Maryam — the only woman the book names.
Sura 19 carries her name; sura 3 has the angels tell her that God has chosen her above the women of the worlds. Every other woman in the Quran, the Prophet's own wives included, is identified by her relation to a man. She is not.
That Maryam is the only woman named in the Quran cuts both ways, and Muslim feminist scholars have made both cuts. On one side, a sura is named for her, she is chosen above the women of the worlds, and she receives revelation-adjacent speech from an angel with no man mediating. On the other side, the fact that every other woman is anonymous — the wife of Pharaoh, the queen of Sheba, the Prophet's own wives — is itself a datum about the text's world. Her birth story in sura 3 has her mother vow the child to God and then apologise for producing a girl, and God answers that the female she bore is not like the male, a line that has been read as consolation and as correction. Sura 19 gives her the palm tree, the labour pains, and the wish to have died before this. She is the only figure whose personal distress the Quran renders at length.
O Maryam, God has chosen you and purified you, and chosen you above the women of the worlds.
Quran 3:42 (rendered)The angels, speaking to her directly.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.