53:20-21

53:20-21

53:20

And another, the third (goddess), Manat?

53:21

What! for you the male sex, and for Him, the female?

Representing God in human form or attributing sons and daughters to Him constitutes a diminishment of the divine transcendence and majesty. Such portrayals imply a resemblance between the Creator and created beings, which conflicts with the Islamic understanding of God as utterly exalted above all creation. Even when divine figures are depicted with beauty or grandeur, as seen in the anthropomorphic deities of the Greek pantheon, these representations remain inconsistent with the concept of God’s absolute transcendence (Ali).

This issue becomes even more problematic within the historical context of pre-Islamic Arabian society, where women were often held in low social regard. In that cultural setting, attributing daughters to God—while simultaneously devaluing women in society—reflected a contradiction that further degraded the divine conception. From the Qur’ānic perspective, assigning female offspring to God not only perpetuated anthropomorphic ideas about the divine but also exposed the inconsistency of a culture that disparaged daughters while claiming them as attributes of God (Ali).

References:

Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. Translation and Commentary of the Quran. (surah 53 verse 21)