What Does the Qur’an Say

About Women, Gender, and Sexuality?

By Lori Kenschaft

May 2011

All Rights Reserved.

If you wish to use or distribute this text in any way, for any purpose, please contact me first.

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I wrote this 90-minute talk for an adult religious education program in my congregation, the First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington. If you would like to discuss my sharing something along these lines with another audience, please (contact me).

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I’d like to start by making a few general comments about the relationship between religion and scripture.

One of the dangers of a talk like this is that it can imply that Muslims should do what the Qur’an says. As a Unitarian Universalist, that is not at all how I think of scripture in my own life. Indeed, that is not how most Muslims, or most people, think about scripture. For most people, religion is what they learn from their families and communities, and it is rich with traditional foods, holidays, practices, prayers, stories, and ways of being in relationship with something much larger than us. Scripture has only a relatively small role in this fabric.

When people feel like the fabric of their life is being disrupted, however, they often look for something they can hold onto, a rock they can stand on. For many people, in many religious traditions, scripture can take this role. For Tea Partyers, it’s the Constitution. It’s the same basic impulse – a nostalgic desire to go back to a past that is imagined to be more stable, safe, secure, and right than the present.

So fundamentalism of any type has more appeal when people feel like their lives are insecure and in flux, that the future may be worse than the past, and that the lessons and patterns they learned from their parents are inadequate to the challenges of their own lives. A lot of people feel this way in our world now.

So I don’t want to say that people should do exactly what the Qur’an says – I’m not a fundamentalist. But I am aware, as you are all aware, that a lot of people nowadays are using their interpretations of the Qur’an to promote their understanding of a good society – indeed, to try to enforce their understanding of a good society. And a lot of people are debating what the Qur’an says and how it should be interpreted.

You and I are not a big part of that conversation, but we are a small part of that conversation. If we believe that all Muslims are naturally fundamentalists, and that the Qu’ran is an exceptionally misogynistic document, then we help create that reality. I don’t believe that either of those propositions is true, though I realize that some people do.

One final preliminary comment. I want to acknowledge that any reading of the Qur’an is just that – a reading, an interpretation. I imagine that all of us here in this room understand that any text can be read in multiple ways, with different people finding different meanings in it, or one person finding different meanings at different times. That is especially true for a text that is long and evocative and sometimes poetic.

For the last 1400 years, many people have devoted their lives to reading and understanding and interpreting the Qur’an. I’ve been at this for about five years, part time. I don’t pretend to be a final authority on anything. I’m sure that my understanding will continue to evolve, as it has evolved over the last five years.

So what I’m sharing with you this evening is my understanding now. My current understanding is the product of a lot of reading, conversation, and reflection, and I think it has some real relationship with something I would call “true,” but it is inevitably one person’s understanding.


So let me tell you a little about the Qur’an. The Qur’an is a transcript of revelations that came to a previously obscure Arab trader named Muhammad, starting around the year 610 of the current era. Over the next 22 years Muhammad became the leader of a growing community, and he continued to receive revelations until shortly before his death in 632. He believed these revelations came to him from God, whom he called Allah, via the angel Gabriel.

This is what a Qur’an looks like. It is comparable in size to the New Testament, so a lot smaller than the Bible as a whole. It contains 114 chapters, which are called suras. The longer suras are generally printed first and the shorter suras come later in the book, which is sort of vaguely a reverse chronological order of when they were revealed.

Muhammad lived in Mecca, which at the time was a trading town and a religious center. The ka’ba was already there, and local folklore said it had been built by Abraham, the same Abraham we know from the Hebrew Scriptures. The Arab peninsula at that time was very violent, with constant fighting between different tribes, but the people of Mecca were strong enough to enforce peace not just in the town itself but also in the surrounding area. This enabled everyone to come do business in Mecca and worship there, without fear of being killed.

The ka’ba was filled and surrounded by icons of tribal deities who were worshipped by the polytheistic tribes. There were also Jews and Christians in Mecca, and Muhammad grew up hearing stories about Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Jesus, Mary, Moses, Aaron, Adam, Eve, Joseph, Jonah, Lot, Elijah, Noah, and various other prophets. He did not read these stories, however, since like most of the people of his time Muhammad was illiterate.

The Qur’an was not written down in any sort of systematic way until after Muhammad died. After he was gone, the leaders of his community realized that they would need a record of what he had said and done, and they systemically collected and collated the memories of everyone who had known him. Words that people believed were revelations were written down in what became the Qur’an. Other words that Muhammad had said, about anything else, became the hadith, the sayings. And stories about what Muhammad did became the sunna, the traditions.

There are many thousands of hadith and sunna that scholars use to learn about Muhammad and his times and the context in which different parts of the Qur’an were revealed. Often we know what was happening at the time of a particular revelation, and what it seemed to be in response to.

People have been aware from the beginning that these sources need to be treated with care. Human memory is imperfect, and sometimes people remember what they wish they had heard. Sometimes people even fabricate stories. Some hadith did not emerge until more than a century after Muhammad died, and many Muslims regard such hadith with suspicion.

Ever since the earliest years, scholars have sought to evaluate the authenticity of each hadith and sunna. How many people told this story? Were they close to Muhammad, or were they retelling a story they had heard at second or third hand? Did they have a reputation in the community for a good memory and speaking the truth? Modern scholars call this sort of careful approach to historical sources a hermeneutics of suspicion, but Muslims had it by the seventh century.

Many of the hadith and sunna come from Aisha, who was Muhammad’s favorite wife and close friend and frequent companion. After Muhammad died, Aisha spent much of the rest of her life preserving his teachings and mission. The early Muslim community was male dominated, as most human communities have been. But Aisha and other women clearly felt that they had a right to speak and to be heard. And their voices have been preserved in the historical record and the traditions of Islam.


Muhammad saw his movement as a reform movement, bringing people back to the true religion of God, the true religion of Abraham. He believed that both Jews and Christians of his time had drifted away from monotheism and from the teachings of all of their prophets. He consistently said that his revelations confirmed the revelations that are found in the Torah and Gospels. According to the Qur’an, all three books come from the same God and carry the same message. Muhammad believed that his revelations were not of a new religion, but of an old religion that needed to be lifted up again.

