Monotheism (tawḥīd)-as attested to by the cosmos, known through reason, explicated in revelation, and exemplified by the lives of the righteous-forms the core of the Islamic worldview. A conviction in this unadulterated monotheism unifies Muslims across time and place; it is found in the core profession of faith (the shahāda) and is reinforced by thousands of Qur'anic verses and prophetic teachings. Drawing on the Qur'anic discourse, sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad, and select theological works, this Element provides a concise and accessible introduction to the most fundamental concept in Islamic thought. The work explains the nature and attributes of God and examines how tawḥīd informs conceptions of truth, morality, piety, and virtue.

Hundreds of Qur’anic verses pertain to women and girl figures. These figures play pivotal roles in Islamic sacred history, and the Qur’an celebrates the aptitudes of many such figures in the realms of spirituality, politics, and family. Some women are political adversaries of prophets or use their agency in morally corrupt ways; however, the Qur’an presents many more examples of pious women and girls, 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. 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.

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.

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.

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