Women who spoke to God

Judaism

“And she called the name of the LORD that spoke unto her, Thou art a God of seeing; for she said: ‘Have I even here seen Him that seeth Me?’”

Genesis 16:13 · JPS 1917

The Hebrew Bible calls several women prophets. Miriam led the women in song and dance after the crossing of the sea (Exodus 15:20–21). Deborah was a prophet and a judge. People came to her for justice under her own palm tree, and her victory song in Judges 5 is among the oldest Hebrew poetry we have. Hannah's song of thanks (1 Samuel 2:1–10) is read in synagogues at the new year.

And Hagar, an Egyptian servant who ran away into the desert, is the only person in the Hebrew Bible to give God a name. She calls Him El Roi, “a God of seeing”.

Christianity

“My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he has looked at the humble state of his servant.”

Luke 1:46–48 · World English Bible (British Edition), public domain

In Luke's Gospel, a young woman in Nazareth hears that she will bear a child and answers with a song. Christians call it the Magnificat and sing it every evening in cathedrals across Britain. In the same Gospel, the elderly prophet Anna prays and fasts in the Temple “night and day” (Luke 2:37).

In the 1370s, Julian of Norwich, a woman who lived walled into a cell beside a church, wrote about visions she had while seriously ill. She saw all of creation as something tiny, “the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand”, which lasts “for that God loveth it”. Her best-known line answers every fear: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” (Revelations of Divine Love, chapters 5 and 27, Warrack's edition, 1901).

Islam

“She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained.”

Qur'an 19:20–21 · Pickthall (1930)

Mary, Maryam, is the only woman named in the Qur'an, and Surah 19 carries her name. It tells how she withdrew from her family and a messenger from God, in human form, came to her with news of a son. Later, alone and in the pains of labour beneath a palm tree, she heard a voice comfort her: do not grieve; there is a stream below you; shake the trunk and fresh dates will fall (19:16–26).

Hajar, Hagar, left with her baby in a dry valley, ran seven times between two hills looking for water until a spring broke out: the well of Zamzam (Bukhari 3364). Every pilgrim to Makkah walks her path. In eighth-century Basra, Rabia al-Adawiyya taught that God should be loved for God alone. A story told about her says she once carried a torch and a bucket of water, to burn paradise and put out hell, so that people would worship God for love alone and not out of hope or fear.

Sikhi

“So why call her bad? From her, kings are born.”

Guru Granth Sahib, ang 473 (so kiau mandaa aakheeai) · our rendering

Mata Khivi, wife of the second Guru, Angad, ran the langar, the free kitchen, and made it famous for its generosity. She is the only woman named with praise in the Guru Granth Sahib (ang 967). Guru Nanak himself challenged the low status of women in his time, asking why anyone would speak ill of the one from whom kings are born.

Hindu traditions

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the philosopher Gargi Vachaknavi questions the great sage Yajnavalkya before a royal court, pressing him about what the whole world is woven on. In sixteenth-century Rajasthan, the poet-princess Mirabai gave up palace life for devotion to Krishna. Her songs are still sung across India.

Beyond the Abrahamic faiths

The Therigatha, ‘verses of the elder nuns’, keeps the poems of some of the Buddha's first women followers. It is one of the oldest collections of poetry by women anywhere in the world.