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.
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