If God Isn't a "He," Why Call It a "He?"

From The Cornwall Standard Freeholder (Canada) The God versus Goddess argument Posted By Vakily, Abdollah February 2, 2002 Back in the early eighties, when I was an undergraduate student in Religious Studies, a popular discussion among students and professors centred around whether God was male or female. Those who followed a more traditional outlook argued that God has always presented Himself as male, particularly in Western monotheistic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Yet those whose feminist tendencies were stronger insisted that God must necessarily be female since a male God is less capable of having the tenderness and loving tendencies necessary for a caring, nurturing and forgiving deity. Since this issue periodically reappears and is discussed here and there, I would like to shed some light on Islam's teachings on the nature of God. To begin with, in the Quran the masculine pronoun is used to refer to God and thus one gets the impression that God is a male being. However, a more precise description of God is given in one of the shortest chapters of the Quran called "Sincerity": "Say God is One; God is eternally self-subsistent; He begets not, and neither is He begotten; and there is none like unto Him." (112:1-4) The word translated as "One" is "Ahad," which has a very peculiar characteristic to it. It is not the kind of "One" that could become two be adding another one to it. Rather it is the kind of "One" that is the only one, better understood as "unique". Another connotation of "Ahad" is unity. God as "Ahad" is a being that has united all contradictions and all opposing tendencies in itself. Just as in Taoism's concept of yin and yang, both female and male dimensions are present, united and in constant interaction with each other. To better understand this issue one should look at the 99 names of God presented in the Quran. Each name represents one of the characteristics of God, with Al-Rahman (the Merciful) being the pivotal one. Another characteristic of "Ahad" is that it cannot have any counterpart. If God were a male, it would necessitate the existence of a female deity, and if God were a female it would anticipate the existence of a male deity. But God, as the Creator of everything, is above the male/female polarity that He introduced into creation. This is what is meant by the fourth verse of the above-mentioned chapter, that rather than being a simple polemic against Christianity, it is a clear statement about the particular uniqueness of God. The question comes to mind as to why the Quran refers to God as "He". It should be understood that the language of the Quran is Arabic, which like French uses feminine and masculine pronouns for everything (lacking the neutral pronoun of "it"). Therefore out of necessity God is referred to by one of the pronouns already existing. Moreover, the masculine pronoun for God already existed in the Arabic language and the Quran had to use that tool to convey its message. If the Quran had been revealed in my native language (Persian or Farsi) we could have avoided this problem, since my language has no masculine or feminine pronouns and everything is referred to as "it" including God. Although the discussion of God versus Goddess will probably continue for awhile, the Islamic perspective is that God is above and beyond male and female polarity, and any use of the pronoun "He" is simply a necessity of language convention. Questions and comments can be addressed to Abdollah Vakily at dar-ul-ihsan@sympatico.ca. ************************************************************************************ It should be understood that the language of the Quran is Arabic, which like French uses feminine and masculine pronouns for everything (lacking the neutral pronoun of "it"). Okay then, why not translate the word in such as way that IT does not HAVE a gender - as in "One" or "Ahad"? I think that rendering any concept with a gender specific determinitive is, ipso facto, sexist and a throw-back to patriarchal times when the warrior male god was attempting to overthrow the female goddess. Can't we just get beyond that? Er, evidently, not yet. Language expresses THOUGHT. When the language says HE, the thought becomes HE in the minds of most (if not all) of the hearers and/or readers of that language. If we can just get beyond the HE concept of CREATOR, then we may begin to understand the true depth, awe and wonder of creation, the universe - and - just possibly - chess.