"Allah is not imprisoned by the binary"

May 10, 2023 2:04 PM

When I first spoke with wadud over Zoom, she told me she started diversifying Allah’s pronouns after teaching an undergraduate religious studies course at Virginia Commonwealth University in the late 1990s. wadud asked her students to explore the lyrics of Joan Osborne’s song, “What if God Was One of Us.” While discussing pronouns for God, the men in the class told her that they could relate to God when God was referred to as “He,” but not when God was referred to as “She.” In that moment, wadud decided to start using female pronouns for Allah, who, according to traditional Muslim teachings, transcends gender, yet has historically been described with male pronouns.

Hafsa Lodi: The Muslim Women Using Feminine Pronouns for Allah.
posted by MartinWisse (18 comments total)

Derail: "What if God Were One of Us."

I'm sorry. Back to the actual post.


Wonderful to hear diverse and feminist perspectives from one of the world's largest cultural communities. Western media seems determined to only portray the worst and loudest voices of Islam.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:15 PM on May 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

perhaps more learned MeFites will venture in with details, but is there a history of moving from Earth/Mother worship to Sky/Father worship? I am a member of a church that might be considered 'progressive' in its approach to 2SLGBTQA community, ordainment of gay ministers since the early 90s, etc. But the gendered language is baked in, we really deliberately have to work against that grain

the Abrahamic faiths (man), what're you gonna do
posted by elkevelvet at 2:38 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't know enough about Arabic language or grammar to speak of the he/she distinction there but in English she has to be just as valid as he. It feels weird to me to use either of them though, if I'm talking about Allah (SWT) then I will use Allah's (SWT) name instead of a pronoun each time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:49 PM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

(as an aside, I'm not an Arabic speaker, but I understand "Allah" is simply the word for "God" and as such used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews too. Have become more and more uncomfortable in recent years at how in English people persist in transcribing rather than translating... seems like a subtle way to other.)

English has "they"! And even for the ahistorical prescriptivists, God is plural in various parts of Genesis. Let us make man in our image...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:42 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

My childhood rabbi was a woman, and her elegant solution to this was to quietly, without commenting on it, replace all of God's pronouns with "God." God's pronouns were God/God's before "pronouns" were really a thing.

I'm always so struck by Islam's de-personification of its religious figures. I love that they depict their divine being less as a giant-sized human than as a kind of perfect order, a beautiful interlock. (My extremely-clumsy phrasing—I hope it suffices.) It feels odder with Islam even than in Judaism and Christianity to assign a gender. Though if a gender's going to get used, I'm all for using feminine pronouns, if only to challenge that invisible masculine default.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:06 PM on May 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

(also I can't believe I said "man" up there rather than "humankind", plse to forgive, shows how ingrained this is!)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:07 PM on May 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Arabic and Hebrew both have separate words for 'god' (ilāh, ʔēl) and 'God' (aḷḷāh, ʔElōhīm)— all of which are cognate. That verse in Genesis (1:26) is interesting, in that it definitely uses 1st person plural, but it's immediately preceded by wa-yyōmer ʔElōhīm 'and God said' which is 3rd person masculine singular. (ʔElōhīm is singular in the sense of 'God', plural when used for '(other people's) gods'.)

But language is not a straitjacket! Great article, and it's fascinating that there is a tradition within Islam of God transcending gender.
posted by zompist at 5:41 PM on May 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

It's not the same, because it is not about a fundamental deity, but in Buddhism this discussion has been going on for a long time about the bodhisattva Guanyin.
posted by Quonab at 5:54 PM on May 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

My Islamic upbringing isn't in English, but fwiw in my gender-neutral Malay, the choice of pronoun has always been We/Us. But it's really interesting to follow amina wadud's career, since she credits Southeast Asia a lot in her personal journey. She now resides in Indonesia.
posted by cendawanita at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

I'm currently reading Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H (highly recommended!). Lamya is queer and non-binary and talks about the first time she (her pronoun choice) heard a Muslim woman use She for Allah and how much of a revelation it was. And immediately Lamya pushed further and asked if 'They' would be even more appropriate because it's not gendered. The other woman was not into that idea since it seems contrary to the one-ness of Allah, but Lamya uses They for Allah for the rest of the book.
posted by carrioncomfort at 5:49 AM on May 11, 2023

I'm not an Arabic speaker, but I understand "Allah" is simply the word for "God" and as such used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews too.

