'The Judge' film introduces groundbreaking female Shariah judge

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From the article:

In the Palestinian territories, the civil courts, where women have been judges since the 1970s, hear criminal, administrative and civil law cases. But the religious courts, where family cases are heard, have traditionally been headed by male magistrates and religious scholars.
An accomplished lawyer who had spent years helping battered women, Al-Faqih realized that a better avenue for change would be working as a judge to improve the lives of women facing domestic violence or family struggles.

When Al-Faqih first broached the idea with the leaders of the Palestinian religious court system, “I laughed and thought it was a joke,” Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, the former chief justice of the West Bank’s Shariah court system, says in the film.


But Al-Faqih had done her homework, and she convinced him that the Hanafi school of Islamic law, one of the four major Sunni Muslim religious codes, which Palestinian Shariah courts adhere to, had no ruling against women adjudicating in Shariah courts.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2018/11/20/middle-east-female-sharia-judge-film-pbs/