This is important to understand when we look at the social teachings of the Qur’an. Muhammad was not a revolutionary. He did not want to transform his society.

Instead, he wanted to make his society good. He wanted people to worship the one God, to treat each other kindly, and to take care of the poor and the vulnerable. He wanted to spread the peace of Mecca to all people within the Muslim community, wherever they might be found. He wanted to create a community that would be founded on principles of justice.

To use Christian language, Muhammad wanted to establish the kingdom of God on earth. He taught that people are capable of goodness and are inclined to goodness. Many things get in our way, especially our desire for wealth, which can make us exploit other people, and an excessive concern about our own children, which can make us treat other people poorly. But when we are called to ourselves, Muhammad believed, we all want to live a good life and to serve God, the endlessly merciful and compassionate creator of the universe.

Muhammad took for granted the basic structures of Arab tribal society in the 7th century. He assumed that people would always live pretty much the way they lived then.

For example, he assumed that slavery would continue. He taught that it is a good deed to buy slaves in order to free them, and many early Muslims who had money used that money to free individual slaves. But Muhammad did not attempt to eradicate the institution of slavery. He accepted it as one of the givens of the world.

Similarly, Muhammad accepted Arab family structures as one of the givens of the world. Women, he assumed, would always spend most of their adult lives bearing and raising children, and those children would always belong to the family and tribe of their fathers. He did not question this basic order of society.

Muhammad did, however, try to improve the position of women within their families and society. There are a lot of different aspects to this, so let me lay them out for you.


The Qu’ran established several rights for women that could not be taken for granted in Arab society of the time.

First is a right to life. Female infanticide was common among the nomadic Arab tribes, who considered a girl-child a burden who would contribute only to her husband’s family. Unwanted newborn girls were buried in the sand. The Qur’an taught in seven different places that girl babies must be allowed to live.

Second is a right to property. Some Arab tribes at the time allowed women to own property, while others did not. The Qur’an makes it very clear that a woman owns the dowry that came with her when she got married. A woman owns the dowry, not her husband’s family, and she can own other things as well. You may know that in the United States married women got the right to own property in the 1840s. Muslim women got it in the seventh century.

Third is a right to inheritance. In Arab tradition women did not inherit anything when a husband or father died. The Qur’an says that a woman’s inheritance rights are half that of a man’s. We may see that as discriminatory, which it is. But half inheritance rights are a whole lot better than no inheritance rights.

Fourth we might call a right to get married. At the time, everyone lived in families and there was no good way to survive as a single person, especially as a single woman. The need for a family group is pretty much a fact of life in all traditional societies. Arab women, however, could be held in a liminal state between one family and another.

If a woman wanted to get remarried after her husband died, she needed the consent of his heirs. It was common practice for the heirs to refuse consent until the widow handed over everything she owned and maybe got other people to give the heirs some property too. A widow was effectively considered part of her husband’s estate, and the heirs wanted to maximize her value.

The Qur’an says that a widow has an absolute right to get married after four months, when she knows whether or not she was pregnant when her husband died. She is also entitled to a full year’s support from the family of her deceased husband. And she is to be treated with kindness. Her husband’s family cannot extort money from her or treat her like a burden.

Similar patterns appeared around divorce. In Arab society a man could divorce his wife at will, just by saying he was divorcing her. But the divorce was not final for three months, because of the possibility of pregnancy. Arab tradition allowed a man to rescind the divorce any time in those three months. He could then immediately divorce his wife again, and keep her in limbo for another three months. He could do this as many times as he wanted, thereby preventing her from remarrying and extorting money from her and her family while not being responsible for her upkeep.

The Qur’an says that a man can divorce his wife only twice, “and then a woman must be retained in honor or allowed to go with kindness.” If a man does not want to keep his wife, he must allow her to move on with her life. Furthermore, a man must provide a “decent provision” for a wife he is divorcing, where what is “decent” depends on his own standard of living.

The Qur’an also gives women a right to divorce. A woman cannot unilaterally divorce her husband, as a man can his wife. But if she feels he is mistreating her, or if he deserts her, the Qur’an says that two arbiters shall be appointed, one from his family and one from her family. If the couple can reconcile their differences, that is considered best. But if reconciliation doesn’t work, a woman is free to seek an agreement that divorces her from her husband.

Again, men and women have very different rights around divorce. But many societies have given women no way to get out of an abusive marriage, or to remarry if their husband deserts them but does not divorce them. The Qur’an does.


In theological terms, the Qur’an stresses that men and women are equals and that God will judge each person as an individual, by the same criteria.

The Qur’an refers to the story of Adam and Eve, but it also tells a creation story that is androgynous.

“God created you from dust, then from a little germ. Into two sexes He divided you.” 35:11

“By one of His signs He created you from dust; and, behold, you became humans and multiplied throughout the earth. By another sign He created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you might live in peace with them, and planted love and kindness in your hearts. Surely there are signs in this for thinking people.” 30:20-21

The Qur’an also has several verses in which it specifically says that women as well as men are religious beings who are responsible to God.

“Men shall be rewarded according to their deeds, and women shall be rewarded according to their deeds.” 4:32

“Be they men or women, to those who embrace the Faith and do what is right We will surely grant a happy life; We shall reward them according to their noblest deeds.” 16:97

We nowadays may take this level of individualism for granted, but it was no small thing in a patriarchal society in which women were told that their loyalties were to their fathers, husbands, and sons. If a woman is accountable to God, that gives her a degree of leverage against the family claim.

