Quran – Feminism and Religion

Why does calling God a woman sound more outrageous than calling God a man? For thousands of years, we’ve said it without questioning it: The Father, the Lord, the Almighty. We assigned a masculine identity to the supposed creator of existence, reflected in Matthew 6:9. But look at the biology of human reproduction and the answer gets uncomfortable fast. If God is responsible for life, why assign that responsibility to a male when bringing human life into the world is overwhelmingly feminine? Who decided God was a man in the first place?

I have believed for many years that God, if such a being exists, is female. Because of biology, every human being who ever lived developed inside a woman. Every king, scientist, philosopher, pope, rabbi, imam, and religious authority owes his existence to the female reproductive system. Yet somehow, the ultimate creator is male? Human embryos begin with sexually undifferentiated reproductive structures. In typical male development, the SRY gene activates a pathway involving SOX9, initiating testicular formation. Female development involves WNT4 and RSPO1. Both sexes develop reproductive anatomy from common embryonic structures, indicating no universal masculine starting point, no biological throne reserved for men.

American media and the Taliban in Afghanistan have both long disparaged Islam regarding the status of women. I would like not only to correct the contention that women are second-class, but to provide for you an argument that Islam is, based on our Prophet and the Holy Quran, a feminist and egalitarian religion. It has been falsely maligned.

For your convenience I will use the English word for Allah, God, throughout this piece. (Did you know Arabic speaking Christians call God; Allah?)

Please note Muslims believe that all the Holy Books, the Bible and Torah, were indeed revelations from God. Belief in all the Holy Books is one of Islams 7 articles of faith. However, according to Muslim creed the Bible has been changed by humans through time deliberately or not. Thus Quran, the most recent revelation sent 610 years after Christ, is relatively unaltered from its original. It was radical, even then, for providing women the rights to inheritance, to have their own money and property, and for them to retain the dowry paid for marriage, not the father.