OPINION: Using ‘He’ or ‘Him’ for God; Why not ‘She’ or ‘Her’?

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By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

This is an interesting question if one chooses to answer it. It is, at the same time, an answerless question if one chooses to discard it as a silly question. Indeed it is. It is to be noted that it is not a new question being asked by modern man whose mind is very critical. A critical mind is a sound mind. It is good to be critical. That makes man different from robot. Yet, there is limit to critiquing. There is limit to what the mind can critique especially if the critiquing falls within the domain of the Divine. Scholars had answered this question centuries before now. To be clear, scholars did not really debate it. What they did was that they explained and clarified it. This is not a debatable question. It is a question that only needs explanation and clarification.
However, there is no better time to answer such question like now. We are living in an ‘enlightened age’ where attempts are made to look at everything from a gendered lens. That is to say, feminism has become a driving force and a resounding voice on many topical issues. But feminism is laden with some eccentricity (or should I say kookiness) which are objectionable to common sense and sound mind. This is why some gender advocates will not like to identify with feminism.

One of my brilliant students asked—in reaction to my article on Aishatu Binani—if, as a feminist, I will support a woman governorship. I quickly retorted: “I am not a feminist!” It is true that I teach feminism. I do research on feminism. I write on feminism just as I am doing now. This does not make me a feminist. I only study feminism to understand the sense and the nonsense in it. And I don’t understand why a man will be a feminist when the hatred for men is one of the articles of faith in feminism. If you don’t understand why many feminists are husbandless, now you understand.

To borrow from Aishatu Binani, I remain a man. It is only that I refuse to join the bandwagon in approving a blanked demonization of women. Why should I? my mother is a woman (may God have mercy on her); and I don’t know her to be demon. The fact that I love her more than any human beings—existing—, and for her overall positive impacts on me, makes my sense to always be at odd with the notion that women are demons.

It is argued that “some women are not different from demons.” Yes, I agree; to the extent that some men are also not different from demons. Some will add “women are adept at subterfuge.” This is also true of men. What I reject is blanket demonization of women. If anyone says I am advocate of gender equity; that is correct. What about gender equality? Count me out. Inequality is natural. We do not need any religious scholars to tell us this. This is a bit digression from the topic. But the digression is important.

Can we kick-start the discussion on why God should be feminine? Yes, provided we have an established fact to prove that God is masculine. This is why the question of God’s gender sounds blasphemous. In all the religions with revealed books, God has always been replaced with a masculine pronouns not because He is a man but because that is what befits His Majesty.
Note that many languages do not have gender neutral pronouns; though English Language has. So if God is genderless, why can’t His pronoun be “it”? This might make sense to a mind that does not understand the greatness of God. “It”, though a neuter pronoun, connotes lifelessness, imperfection, immaturity, and noncompletion. Could “it”, therefore, be used for God? According to common sense, the answer is NO. That is why in English Language, “it” is used for objects and perhaps baby. The reason being that it (baby) has not developed into a thinking, wise, and intelligent being. So, “it”, despite the fact that God is genderless, does not befit God.

Why “He” since He (God) is not a man? Asking another question will answer this question fittingly. Does “he” always refer to man? Anyone with faint understanding of, and little familiarity with, these two languages—Arabic and English—(like my humble self) knows that “he” is used not only as masculine pronoun but also in situation where gender is unknown. It is in this context that Almighty God uses “He” for Himself as genderless Being.

Let’s give some grammatical examples. “Anyone who comes late will be punished,” is as intelligible as saying “he who comes late will be punished.” It will be grammatically incorrect to say “she who comes late will be punished” if “she” is used to refer to anyone. In this context, “she” is unusable and ungrammatical. Therefore, it will be grammatically absurd to think of God in “she” or “her” terms. Like in Arabic, objects like newspaper, magazine, journal are all in the same category as book. But since Arabic has no neuter pronoun, it employs masculine and feminine pronouns for these objects. Is book more important than the other aforementioned objects? No. But “book” is assigned masculine pronoun while “newspaper”, “magazine” and “journal” are assigned feminine pronoun.

The point here is: the assignment of masculinity or femininity to objects or creatures does not make them superior or inferior. But the societal notion of inferiority of women is driving thoughtless feminists to challenge that designation. This is not wrong in and of itself. It is wrong when that is done blindly such as asking silly questions like why “she” or “her” is not used for God.

What triggers the topic of this article is an attempt by a church in England to launch a project to stop referring to God as “he” after priests asked to be allowed to use gender neutral terms instead. It is clear from the explanation above that Satan must be the chief executor of this project. When mind of man has a satanic touch, it exhibits some kind of madness which makes an actual madman on the street thinks his condition is better. It is really better to be mad than to allow one’s mind to become a playing object for Satan.

I took my time to read some of the reactions in the comment section. Many of the Christian commentators did not disappoint me; they find it nauseating. Some of their reactions are: “It is church of Satan”, “It is anti-Christ in operation”, “It is despicable attempt”, and “It must be condemned” etc. I hope these feminists will learn how to pick their battles meticulously. This isn’t just a lost battle; it is a doomed one. Let’s see how the project will be executed.

The feminists attempted creating a language distinct from the one spoken by men. They failed. Not tired of failure, they want to have a god that will be addressed with “she” and “her” instead of “he” and “him”. I cannot wait to laugh at their failure. Mind you, feminism is of different strands. There are four major strands. Radical feminism is the one I refer to in this article. Feminists in this strand are shameless in their madness.

May God grant us sense, sound reasoning, wisdom and understanding.
Radical Feminists! Be careful!!

Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com

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