Some people were apparently unclear on the concept, however. At one point a group of women approached Muhammad and asked him whether his teachings applied to them. Some people were apparently saying that women just had to be obedient wives and mothers, and did not have to worry about these new ideas that Muhammad was talking about. The result, almost immediately, was a revelation that proclaimed men’s and women’s spiritual equality in detail:

“For men who submit to God and women who submit to God,
For believing men and women,
For devout men and women,
For true men and women,
For men and women who are patient and constant,
For men and women who humble themselves,
For men and women who give in charity,
For men and women who fast,
For men and women who guard their chastity,
And for men and women who engage much in God’s praise –
For them has God prepared forgiveness and a great reward.” (33:35)

This statement is pretty clear, and many Muslim women and men have used it to argue that their religion does not and should not discriminate against women. Indeed, many Muslim women see themselves as claiming their rights by going back to the Qur’an and cleansing their tradition of cultural accretions that are not Qur’anic and therefore not Muslim. Oppressing women may be done in the name of Islam, but that does not make it true to Islam.

I would not claim that the Qur’an is a fully egalitarian document. Even in theological terms, the cultural assumption that men are more valuable and important than women comes through. For example, one of the Qur’an’s repeated arguments against polytheism is that it is absurd that God would have chosen to have daughters, the various goddesses of the ancient Near East, rather than sons. “Surely they lie when they declare: ‘God has begotten children.’ Would He choose daughters rather than sons?” (37:152-153) No one would be so misguided to choose a daughter when they could have a son.

So yes, there is misogyny here. No doubt about it. But the Qur’an also contains a deep egalitarian impulse. “Men shall be rewarded according to their deeds, and women shall be rewarded according to their deeds.” (4:32) “He created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you might live in peace with them, and planted love and kindness in your hearts. Surely there are signs in this for thinking people.” (30:20-21)


On a personal level, all of the sources indicate that Muhammad treated everyone around him with kindness and respect, including women as well as men. He often looked to his wives for advice or talked through decisions with them, and he clearly believed their thoughts and opinions were worth listening to. He treated his grown-up daughters with similar respect as well as consideration.

Muhammad’s first wife, Khadijah, was a successful merchant, and when Muhammad was about twenty years old he started working for her. Some time later Khadijah proposed marriage, and everyone agreed they had a good relationship and a happy marriage. Khadijah continued to practice her trade, which was why Muhammad had lots of time for meditation, prayer, and theological discussion.

Like a good Arab man, Muhammad did not seek intimacy with women outside his family, but he did talk with them, do business with them, and engage in religious discussions with them. He often said that all women should be treated with kindness, all the time. And his actions lived up to his words.

This was unusual, and some of his contemporaries thought that his respect and clear liking for women was odd or even inappropriate. But Muhammad was firm. All people deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, and that includes women.

Muhammad’s personal behavior is significant because Muslim tradition considers Muhammad a role model, someone who was fully human but rightly guided by God. Muslims are therefore supposed to try to act the way Muhammad acted. And all of his contemporaries agreed that Muhammad treated women well.


There are, however, teachings in the Qur’an that can be uncomfortable. I would like to address the topics of polygamy, male supremacy, sexuality, and clothing.


To start with polygamy. In the Qur’an, the topic of polygamy is intertwined with discussions of orphans. Arab society was, as I said before, quite violent, and chronic warfare meant that many men died at an early age. Widows and orphans struggled to survive, and the Qur’an repeatedly exhorts believers to be charitable to widows and orphans and not exploit them.

One way to help orphans, it teaches, is to marry them. Muslim men are therefore allowed to marry up to four women at a time. This practice allowed every woman to have a marriage and family and home, even in a society with a high male death rate.

The Qur’an specifies that a man must treat his wives equally. Muhammad had only one wife while Khadijah was alive, but after she died he married many times, sometimes taking on widows who needed a home and sometimes building alliances with different families and tribes. The Qur’an gives the Prophet special permission to have as many wives as he wants.

Muhammad was scrupulous in treating his wives equally. Each of them had her own room within the family compound. Muhammad spent the night with each of them in turn, not favoring some over others. He gave them comparable gifts and guaranteed them comparable levels of support.

It is clear from the hadith that there were sometimes tensions and jealousies within Muhammad’s household. And everyone eventually agreed that Aisha was his favorite wife. But Muhammad sought to give every wife the time, attention, material goods, and honor that he believed she deserved.

The Qur’an also has another revelation that perhaps reflected the realities of Muhammad’s experiences in a polygamous family. “Try as you might,” the Quran says, “you cannot treat all of your wives impartially.” (4:129)

Some people have argued that the Qur’an thus ultimately comes out against polygamy. If it is obligatory to treat multiple wives equally, but it is humanly impossible to treat multiple wives equally, perhaps you should stick to one wife.


Many passages in the Qu’ran urge husbands and wives to be kind to each other, to be patient, and to forgive each other and not hold grudges. It seems to assume that family life will not always be easy. And it sees marriage as a prime location for practicing the spiritual virtues of compassion, patience, and peacefulness.

One passage, however, establishes male supremacy within the family. Exactly how to interpret this passage has been a topic of much discussion over the centuries. What exactly does this word mean? What does that word mean? Even for people who are native Arabic speakers, the answers are a matter of disagreement.

The passage opens by saying that husbands are the qawwaam of their wives. A qawwaam is somebody who stands for the interests of somebody else. You might say they are a manager, or a guardian, or a protector, or a supporter, or a master, or a head of the household. And you see how those connotations are different.

The Qur’an says that a husband is the qawwaam of his wife because God gave more strength to men than to women, and because husbands support their wives materially. When you think about a pre-modern society, where women are usually pregnant or nursing, there is some truth to that description. Or at least, if she is lucky a woman has a husband who supports her materially.

The passage goes on to say that righteous women are obedient – to God? to their husbands? That isn’t clear. And righteous women guard what God wants them to guard, which is also a little vague.

And then the passage says that if you fear disloyalty or misbehavior from a woman, you should first talk with her, and then refuse to have sex with her, and then something that I will probably mispronounce terribly – wadhribu.

