The Qurʾān and Its Masculine God: a Historical-Feminist Analysis

Abstract

Hermeneutical feminists, seeking to reform the traditional understanding of the Qurʾān and to advance a model of gender equality, insist on the necessity of a historical and non-selective reading of the text. Yet when confronted with its supernatural realm, they suffer a methodological rupture: by abstracting the figure of Allāh from its seventh-century cultural and historical context, they portray the Qurʾānic God as a trans-gendered being devoid of structures of domination. I demonstrate that Qurʾānic divinity is not only far from universal or gender-neutral, but that its representation is profoundly shaped by the patriarchal culture of Late Antiquity. My analysis focuses on the verses that narrate Allāh’s conflict with the three goddesses – al-Lāt, al-ʿUzzā, and Manāt – and traces the gradual process of erasure and suppression of their agency. The central questions are as follows: how are the power hierarchies within the Qurʾān’s supernatural realm articulated along the axis of gender? What rhetorical and theological mechanisms does the text deploy to neutralise the agency of the goddesses? And how does this patriarchal framework shape the distribution of gendered power across the text as a whole? The findings of this study indicate that the triumph of Islamic monotheism was the product of a complex and active process aimed at expunging female agency from the sacred domain. Accordingly, unless the gender discrimination embedded in the “hard core of divinity” is subjected to critical scrutiny, the Qurʾān cannot serve as a solid foundation for modern discourses of gender justice; for any egalitarian endeavour that refrains from challenging the theological power structure of the text will inevitably reproduce the very system of domination concealed beneath the veil of tawḥīd .