Compassion as authority: re-reading raḥmah and gender in Qur’anic discourse

This article re-examines the Qur’anic concept of raḥmah (mercy/compassion) through a feminist hermeneutical framework, situating gender within the Qur’an’s broader theology of human diversity. Beginning from verses that foreground plurality as a deliberate feature of divine creation (e.g. 49:13; 30:22), the study argues that hierarchical gender constructions emerge not from the ethical core of the text but from historically situated patriarchal interpretive traditions. Through close textual analysis of selected verses (21:107, 2:253, 31:14, and 46:15), the article explores how raḥmah operates as a foundational ethical principle structuring both divine–human and social relations. Rather than essentializing maternal imagery, the analysis treats the Qur’anic association between raḥmah and the womb (raḥm) as a symbolic and discursive resource that foregrounds relational care as constitutive of moral authority. By re-reading prophetic mercy—especially the depiction of Muhammad as ‘a mercy to the worlds’, the article proposes that compassion offers an alternative paradigm of leadership that destabilises masculinist models grounded in hierarchy and control. Engaging Islamic feminist scholarship and broader debates on care ethics, the study demonstrates how centring compassion within Qur’anic interpretation opens conceptual space for non-hierarchical and relationally grounded understandings of gender justice.