This word wadhribu apparently comes from a root that means “to beat, strike, or hit.” Some people think this passage means that Muslim men are encouraged to beat their wives if they just fear disobedience. Other people argue that the term wadhribu is much lighter than that – that it is more like a gentle tap on the body, never on the face, and does not leave a mark. I’ve even seen it translated as sleeping with one’s wife, with her consent. Some of our euphemisms for sex are a little violent too, but I think that translation is a stretch. And some people think that the traditional etymology is incorrect and wadhribu comes from a different root altogether and means to leave her, divorce her.

When people look at the hadith, the story is similarly confusing. Some hadith say Muhammad never hit a woman. Other hadith tell stories of Muhammad hitting his wives. Some hadith quote Muhammad telling his people, “Do not beat the female servants of Allah,” and asking his followers how they could possibly beat their wives and then sleep with them. Others quote Muhammad as telling his followers to beat misbehaving women, but not severely.
With all of this ambiguity, you can see how this passage in the Qur’an can be used to justify a wide range of male behavior.

I would like to point out, however, that the attitudes and assumptions in this passage can also be found in our own American traditions. The traditional Christian wedding ceremony expects a wife to promise to “love, honor, and obey” her husband. When this country was founded, we embraced the English common law principle of coverture, which held that a married woman is legally “covered” by her husband and has no legal existence apart from him.

Husbands had both the right and the responsibility to discipline their family members, which included wives as well as children, servants, and slaves. You have probably heard the story of the origin of the phrase, “rule of thumb” – a man was not to beat his wife with a stick wider than his thumb. I believe that etymology is probably apocryphal, but it reflects a very real assumption that men would sometimes beat their wives and that it was OK as long as it didn’t go too far.

Divorce was not commonly available in the United States until the 1920s. Until then divorce generally required an act of a state legislature, which only the wealthy and well-connected could obtain. Most states did not have no-fault divorce, based on incompatibility, until the 1970s. Until then divorce required a provable accusation such as adultery, desertion, or cruelty.

Massachusetts did not allow even married couples to purchase contraception until 1967. American law did not recognize marital rape as a possibility until the 1970s. American culture did not begin to recognize domestic violence as a problem, rather than a fact of life or a joking matter, until the 1970s. When I was born, American family law was not so different from Qur’anic family law.

Even now, some Americans believe a man should be the head of the household. When my evangelical Christian brother got married, his wife promised to obey him and he promised to lead her lovingly. This is their understanding, and many evangelicals’ understanding, of what Christian scripture requires. It is right there in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” (3:18-19)

I am not claiming that Islam and Christianity are exactly the same. But they aren’t all that different either.


Turning to the broader topic of sexuality, the interpretive process gets more complicated. The Qur’an has dozens and dozens of passages that refer to sexuality in one way or another, but most of them are brief and do not convey a lot of detail. We can tell that sexuality is a significant theme, but to figure out what the message is we have to piece together many different passages, most of which are short and allusive.

The Qur’an commonly uses the word fitna to refer to things that are disorderly or out of place. Fitna can mean a lot of different things. It can mean being quarrelsome or rude in ordinary life. It can mean being an oppressive and unjust ruler. (Mubarak was accused of fitna.) Fitna can also mean rising up in rebellion against a legitimate ruler. (As you can tell, one of the key issues here is who you think is legitimate.) Fitna can mean cheating in one’s business dealings, not giving fair value for fair price. Fitna can also mean being sexually inappropriate or transgressive.

All of these different meanings are related to the basic concept of things not being as they should be. Fitna is everything that is wrong, everything that is not in keeping with God’s order.

So when the Qur’an tells people not to engage in fitna, there is definitely a sexual connotation. But how much so? Fitna can also mean being unjust, and there a lot of different ways to be unjust. How much fitna means sexual disorder, and how much it means social and economic injustice, seems to me to be much in the eye of the beholder.

But for people who hear the word fitna in sexual terms, the Qur’an is full of abundant warnings against the danger of sexuality.

The Qur’an repeatedly exhorts people to do good and to avoid evil. It probably uses these words one or two hundred times, if not more. But it rarely goes into any detail about what it means to do good or to avoid evil.

It offers some general guidance. Be generous to widows and orphans and do not exploit the poor. Be hospitable to travelers. Greet people with words of peace. Pray to God and thank God for the many blessings you have been given. Do not lie or cheat or steal. Be kind to your family.

It doesn’t explore any of these themes at length, however. Instead, it trusts that people basically know what it means to be good and to avoid evil. People do not need to be told in gory detail. They just need to be reminded of what they already know and encouraged to follow their better wisdom.

In a similar vein, the Qur’an admonishes people to avoid acts that are lewd or shameful, but it never discusses what that means. It assumes that people know what they should feel ashamed about. It is not clear to me how much these passages are specifically about sexual impropriety, and how much about shameful behavior more generally. But many readers, both in translation and not, read these passages as being specifically about sexual conduct outside marriage.

Because the words are undefined and have little context in the original, people can project onto them their own understandings of sexual misconduct. This is how, for example, the religious police in Saudi Arabia can punish a woman if her veil slips back a little bit and shows a little bit of hair. They believe that is a shameful act, and they believe it is forbidden by the Qur’an. But the Qur’an does not provide anything like that level of detail.


One thing that is pretty clear is that the Qur’an affirms sexuality within the context of marriage. Remember that passage about what to do if you fear disobedience from your wife? Step number two is to refuse to have sex with her. The Qur’an assumes that a woman will want to have a sexual relationship with her husband, and that she will feel his absence as a deprivation.

In the early days of the community surrounding Muhammad, there was a revelation saying that people must abstain from sex for the entire month of Ramadan. As you probably know, Muslims are supposed to abstain from food, water, and sex during the daylight hours in Ramadan. For obvious reasons the prohibition on eating and drinking cannot last for the entire month, but the prohibition on sex originally included the night as well as the day.
This prohibition proved to be too severe, however, and it was widely broken. So there was a new revelation:

“It is now lawful for you,” the new revelation said, “to lie with your wives on the night of the fast; they are a comfort to you as you are to them. God knew that you were deceiving yourselves. He has relented towards you and pardoned you. Therefore you may now lie with them and seek what God has ordained for you.” (2:187)

This is the sort of passage that could leave the women of the community wondering whether Muhammad’s revelations included them. “It is now lawful for you to lie with your wives on the night of the fast.” Clearly “you” are presumptively male.

