Amal Suleiman – First Female Wedding Register in Muslim
Posted by Robi - 23/12/08 at 05:12:11 am
In a small town north of Cairo, Egypt; Amal Suleiman, an Egyptian woman has gently made history by becoming the first female marriage official (maazouna) in the Muslim world. The job is clerical rather than religious and not unlike a registrar in Western World. She says she’s no radical but that expanding career choices for Muslim women is simply a matter of common sense. Her appointment shocked many conservatives. However, it has given a ray of hope to young Muslim women who become frustrated by the lack of varieties in career choices offered to them.
Suleiman, who lived in the village of Enayat, wanted such a job befitting her education and skills. Her appointment broke a longstanding custom in Muslim World that Muslim marriage contracts must be recorded by a maazoun, a male registrar. But Suleiman added a new word to the Egyptian vocabulary as she became a maazouna, a female registrar as well as first female register in Arab World. Suleiman said, “I’m not only the first maazouna in Egypt, but in the Arab and even the Muslim world.” To say about getting the job she said, “In the very beginning, I was just looking for a suitable job for me as a wife and a mother, something to suit my time. And it came by mere accident that my husband’s uncle was the maazoun in this area. So my husband — it was his idea to start with — he said, ‘Why don’t you apply for it?’ ”
But she had studied law at college, including sharia (Islamic law), and she knew very well that there is no explicit prohibition against women marriage officers. So, she got her case to the head of the provincial family court and was accepted for the post, along with other 10 male applicants. But much to the surprise of the local maazouns, she was selected as the best qualified among the applicants, and her name was passed on to Cairo, in order to approve of the Ministry of Justice. Nonetheless, several months went by without any action. At last, a celebrated Egyptian columnist wrote an open letter to the justice minister, urging him in order to make a decision one way or the other. After that, one week later, her (Suleiman) appointment was announced.
Now Suleiman is astonished and rather amused to find people on the street greeting her like she is a cabinet minister or celebrity, particularly young women who are considering her as a role model. She says what started out as a simple job search turned into something she never would have predicted just one year ago.
No Comments yet »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Powered by WordPress with GimpStyle Theme design by Horacio Bella.
Entries and comments feeds.
Valid XHTML and CSS.