Female Kin, Procreation, and Parenting

This chapter provides a female-centric lens on kinship relations in the Qur’an. It considers Qur’anic depictions of mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sisters. In addition to many general descriptions of childbearing, childrearing, and parent–child relationships, the Qur’an includes figures that epitomize nearly all of the different constellations of parent–child relationships, including foster mother figures and their sons (Joseph and Moses) and a father figure with his foster daughter (Mary). The Qur’an consistently depicts daughters and sisters as morally upright, while by contrast, it contains multiple narratives of sons and boys who are morally corrupt. Qur’anic narratives depict several female figures leveraging their kinship networks to the benefit of vulnerable male figures in distress. The chapter provides detailed intra-textual analysis of concepts related to female reproduction, including the womb and motherhood.

Female Sex and Sexuality

This chapter discusses Qur’anic concepts related to sex and sexuality and considers how sex, as a feature of embodiment and as an act of intimacy, factors into Qur’anic narratives. It delineates concepts such as “female,” “woman,” and “wife,” and gives attention to Qur’anic notions of virginity and beauty. The chapter points out the many provocative juxtapositions between female figures, the situations that they navigate, and the moral valences of their actions and intentions. It demonstrates how the issue of illicit sex is a major human dilemma in the Qur’anic worldview, both for the chaste who are unjustly accused of illicit sex and for immoral people who create havoc for themselves and others through their profligacy and moral bankruptcy. On the other hand, the Qur’an does not emphasize the trope of the seductress; of the dozens of female figures mentioned in the Qur’an, only one plays this role, and even she can be directly contrasted to women in similar, potentially compromising situations who take the morally sound course of action. Qur’anic terminology for paradisal beings and the possibility of sex in paradise is also discussed.

Women Speakers and Interlocutors

This chapter explores the female voice in the Qur’an by examining dialogic exchanges involving divine or angelic speech directed toward women and girls. It discusses patterns of female speech throughout the Qur’an. For instance, several female figures articulate their thoughts clearly and effectively in difficult situations; Moses’s sister, Moses’s foster mother, and the Queen of Sheba all speak effectively in trying circumstances. Other women are expressive and then also contemplative. Mary, who is otherwise depicted as conversing with angels and crying out with birth pangs, is silent in relation to defending her honor against charges of licentiousness; her vow of silence is a thematic echo of the silence of her guardian Zachariah. With detailed intra-textual analysis, the speech of pious women is compared to that of pious men. Attention is also given to how affective dimensions of heightened female emotion may impact the experience of a Qur’anic listener, reader, or reciter.

Conclusion

This chapter provides an overview of Qur’anic depictions of women and girl figures. Overall, the Qur’an has a heterogeneity of female figures; there is no single archetypal female. Rather, figures fall on a spectrum between pious and impious, insightful and ignorant, commanding and timid, old and young, famous and obscure, and so forth. Taken as a whole, Qur’anic narratives involving female figures offer a values-based paradigm in which the Qur’anic reader, reciter, or listener is invited to scale up her own virtue against the personalities of sacred history. Women figures, although never explicitly named as prophets or messengers, often function to confirm God’s Word and promises, even in ways that men figures do not. Women consistently play pivotal roles in narratives of sacred history and in the revelation of the Qur’an itself.

Women Exemplars for an Emerging Polity

This chapter analyzes how female figures relate to events in the nascent Muslim polity—in its emerging theological discourses, its normative social practices, and its encounters with other religiously identified polities. Moving roughly chronologically through the revelation of Qur’anic surahs, the chapter focuses on narratives in which women are involved in the establishment of communal moral and legal precedents, such as in the case of a slander against a righteous woman. This heuristic brings to light ways in which female personalities serve as exemplars of vice and virtue against the backdrop of a religious polity in formation. The chapter argues that the Qur’an regularly depicts female moral and spiritual excellence and is often proactively engaged with affairs of direct importance for girls and women. At the same time, certain female figures exercise their agency only to their own detriment. The chapter highlights how narratives involving biblical figures feature prominently in the Qur’an during a period in which the Prophet Muḥammad was attempting to forge political alliances grounded in a sense of theological kinship. In this context, the Qur’an depicts the women of the Prophet Muḥammad’s family as continuing a legacy of exemplary biblical women figures.

Introduction

The book’s introduction provides a comprehensive listing of female figures in the Qur’an. This includes references to the family members of Qur’anic prophets—figures who feature as mothers, wives, daughters, and extended female kin. It situates each Qur’anic female figure vis-à-vis other figures along the narrative arc from the genesis of humanity, through the ancient peoples and their prophets, to the advent of the Qur’an in Arabia. The listing also includes categories of paradisal beings and women figures who are alluded to but not depicted directly. In addition, the book’s introduction outlines how retelling the sacred past generates a new sacred present that is affective and didactic. It discusses relevant rhetorical and stylistic elements of the Qur’an, considers competing methodological trends in Qur’anic studies, and summarizes some of the work’s broader implications for feminist and female-centric exegesis.