Allah will send down an angel to guide him aright.” He ﷺ also said: “Do not ask for authority, for if you are given it without asking, you will be helped in discharging it; but if you are given it after asking, you will be left to bear it unaided.”
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A person who desires and seeks judicial office must therefore not be appointed, even if he meets all its requirements, for fear that he will be left to bear it unaided and prove unable to discharge its duties or shoulder its burden. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “We do not appoint anyone who desires office to serve in our administration.” ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him, noticed a young man among a delegation that came to him and found him agreeable and impressive. But when the young man asked him for judicial office, ‘Umar said: “You nearly deceived us about yourself! This responsibility cannot be borne by someone who loves it.”
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The qualifications for judicial office fall into three categories: those upon which the validity of the appointment depends; those upon which its validity does not depend, but whose absence requires the judge’s removal; and those which are neither conditions for a valid appointment nor grounds for mandatory removal, but which are recommended, so that their absence makes his removal recommended.
The qualifications required for a valid appointment are that the judge be free, Muslim, adult, male, sane, and a single individual. According to our school, only someone who possesses all six qualifications may validly be appointed to judicial office. If someone lacking any of them is appointed, the appointment does not take effect. If any of them ceases to be fulfilled after the appointment has taken effect, his authority lapses.
Abū Hanīfah said that a woman may hold judicial office in financial matters, but not in cases involving legal retaliation. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan and Muhammad ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī said that a woman may serve as a judge in all cases.
As for the qualifications which are not conditions for the validity of the appointment, but whose absence requires its annulment,