A different passage explains that menstruation is an indisposition and tells men to stay away from their wives when they are menstruating. “Keep aloof from women during their menstrual periods and do not approach them until they are clean again; when they are clean, have intercourse with them whence God enjoined you. … Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields when you please.” (2:223).

This passage affirms marital sexuality, but very much on men’s terms. It does not give a woman any room to decline her husband’s attentions. “Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields when you please.”

This ownership theme is reflected in the Qur’an’s definition of legitimate sexuality. The Qur’an encourages men to have sex with both their wives and any slave women they may own. Men should not lust after any other women, but wives and slaves are “lawful to them” (23:5-7). One of the reasons people are not sure how many wives Muhammad had is that he also had some number of slave women, and it seems he did not sharply distinguish between the two categories.

But still, remember those words: “They are a comfort to you as you are to them.” There is an assumption here of mutuality and of mutual pleasure and comfort.


The Qur’an has a reputation for being quite harsh in its views of adultery. I think this reputation is only partly deserved.

The Qur’an does condemn and prohibit adultery. As you may be aware, this prohibition is common among the world’s religions.

Indeed, it is common in any society where a child’s father is held economically responsible for that child. In some societies, a child simply belongs to its mother’s family and the group doesn’t much care who its father is. But that is not the predominant human pattern. If you are going to have social fathers, who have serious obligations to their children, you need to be able to identify the biological father of each baby. Especially in societies where a child is seen as exclusively belonging to the father’s family, as was true in the Arab world, people tend to feel a great need to control women’s sexuality so that a man is not saddled with a child who isn’t biologically his.

One passage in the Qur’an spells out the punishment for adultery:

“The adulterer and the adulteress shall each be given a hundred lashes. Let no pity for them cause you to disobey God, if you truly believe in God and the Last Day; and their punishment be witnessed by a number of believers.

The adulterer may marry only an adulteress or an idolatress; and the adulteress may marry only an adulterer or an idolater. True believers are forbidden such marriages.” (24:2-3)

In other words, a man or woman who commits adultery must be punished with a hundred lashes, even if you do not want to punish them. And then they are permanently banned from marriage with pure believers who have not similarly sinned.

Note the assumption that the people are likely to feel pity for the offenders and not want to punish them.

Note also that this passage is gender-symmetric. The adulterer and the adulteress are treated identically.

And while I do not want to minimize the severity of a hundred lashes, it is clearly expected that they will survive their punishment, because afterwards there is the issue of who they are going to marry.

Indeed, the Qu’ran can take a rather forgiving attitude towards adultery if it is followed by repentance. One passage says that an adulterer shall live in disgrace forever, even in the afterlife, “unless he repent and believe and do good works, for then God will change his sins to good actions.” (25:63, 68-71)

You may be familiar with the Bible’s version of the story of King David and Bathsheba. One day King David looked out from his palace and saw Bathsheba bathing on her roof. He knew she was married to Uriah the Hittite, who was fighting at the front of the current war, but David felt so overwhelmed with desire that he sent for Bathsheba, and slept with her, and got her pregnant. To cut a long story short, David instructed Uriah’s commanding officer to put Uriah at the front of the battle lines and then pull back, so Uriah would be killed.

The prophet Nathan then came to King David and told him a story about a rich man who had many flocks of sheep, but stole the one and only lamb that belonged to a poor man. David got very angry at the rich man and exclaimed that he deserved to die, whereupon Nathan told him, “You are the man.” Nathan then delivered a scathing rebuke from God, who was angry at David not just for betraying and murdering one of his loyal men, but even more for his profound ingratitude for all he had been given.

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; and I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if there were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. … because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.” (II Samuel 12:7-10, 14)

So David has two punishments. First, the child of his illicit union will not survive its birth. Second, and more importantly, he will not be able to establish a secure and lasting kingdom. There will never, in all of history, be peace for the House of David. Some theologians suggest that this punishment explains why the Jewish people are still in diaspora.

The Qur’an comes back to this story of King David and the parable of the poor man’s lamb, but in a much abbreviated form. Here there is no mention of Uriah, or murder, or God’s fury. In the Qur’an, the parable immediately makes David see that he had done wrong in seeking to add another sheep to his flock.

“David realized that We [meaning God] were only testing him. He sought forgiveness of his Lord and fell down penitently on his knees. We forgave him his sin, and in the world to come he shall be honored and well received.

We said: ‘David, We have made you master in the land. Rule with justice among men and do not yield to lust, lest it turn you away from God’s path.’ ” (38:25-26)

So in the Qur’an the issue is only lust and sex and adultery, not ingratitude, which is arguably a far worse sin. God quickly forgives David as soon as he repents, and reaffirms David’s divine kingship. Adultery, it seems, is an error, but it is not an unforgivable sin.

In no place does the Qur’an say that a woman should be stoned for adultery. That idea comes from the book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Hebrew Scriptures and therefore part of the Christian Bible. The relevant passage begins by saying that if a new husband accuses his bride of not being a virgin, and her family cannot provide proof of her virginity, then she shall be stoned:

“But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.” (22:20-21)

Then it goes to the case of adultery:

“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who laid with the woman, and the woman; so shall you purge the evil from Israel.” (22:22)

Then the Bible specifies that even a betrothed virgin counts as a married woman:

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.” (22:23-24)

So that is what the Bible says. Thank goodness most Christians and Jews do not follow the Bible literally.

In general, Muslims do not believe they are obligated to follow rules from the Hebrew Scriptures. The Qur’an is quite clear about that. If some Muslims literally obey the Hebrew Scriptures in this case, it is not from theological conviction, but from something else. For a Muslim, I would argue, stoning a woman is bad theology.


Muhammad struggled with these issues inside his own family. I have mentioned before that his favorite wife was Aisha.

