Women and Gender in the Qur'an
Description:... "Female figures play pivotal roles in narratives of Islamic sacred history, and the Qur'an celebrates the aptitudes and competencies of many such figures in the realms of spirituality and piety, in political maneuvering, and in family relations. Some women figures use their agency in morally corrupt ways; however, the Qur'an presents many more examples of pious women, including those who birth, protect, guide, and inspire prophets. This book outlines how female figures-old, young, barren, fertile, chaste, profligate, saintly, and reproachable-enter Islamic sacred history and advance the Qur'an's overarching didactic aims. The analysis considers all the major and minor female figures referenced in the Qur'an, including those who appear in narratives of sacred history, in parables, in verses that allude to events contemporaneous with the Qur'an, and in descriptions of the eternal abode. Hundreds of Qur'anic verses pertain to women and girl figures. Female personalities appear in the Qur'anic accounts of human origins, in stories of the founding and destruction of nations, and in narratives of conquest, filial devotion, romantic attraction, and more. This work gives attention to these wide-ranging depictions and to themes related to sexual relations, kinship relations, divine-human relationships, female embodiment, and women's social roles. Analysis focuses on lexical features of the Qur'an, intra-textual resonances, and thematic juxtapositions. The book explores Qur'anic dictates involving gender relations and highlights female spiritual competencies"--
Show description