In the Qur’an, several verses illustrate a very different conception to that widely circulated nowadays. First we find a central verse in Surah al Nisā’ (Women):
O MANKIND! Be conscious of your Sustainer, who has created you out of one living entity, and out of it created its mate, and out of the two spread abroad a multitude of men and women [...] (al Nisā’ 4: 1)1
It is very important to redefine the terminology used in the Qur’anic text concerning creation, because key words in this verse will be interpreted in the vast majority of cases according to a classical schema of the hierarchizationof human creation. In fact, in classical commentaries the term ‘nafs wahida’ refers to Adam as a masculine being and zawj to his wife.
However, a more structured approach indicates that the term ‘nafs’, which is feminine in Arabic, refers to a range of notions which one can translate according to the meaning of the text, as: person, individual, soul, essence, matter, spirit, or even breath of life.
As for the term ‘zawj’, it refers to both spouses, the pair or, the partner. It is often used to speak indistinguishably of the husband or wife and despite the fact it is grammatically masculine, it can be used both for the man or the woman.2 In the Qur’an, it is often used to speak of a couple, and this, as much when discussing humans as plants or animals. It is what the Qur’an describes in this verse, for example:
And in everything have We created pairs,3 so that you might bear in mind [that God alone is One]. (al-Dhāriyāt 51: 49)4
Nevertheless, a great majority of scholars interpret the term ‘nafs’ as ‘Adam’ as a man or male and the term zawj as ‘wife’, which, according to this logic, reinforces the classical anthropomorphic representation of the origin of human creation. Since Adam is a man, the term ‘zawj’, as referred to by the Qur’an in this verse, refers to the female counterpart, namely Eve or Hawwa. Since the first exegetes drew widely from the pre-Islamic religious heritage in order to support their interpretations, the legend of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib was widely reported and subsequently endorsed by Muslim scholars.
Starting from this assumption and certain supporting hadiths, the classical commentators concluded that Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs.
However, one notes firstly that in the Qur’an, Eve (or Hawwa) is not mentioned by her name. The significance of the term ‘zawj’ or ‘partner’ depends on the meaning of the verse or ‘siyaq al-ayah’. Based on the consistency and the orientation of the verse, the term ‘partner’ can be translated as either the man or the woman and sometimes, as is the case in this central verse, it remains totally abstract, apparently in order to better underline the Divine will to transcend gender when it comes to the first human design.
What’s more, there is no Qur’anic affirmation which specifies that the Adam of this initial creation was male and even less that Eve was drawn from one of his ribs! Some Muslim scholars, both classical and contemporary, question and even refute this type of interpretation which seems to be, according to them, largely influenced by the previous scriptural texts.
These thinkers consider that the term ‘Adam’ is used primarily in the Qur’an in its broadest meaning of ‘human being’ or ‘human kind’. In his various writings, the imam Muḥammad ‘Abdu suggests that Adam also refers to individual, human being, ‘al-insan’ or ‘bashar’. Adam, as he is mentioned in this verse, specifically seems to refer to ‘humanity’ in its entirety, which amounts to saying that in creating Adam, God created the human race, male and female at once, in its initial form.
This reading, which is dubbed reformist to distinguish it from classical approaches, advocates a single unique provenance for humanity, in other words a humanity which emerged from a single matter and same origin. Still within this reformist perspective, the objective of the verse describing creation would be to unequivocally affirm the original equality of all human beings. Unlike the classical reading which translates the term ‘nafs’ by ‘man’ or ‘Adam’ and zawj by ‘Eve’ or ‘the first woman’, the term refers here and according to the perspective of these reformists, to ‘the original essence’, whereas ‘zawj’ refers to ‘partner’, which supports the idea of a full human equality, beyond any considerations based on gender or race. Humanity was thus created from this ‘first entity’ or ‘initial truth’, and through his unique interpretation the definition by Imam Muhammad ‘Abdu who, differs markedly from the classical commentators.
In fact imam ‘Abdu has retained two quite similar versions of the term ‘nafs wahida’. One suggests that this initial entity refers to both sexes, male and female, which will subsequently evolve to produce the two partners and from there, all men and women. The other version considers that nothing in the Qur’an refutes the idea that this initial ‘nafs’ is feminine, a view which is supported by the fact the term ‘nafs’ itself is feminine and that the term ‘zawj’ – masculine – implies husband since, in another verse, it is said:
[…] so that man (zawjaha: ‘her husband’) might incline [with love] towards woman (nafs).5 (al-Aʿrāf 7: 189)
Imam ‘Abdu sees a justification of this reading in the titling of the surah, introduced by this verse, ‘surah al-Nisā’ or ‘The women’. This is a beautiful example of a feminine reading ….
It is clear that based on what some modern commentators have retained and without omitting the part of the occult or ‘ghayb’ which characterizes any sacred text, one can suggest without taking too many risks that, in the Qur’anic version, human creation is not expressed through gender and that ‘the Qur’an indiscriminately uses masculine and feminine words and images, in order to describe creation according to a single origin and substance. It is implicit in a great number of passages of the Qur’an that Allah’s original creation was an undifferentiated humanity, neither man, nor woman’.
It seems, therefore, that God created man and woman simultaneously from a single substance and that these two human beings constitute the gender-based elements of a single, same reality. This corresponds precisely to this notion of dualism of creation, which is referred to several times in the Qur’an:B
And in everything have We created oppos ites, so that you might bear in mind [that God alone is One]. (al-Dhāriyāt 51: 49)
In fact, man and woman as a ‘pair’ or ‘couple’ will confirm the central principle of the Qur’an: the creator is One whereas all of creation is in ‘pairs’. And the term ‘pairs’ itself speaks to the notion of equality at all levels. This reformist reading of human creation seems to be the closest to the Qur’anic message which promotes equality and human equity. One also notes that the entire story of the creation of humanity revolves around the central concept of Unicity or ‘tawḥīd’, which is the very essence of Muslim spirituality.
Nonetheless, it is worth noting that a number of classical exegetes refer to certain hadiths, which refer to women in general, in order to constrain more or less the meaning of the text, in particular that concerning creation, and to extract a particular conception, namely that of a subordinate creation of women! This sadly leads to a religious justification of the structural inferiority of women.
Concerning the hadith taken as reference for the interpretation of the verse on creation, it seems there exists at least three versions, more or less similar, according to which the Prophet describes woman as ‘created from a crooked rib which must not be forced at the risk of breaking it.’6
The study of the Prophetic