One day, Muhammad and Aisha were coming home from a trip, along with a bunch of Muhammad’s men. The whole group stopped to rest in the desert, and Aisha slipped away in order to relieve herself privately. She was being carried in a covered litter by several porters, and when the group was ready to resume their journey the porters did not realize that she was not behind the curtains, and they set off without her.

When Aisha returned to the stopping place she found nobody there. The group had been following a little track through the desert, the sort that it takes a trained eye to see, and Aisha was afraid that if she tried to follow the group she would lose the track, wander off into the desert, and die of thirst. So she decided to sit down where she was and assume someone would eventually notice she was missing and come back for her.

While she was sitting there in the desert, one of Muhammad’s men who had been trailing the group came up the track. His name was Safwan, and when he saw Aisha he offered to take her home.

When the people of Medina saw Aisha and Safwan arrive together, the rumors began to fly. Many people claimed that they must have done this intentionally, that Aisha deliberately let the group go on without her so that she could meet her lover in the desert.

Muhammad was very troubled by this accusation against his favorite wife, and the hadith say that he avoided her for some amount of time. Then he had a revelation that let him know that Aisha was innocent. Indeed, the revelation excoriated the people of Medina who had spread the slander:

“When you heard it, why did the faithful, men and women, not think well of their own people, and say, ‘This is an evident falsehood’? Why did they not produce four witnesses? If they could not produce any witnesses, then they were surely lying in the sight of God.” (24:12-13)

According to the Qur’an, four witnesses are required to accuse someone of adultery. Suspicion is not enough. Four people must have seen the actions with their own eyes.

The Qur’an goes on: “Those who defame honorable but careless believing women shall be cursed in this world and in the world to come.” (24:23)

Honorable but careless. If a woman is not careful, if she is indiscreet, if she makes a mistake, that is not enough to accuse her. She should not be accused of anything four people did not see her do.

If someone accuses a woman of adultery, but cannot provide four witnesses to attest to the deed, the Qur’an says that the accusers shall be given eighty lashes with a whip, and from then on their word shall not be accepted as testimony in any matter. (24:4) “Those who delight in spreading salacious slander against the faithful shall be sternly punished in this life and in the life to come,” says the Qur’an. “God knows, but you know not.” (24:19)

The one exception to the requirement of four witnesses is if a husband accuses his own wife:

“If a man accuses his wife but has no witnesses except himself, he shall swear four times by God that his charge is true, calling down upon himself the curse of God if he is lying. But if his wife swears four times by God that his charge is false and calls down His curse upon herself if it be true, she shall receive no punishment.” (24:6-9)

In other words, the husband can serve as his own four witnesses, if he is willing to call God as a witness too. And the accused wife can also serve as her own four witnesses, similarly calling on God’s judgment. If a woman is willing to accept the curse of God if she is lying, then she shall not be punished by human beings. In that case, the truth of the matter is left to God to discern.

Both women and men can be punished quite severely for adultery. But notice that the punishment for an unsubstantiated accusation of adultery is almost as severe as the punishment for adultery itself – 80 lashes compared to 100. Muhammad was quite aware that people could be accused falsely, and he wanted to protect his followers from that injustice.


Most people believe that the Qur’an is unmitigated in its condemnation of homosexuality. Even here, however, I think the story is a little more complicated.
All of the Qur’an’s mentions of same-sex behaviors are in passages that refer to the story of Lot.

You may know this story from the book of Genesis, where it is long and complicated. God sends two angels, who look like men, to the city of Sodom, because he has heard a great outcry against the people of Sodom from their neighbors. The angels are to determine whether the outcry is correct and the people of Sodom are as horrible as their neighbors say, and if so God will destroy the city.

On their way to Sodom, the two angels and God himself stop by Abraham’s tent, where God tells Sarah she will have a son, although she is already old. God tells Abraham of his plans for Sodom, and Abraham persuades God not to destroy the city if ten righteous men can be found within it.

When the two angels arrive at the gates of Sodom, Lot greets them and offers them food and a place to wash their feet and spend the night. But later that evening the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house and demand that he turn his visitors over to them.

Lot admonishes the crowd not to behave so badly. “Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” (Genesis 19:8) But the crowd rejected Lot’s offer and tried to break into his house, until the angels drew Lot into his house and blinded the men who were attacking his door.

There is a long tradition of associating the city of Sodom with the practice known as sodomy, but some modern Biblical scholars have argued that this historical interpretation is inappropriate. The key issue in this story, they argue, is inhospitality to strangers. The Bible, like the Qur’an, emphasizes the importance of hospitality to travelers – offering them food, water, sanctuary, and safety. It is clear, however, that the men of Sodom do not intend to offer sanctuary to these strangers traveling through. God learns from the angels’ experience that the people of Sodom are indeed as violent and rapacious as they were reputed to be, and the following day he saves Lot’s family and destroys the city.

But gang-rape, which is what either the angels or Lot’s daughters faced, is not the same as a loving sexual relationship between two people. Putting them in the same box, and saying that because this is wrong then that is wrong too, might be missing the point.

Unlike the Bible, the Qur’an explicitly says that one of the issues in this story is men lusting after men. In several different passages, it has Lot denounce the men of Sodom in sexual terms. “Will you fornicate with males and eschew the wives which God has created for you?” (26:166) “You commit lewd acts which no other nation has committed before you. You lust after men and assault them on your highways.” (29:28-29) “Do you commit lewdness with your eyes open, lustfully seeking men instead of women? Surely you are an ignorant people.” (27:54-55) It is a repeated theme.

But the Qur’an also talks about the betrayal of hospitality, of sanctuary. “And when Our messengers came to Lot,” another version of the story says, “he grew anxious about them, for he was powerless to offer them protection. … ‘My people,’ he said, ‘here are my daughters: surely they are more wholesome to you. Fear God, and do not shame me by insulting my guests.” (11:77-78) What is at issue here is not just male-male sexuality, but a broader sense of disorder and violence. Of fitna.

Three other things bear mentioning.

