<![CDATA[Women’s leadership in Islam remains contested because patriarchal interpretations associate leadership authority with men, raising questions concerning gender equality, women’s agency, and leadership legitimacy. This study aims to analyze the legitimacy of women’s leadership in the Qur’anic narrative of Queen Balqis, reconstruct Aisha’s authority and agency, and compare the two through Amina Wadud’s gender hermeneutics. This qualitative literature-based study examines Qur’an 27:23–44 (Al-Naml), Qur’an 25:74 (Al-Furqan), literature on Aisha’s authority, and Amina Wadud’s thought. The data were analyzed textually, historically, and comparatively by considering historical context, grammatical structure, the Qur’anic worldview of tawhid, sources of legitimacy, forms of authority, spheres of agency, and leadership orientations. The study produced three findings. First, the Qur’an positions men and women as equal moral subjects and portrays Balqis as a deliberative, diplomatic, protective, and truth-oriented leader. Second, Aisha demonstrated multidimensional authority through the acquisition and transmission of knowledge, teaching, religious criticism, domestic partnership, advocacy for women, and sociopolitical participation. Third, the comparison generated two leadership typologies: Balqis’s political-deliberative leadership and Aisha’s epistemic-relational leadership. These findings demonstrate that the legitimacy of women’s leadership in the examined sources rests on agency, competence, integrity, piety, responsibility, and the public good rather than gender identity. This study contributes a multidimensional typology of women’s leadership and provides a conceptual foundation for Islamic education, expanded access to leadership, and the development of institutions free from gender discrimination.]]>
