The wilderness and divine revelation to women : a comparison of Jewish and Islamic understandings of Hagar’s story

Abstract

A woman stands deeply connected to the heart of the wild expanse, alone, overlooked, and without her protectors. In her profound isolation, she reaches out to the Divine and receives an immediate reply. This woman is Hagar. Her lament, her insight, and her designation of God as El Ro’i signify not just endurance but a moment steeped in the sacred. Nevertheless, in the majority of spiritual traditions, Hagar remains a peripheral character, overshadowed by the male prophetic heritage she helped cultivate. This thesis explores her wilderness experience, a liminal realm that bridges her encounter with the divine, where revelation emerges not from prophetic authority but from profound obedience and vulnerability. This exploration presents a mystical and philosophical reinterpretation of Hagar’s narrative as a recipient of divine revelation in the wilderness by weaving together wisdom from Kabbalistic and Sufi worldviews. Through an interpretive journey with both sacred and mystical writings, it explores Hagar juxtaposed with the women within holy tales, such as Yocheved, Maryam, and Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, who come to know revelation amid turmoil, crafting a unique prophetic pattern: existential crisis, divine encounter, and spiritual elevation. By traversing Jewish and Islamic traditions, this thesis honors Hagar not as a mere theological figure but as an embodiment of spiritual richness, whose divine meeting epitomizes a mystical archetype. The wild environment, rather than resembling a barren nothingness, becomes a channel of sacred urgency, an occurrence of what Mircea Eliade termed hierophany. Core to this examination are two fundamental questions: To begin, how does the wilderness operate as a theological domain of revelation within the experience of Hagar? Furthermore, what is the theological significance of reading Hagar’s experience of divine revelation in the wilderness through the mystical frameworks of Judaism and Islam? By exploring her narrative, not just as curious side notes to spiritual beliefs, but also as a vital framework for understanding women’s experience of divine revelation, this thesis asserts that Hagar’s marginality and solitary life might become a vessel of divine essence. In doing so, it rejuvenates Hagar not merely as a historical figure but as a harbinger of theophany, whose spiritual influence transcends the confines of tradition and beckons a reimagining of revelation itself.