First, the Qur’an does not see male-male sexuality as unforgivable: “If two men among you commit a lewd act, punish them both. If they repent and mend their ways, let them be. God is forgiving and merciful.” (4:16) There is no space here for a gay lifestyle or gay marriage, but nor is there permanent stigma for someone who returns to reproductively oriented behavior.

Second, the Qur’an says nothing about lewd acts between women. Nothing.

Third, the Qur’an’s descriptions of paradise include being waited on by beautiful boys. “[T]here shall wait on them young boys of their own, as fair as virgin pearls.” (52:24) “They shall be attended by boys graced with eternal youth, who to the beholder’s eyes will seem like sprinkled pearls.” (76:19) This homoerotic tone suggests that there might be place for male-male sexuality in paradise, even if there isn’t in the violent city of Sodom.


Finally, I would like to talk about the Qur’an’s teachings around clothing.

I’m sure you have heard the word hijab, which has come to mean a veil covering a woman’s head and hair. In its original meaning hijab meant “curtain,” and the word appears in the Qur’an only once.

Again, there is a bit of a story here. Muhammad was getting married, but this marriage was a little controversial. Muhammad had no sons who survived their toddler years, but he eventually adopted a relative named Zayd and for many years he considered Zayd his son. Then one day Muhammad saw Zayd’s wife, Zeinab, and felt a great desire to marry her. Soon there was a revelation saying that adoption is invalid, because it is a form of falsehood – it claims that one man is the father of another man, when that is not true. And Zayd generously divorced Zeinab so Muhammad could marry her. Not all of the believers were entirely comfortable with this scenario, so there was some tension in the community.

After the wedding ceremony, some of the men hung around talking and eating, while Muhammad wanted to be alone with Zeinab. Then suddenly, while the guests were still there, Muhammad had a revelation:

“Believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time, unless you are given leave. But if you are invited, enter; and when you have eaten, disperse. Do not engage in familiar talk, for this would annoy the Prophet and he would be ashamed to bid you go; but of the truth God is not ashamed. If you ask his wives for anything, speak to them from behind hijab [a curtain]. This is more chaste for your hearts and their hearts.

You must not speak ill of God’s apostle, nor shall you ever wed his wives after him; this would surely be a grave offence in the sight of God. Whether you reveal or conceal them, God has knowledge of all things.” (33:53-54)

It seems that Muhammad was feeling impatient with his guests, and the result was a revelation that set apart his wives from all other women. “You must not speak ill of God’s apostle, nor shall you ever wed his wives after him.” Since the Qur’an in general encouraged widows to marry quickly and easily, without constraint, and there really wasn’t a place for single women in Arab society, this was an extraordinary commandment.

“If you ask his wives for anything, speak to them from behind a hijab.” Up until this evening, Muhammad’s wives had had the run of the town. We know this, because some of Muhammad’s followers protested the freedom of his women. Especially Umar, who later became the second caliph after Muhammad died. Umar thought that Muhammad should act like the great Persian rulers and keep the women of his family in seclusion, in purdah, as a sign of his high status in the community.

Muhammad had always argued with Umar, and said that good believing women like his wives should be able to go wherever they wanted and thought proper. And then all of a sudden, during this tension-filled wedding, Muhammad changed his mind. From then on his wives were expected to stay behind a curtain and not be seen by men outside their families.

But Muhammad made it clear that the goal here was to distinguish his wives from other women. The revelation continued:

“Wives of the Prophet, you are not like other women. If you fear God, do not be too complaisant in your speech, lest the lecherous-hearted should lust after you. Show discretion in what you say. Stay in your homes and do not display your finery as women used to do in the days of ignorance. Attend to your prayers, give alms and obey God and His apostle.” (33:32-33)

Scholars interested in women’s history have noted that when men are feeling anxious or out of control of their lives, they often respond by trying to control women. I think we see this pattern writ small in this revelation, when Muhammad was feeling at odds with his followers for several reasons and responded by putting new restrictions on his wives. And I think we are seeing this pattern writ large in the various fundamentalist movements, both Muslim and Christian, that respond to the tensions of the modern world by trying to define a narrow place for women.

But seclusion behind a curtain, according to the Qur’an, is only for the wives of Muhammad. Seclusion is intended to proclaim and protect Muhammad’s status by distinguishing his wives from other women and by making them unavailable to other men, even after Muhammad dies.


The Qur’an does say some things about clothing more generally.

The Qur’an’s basic teaching is that both men and women should be modest. It warns, for example, against walking in on somebody in the early morning, after the evening prayer, or when they have put off their garments in the heat of the day. “These are the three occasions when none may intrude upon your privacy.” (24:58)

One passage instructs believing men “to turn their eyes away from temptation and to guard their modesty.” It then instructs believing women to do exactly the same thing – “to turn their eyes away from temptation and to guard their modesty” – but it adds more details for women.

First, it talks about something called zinah, which is often translated as beauty – both the beauty of the body and the beauty of added adornments. It instructs women not to display their zinah, “except such as are normally revealed.” “Except such as are normally revealed.” In other words, dress the way you are expected to dress and do not display more than that.

It then tells women to draw their headscarves over their bosoms. The word for headscarf here is khumur. The Qur’an assumes that you need something on your head to protect yourself from the sun, which is a good idea if you are living on the Arabian peninsula. And it tells women to use this scarf to cover their bosoms as well. Some scholars believe that one of the purposes of this instruction was to make it easier to distinguish believers from unbelievers, members of the community from people outside the community.

The Qur’an then instructs women not to display their finery except to their husbands and a long list of other family relations, servants, and slaves. And it ends with a final injunction: “And let them not stamp their feet when walking so as to reveal their hidden trinkets.” (24:30-31) In other words, do not draw attention to your body and adornments underneath your clothes.

A different passage tells believing women “to draw their jalaabiib close round them. That is more proper, so that they may be recognized and not be molested.” (33:59) A jalaabiib is believed to be a cloak or outer garment.