I’m neither Christian nor especially fluent in Arabic anymore, but I do have bibles in a bunch of languages. Genesis 1:1 in an Arabic bible is البدء خلق الله السموات والارض. (transliterated, “albad' khalq allah alsamawat walard.”)

I find many or most believers in the Abrahamic faiths seem simultaneously to believe their deity is above gender but also to get very upset if you do not use masculine pronouns for same.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:57 AM on May 11, 2023 [11 favorites]

Some evangelicals less gung-ho on the patriarchal aspects of the religion might humor you on “she/her” for God because, really, sex and gender are human concerns (which they believe to have been created by God, and that belief becomes the basis for treating trans people like shit rather than any specific Biblical text). Most are gonna flip out over the express patriarchal “God the Father/Son” phrasing of the Trinity. But oh man if you want to piss off almost any evangelical trying referring to their God as “Allah,” despite that same person being willing to admit, later and separately, that Islam is an Abrahamic religion and thus referring to the same being, ultimately.

I used to hear, frequently and often, that Allah was “a demon” from those same people. As if the act of being worshipped by people with a culture (and skin color) targeted by their bigotry was deflecting offered prayers to a different entity altogether.

So, so many contortions to twist a bunch of shepherds’ sky-being tales into modern hatred.
posted by Ryvar at 8:02 AM on May 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

"I find many or most believers in the Abrahamic faiths seem simultaneously to believe their deity is above gender but also to get very upset if you do not use masculine pronouns for same."

Wow, the truth of this is so.....yeah, at least in English translation, for sure.
posted by atomicstone at 8:51 AM on May 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

... their deity is above gender but also to get very upset if you do not use masculine pronouns for same."

But language is not a straitjacket!

Unfortunately, misogyny is.

Misogyny and Christianity can't be separated. There might be lovely depictions of equality in the bible, but the degradation of women won't change because the bible is the supposed word of god.

Likewise, misogyny and Islam can't be separated. There are lovely depictions of equality in the Koran, but the oppression of women can't be changed, again because of being the supposed word....

It doesn't matter what the pronouns are--the
Triune god and Allah will never be defined as anything but masculine. Given that Islamic radicals are willing to kill women over what they wear or whether they drive a car, I'm betting that a woman who uses the feminine pronoun for Allah could be in horrible danger.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:47 PM on May 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

Arabic and Hebrew both have separate words for 'god' (ilāh, ʔēl) and 'God' (aḷḷāh, ʔElōhīm)— all of which are cognate.

oh this is actually pretty cool — the Arabic distinction between "god" and "God" is effectively whether the definite article is used
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:04 PM on May 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m struck by the parallels with what’s been going on in the queer Jewish community - particularly in the Reconstructionist Movement. There are vibrant, these days often Zoom-based, Talmud and Tanakh study groups out there, reinterpreting texts that in tradition are often taken to be patriarchal and limiting of women’s rights. LGBTQ Jews are finding new ways to look at the heroes of the stories - as well as the villains (often the best place to find the queer characters, sadly). Joseph has a long tradition of being seen as gay, there are transgender interpretations of Rebecca, and so much more.
As for feminist interpretations of God in Judaism, even Orthodoxy acknowledges the shekhinah as the feminine presence of God, and liberal (even secular) authors such as Marcia Falk have been interpreting blessings in agender fashion for quite some time.
I use a set of feminine-gendered blessings for candle-lighting that I got from Kol Tzedek, a queer synagogue in Philadelphia, and it’s pretty standard practice in queer Jewish circles to suggest people use whichever gender suits them for blessings.
All of that said, the roots of patriarchy and misogyny run deep in Torah, and I understand why many find it unsupportable to remain in a faith where the seeds of truth cannot be fully dug out from the weeds.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:21 PM on May 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

For us to pretend that ‘He’ is neutral, and ‘She’ is necessarily tainted by gender – that’s a problem
Well, that's the central thing in gender issues in a nutshell, isn't it?

As soon as you insist on allocating a gender to any supposed omnipotent being, I think your whole argument for its omnipotence falls apart.
posted by dg at 8:35 PM on May 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Muslimah here, United States citizen, no human in the household or outside it holding me to account on anything faith related. I'll be skipping the gender debate and using the pronouns found in the Quran, Insha Allah.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:14 AM on May 12, 2023