debate whether it was permissible in Islam for a woman to oversee a marriage. In mid-July, she received her answer: Yes.

Even though she is qualified to become an Islamic judge, Ms. Hammad said she was satisfied that she had reached her professional pinnacle as a marriage celebrant.

“You would think this is contradictory, but I would not be a judge,” she said, blushing. “I consider myself too emotional.”

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Yet Ms. Hammad has coolly weathered a wave of criticism.

She wrote a Facebook response to her former professor, Mr. Afana, politely rebutting his criticisms — mostly that women should not mix with men, and that a woman working late would neglect her family and children. She noted that every modern profession involved the mixing of genders, and that she did not work late. She ignores mockery by colleagues unaccustomed to seeing a woman in charge.

Ordinary Palestinians have embraced Ms. Hammad. Only two of more than 20 couples have refused to allow her to officiate at their marriages. Those two were quietly redirected to a male celebrant, though generally, it is first come first served in the Islamic courts.

Ms. Hammad noted that it was clear she was the first female celebrant: Only men, she said, would think it was O.K. to marry off couples in a tiny office that doubles as an archive room, with black binders full of marriage certificates covering the walls.

“I’d like a room with flowers and a fish tank,” Ms. Hammad said. “I think it’s better to have a romantic atmosphere, where everybody can relax.”

Source: www.nytimes.com