Document Type : Original Article
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Religions and Mysticism, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran.
10.22108/coth.2026.147062.2054
Abstract
One of the most fundamental ontological dualisms in the thought of Muslim mystics is the dualism of body and soul, taking a central position among other mystical dualisms. Throughout the history of ideas, this dualism has, from its earliest formulations, assumed symbolic gendered representations. The present study employs an analytical approach to examine this dualism and its gendered construction, demonstrating how it has been symbolically gendered and exploring the relationship that Muslim mystics established between sex and gender. The findings indicate that Muslim mystics either denied the existence of female semen, regarding woman merely as the recipient of the male seed, or attributed only a negligible and inferior role to the female contribution in human reproduction. Accordingly, every human being is born with a dual-gendered constitution, possessing two opposing sets of qualities: femininity, inherited from the body or the mother, and masculinity, inherited from the soul or the father. Even in perspectives that assign women a preliminary role as the locus of God's self-disclosure, enabling men to attain gnosis, women nevertheless remain associated with nature and the passive principle. Alongside prevailing cultural assumptions and commonly held beliefs, the experiential knowledge of the mystics also profoundly shaped their views on this matter. However, Abu al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī presents a distinctive position. According to him, women and men contribute equally through their respective reproductive seed. Unlike other mystics, he interprets gender in the Qur'anic verses not as the body–soul dualism, thereby placing women and men on an equal ontological footing.
Keywords
Main Subjects
)