In this passage we see quite clearly a concern with distinguishing between people who belong to the community and people who do not. This revelation assumes that a woman who is not seen as a believer is likely to be harassed or molested. Some people nowadays argue that a Muslim woman’s modest clothing is intended to protect her from unwanted male attention and possible assault. Apparently that was a concern 1400 years ago too.

Another passage says, “It shall be no offence for old spinsters who have no hope of marriage to discard their jalaabiib without revealing their zinah,” their beauty. (24:60) So again, it’s not clear what zinah includes, but you can take off your cloak without revealing it.

I think the basic message here is that both men and women should not draw attention to their bodies. They should keep themselves covered and not subject themselves or other people to temptation. And they should be recognizable as followers of Muhammad.

The details are a lot less clear, partly because the Qur’an expects us to know already what aspects of zinah are and are not normally revealed. But there is absolutely no shred of a hint of evidence that women are expected to cover their faces. They are supposed to cover their bosoms, but that is a different issue.

Some Muslims nowadays believe that the real message of these passages is that Muslim men and women should dress modestly by the standards of the time and place in which they are living, and not draw attention to themselves by dressing extremely in any way. They should be on the modest end of the spectrum, but not stand out in the crowd. The basic principles of modesty and not drawing attention to oneself may be more important than trying to figure out exactly what the words khumur and jalaabiib meant 1400 years ago.

Another issue comes up here. The Qur’an is very clear that religion is a matter of the individual’s relationship with God, and that religious practices should be voluntary, not coerced. “There shall be no compulsion in religion,” it says. (2:256)

If a government creates laws making religious observances compulsory, it is going against the clear and explicit teaching of the Qur’an. The same can be said of families that compel their women to wear a hijab or an abayah. If wearing a hijab is an expression of religious faith, then according to the Qur’an it should be voluntary, not coerced.

You may remember that a few years ago the religious police in Saudi Arabia forced a bunch of schoolgirls back into a burning school because they had not properly covered themselves before fleeing the building. Many of the girls died.

The Qur’an says that if you save a life you shall be regarded as having saved all humanity (5:32). The Qur’an says that even the basic pillars of Islam, such as fasting during Ramadan, can be set aside if they would do harm in a particular circumstance (2:185). Considering an abayah more important than the life of a girl or a woman is not Qur’anic. Many people in Saudi Arabia know that, and many of them detest the religious police for their extremism.


I have thrown a lot of detailed information at you, and I hope you’ve found at least some of it interesting. One of the reasons I care what the Qur’an says is that so many people make statements about it that I don’t believe are true, so I wanted to share with you some of what I think is true.

But of course I don’t actually think it is important to obey the Qur’an word by word by word. Like many religious people, of all traditions, I believe that it is more important to look at the big messages of religious texts, than to tie ourselves in knots worrying about the details. God may be present in everything, but I do not think God is particularly revealed in the shape of a woman’s headdress. The divine is bigger than that.

The Qur’an came out of a culture that was steeped in male supremacy and misogyny. Those assumptions and attitudes do come through in its words and imagery.

But the Qur’an also insists that men and women are equals, created together out of dust for the purpose of loving and knowing and caring for each other, and ultimately both are accountable only to God.

Time and again, the Qur’an insists that women should be treated fairly and kindly. When it talks about details, it almost always improved women’s status compared to prevailing practices of its time. It isn’t radical or utopian. But it seems to take the range of culturally available practices and choose what is best for women.

But the Qur’an does not seem that interested in talking about the details. You can read through the whole thing and find three or four passages that talk about clothing. But what the Qur’an emphasizes time and again are ideas that are big and yet simple. God is One. God is compassionate and merciful. Do good and avoid evil. Be kind to each other. Be generous to people who are in need. Remember that everything you have comes from God, so be grateful to God and share what you have with other people. Greet each other with words of peace. Pray.

If we take the Qur’an as a rulebook for our lives now, its rules seem pretty limiting. But if we look at its basic principles, it consistently preaches compassion, justice, peacefulness, and mercy. It also preaches social stability, including family support for every child and caring for people who are poor, young, without family, or otherwise vulnerable.

These are not anything-goes values. The Qur’an makes it clear that we have responsibilities to each other, especially to widows, orphans, and the poor, and that sexuality can be disruptive to family stability.

But there is a good solid scriptural basis for arguing that any practice that does not embody the values of compassion, justice, peacefulness, and mercy is unQur’anic.

When I read the Qur’an, the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Christian Bible, I do not see the Qur’an as particularly bad for women. In all three of these books, if you go looking you can find some things that seem pretty horrible to me.

The book of Deuteronomy tells people to stone to death a woman who does not bleed on her wedding night. The New Testament tells wives to obey their husbands and slaves to obey their masters. “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor.” (Colossians 3:18, 22: 1 Timothy 6:1)

The New Testament also, by the way, has a long passage instructing women to cover their heads.

“I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. … if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; … For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (I Corinthians 11:3, 7; I Corinthians 14:34)

The Qur’an does not ever make such a categorical statement about the cosmological inferiority of women. The New Testament also tells women to keep silence in the church, a teaching I clearly do not accept.

But all three of these books, all three of these traditions, also preach larger values. The Qur’an speaks of compassion and mercy and justice. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The Christian Gospels speak of love and forgiveness. All three speak of humility and gratitude.

To a large degree, I think, people find in their scriptures what they are looking for. If they go looking for a justification for what they already feel and believe, they will find it. The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures can be used to support power structures, hierarchies, and brutality. But all three scriptures also preach compassion, equality before God, and liberation from oppression.

So I do not believe that the oppression of women is intrinsic to Islam any more than it is intrinsic to Christianity or Judaism. It can be found in all three traditions, certainly, but it is not part of their essence.

The harsh oppression of women that we see in some but not all Muslim countries should not, therefore, be laid at the feet of Muhammad and his revelations. Instead, it comes from the larger history of the Muslim world.

History has recently sped up in the Middle East, and I am quite curious to see how gender relations will change in the coming years. I think change is afoot in many ways.