Mary and Jesus in Islam

Maryam (mary) Daughter of `imran (amram)

Allah Almighty has said the following in the Holy Qur'an:

Surely Allah favored Adam and Noah and the descendants of Abraham and the descendants of `Imran over the nations: offspring, one from the other, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing. `Imran's woman said: Lord! Surely I vow to dedicate to You what is in my womb, to be devoted (to Your service); accept, therefore, from me; surely You are the Hearing, the Knowing. So when she gave birth to her, she said: Lord! Surely I have given birth to a female__and Allah knew best what she had given birth to__and the male is not like the female;

I have named her Maryam, and I commend her and her offspring into Your protection from Satan the accursed. So her Lord accepted her with a good acceptance and made her grow up a good growth and gave her into the charge of Zakariyya (Zacharias). Whenever Zakariyya entered the sanctuary (to see her), he found with her food. He said: O Maryam! Whence comes this to you? She said: It is from Allah. Surely Allah bestows His grants unto whomsoever He pleases without measure. (3:33-37)

Scholars have said that Mary's mother was Hanna daughter of Faqooth, grandmother of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. Ibn `Abbas has said that `Imran (Amram) is the son of Mathan. There is no kinship between him and `Imran father of Moses since one thousand and eight hundred years separate one from the other.

(46)

The descendants of Mathan were the chiefs of the Children of Israel; they were their rabbis and kings. Muhammed ibn Ishaq[^1] has said, “He is `Imran son of Sahim son of `Amoor son of Meeshan son of Izekiel son of Aharef son of Baoom son of Izarya son of Amsiy son of Nawoos son of Nootha son of Baridh son of Yehusha Faz son of Radim son of Abiyya son of Rehobom son of Solomon son of David, peace be upon him.” Zakariyya[^2] (Zacharias or Zachary) son of Barkhiya and `Imran son of Mathan were married to sisters. One of those sisters was the wife of Zakariyya son of Barkhiya, namely Eisha (Elizabeth) daughter of Faqooth, Yahya's mother. The other was the wife of `Imran: Hanna daughter of Faqooth, Maryam's mother.

Hanna had almost lost hope of having a son when she became very old. Hers was a family upon whom Allah had bestowed His favors and whom He held in high esteem. While she was sitting under a tree, she saw a mother bird feeding her chicks. The instinct of motherhood stirred within her, and she invoked Allah Almighty to grant her a son. She, as the Holy Qur'an tells us, said, “Lord! Surely I vow to dedicate to You what is in my womb to be devoted (to Your service)” (Qur'an, 3:35), that is, that her child would be free from the bondage of this life and its entanglements, and he will dedicate his time for the worship of Allah and for the service of His cause. It was the custom then to bring such a dedicated person to Jerusalem to worship Allah and to serve His creed.

[^1] Abu Bakr Muhammed ibn Ishaq (d. 151 A.H./768 A.D.) is a well known scholar from Medina who was contemporary to the `Abbaside ruler Abu Ja`fer Abdullah al-Mansur who came to power in June 754 A.D./Thul-Hijjah 136 A.H. and who commissioned ibn Ishaq to write the very first complete biography of Prophet Muhammed. His work, however, which became the basis of Ibn Hisham's Seerat, had to be continued by Muhammed ibn Omer al-Waqidi (747 - 822 A.D./129 - 206 A.H.), mentor of Muhammed al-Zuhri, better known as Ibn Sa`d, who died in 230 A.H./845 A.D. and who is a traditionist and a historian born in Bas,.rah and died in Baghdad. Ibn Sa`d's most famous work is Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, or Tabaqat Ibn Sa`d.

[^2] Zacharias was father of John the Baptist (prophet Yahya). His name in Hebrew is Zachariah, the same as it is in Arabic. “Zakariyya” is a variation of it.

(47)

Always males, those dedicated servants of Jerusalem were not expected to leave the house of worship till they reached their adolescence. Once one of them reached his adolescence, he would be given the choice to either stay or go wherever he wanted. There was hardly any family among the Children of Israel that did not make such a dedication. Only boys were dedicated; girls would not be fit for such a service due to the menstruation and the inconvenience associated with it. But Maryam's mother had already made that dedication, so her husband `Imran said to her, “Look what you have done! Did you consider the possibility that you were big with a female, and the female is not fit for such a dedication?” He was quite distressed. `Imran died while his wife was pregnant with Maryam.

When she delivered, she found out that her child was a girl. She had prayed for a son. Seeking to apologize to Allah Almighty, she said, “Lord! Surely I have given birth to a female, and the male is not like the female,” that is, she is not fit for the service of the house of worship in Jerusalem due to her weakness and menstruation. She named her Maryam (Mary). In their tongue, it meant “the worshipper,” the one who serves her Lord. Maryam was the most beautiful of all her contemporary ladies and her conduct was the very best.

The Messenger of Allah is quoted as having said, “Four among the women of mankind are most cherished: Maryam daughter of `Imran, Asiya wife of Pharaoh, Khadija daughter of Khuwaylid (wife of [^1] Her full name is: Khadija daughter of Khuwaylid son of Asad son of Abdul-`Uzza son of Qusayy, of the clan of Banu Hashim, of the tribe of Banu Asad. Qusayy was the ancestor of all clans belonging to Quraysh, Prophet Muhammed's tribe. Quraysh's real name was Fahr, and he was son of Malik son of Mad,.ar son of Kananah son of Khuzaimah son of Mudrikah son of Ilyas son of Maz,.ar son of Nazar son of Ma`ad son of `Adnan son of prophet Ishmael son of prophet Abraham son of prophet Sam son of prophet Noah. Khadija was born in 565 A.D.

and, according to a number of historians, died in 623 A.D. at the age of 58. Her mother, a distant relative of Prophet Muhammed, was Fat,.ima daughter of Za'idah son of al-Asam, of Banu Amir son of Luayy son of Ghalib. Her mother's date of birth is not known but historians say that she died in or around 575 A.D. Khadija's father, Khuwaylid, belonged to the `Abd al-`Uzza clan of the tribe of Quraysh. He died in 585 A.D. Needless to say, Khadija, through both of her parents, was a distant cousin of Prophet Muhammed who also belonged to Banu Hashim. I included my research of the life

(48)

Prophet Muhammed), and Fat,.ima daughter of Muhammed.” She continued to implore her Lord saying that she sought refuge with Him on her behalf to forbid Satan the accursed from having any access to her progeny. The Messenger of Allah is also quoted as saying, “There is no infant born except that Satan would touch it, so it would scream because of such a touch, except Maryam and her son.” It is recommended to recite the following verse at the birth of any newborn female: “... and I commend her and her offspring into Your protection from Satan the accursed” (Qur'an, 3:36).

Shu`ayb ibn Muhammed, according to his chain of narrators, has said, “Every human being is hit by Satan on the side at birth except Jesus and his mother, peace be upon them. A barrier was placed to protect them. Satan could not penetrate it; therefore, they were not harmed.” Neither one of them committed any of the sins commonly committed by humans. Allah Almighty has said, “So her Lord accepted her with a good acceptance and made her grow up a good growth” (Qur'an, 3:37). The meaning of this verse is that He created her without any increase or decrease of her physique, so she was growing during a short period as much as an ordinary infant would grow during quite a lengthy one.

When Maryam was born, her mother Hanna carried her to the temple. The descendants of Aaron, who then numbered thirty, looked after the temple at Jerusalem in the same zeal the caretakers look after the Ka`ba. They placed her in the hands of the rabbis. She said to them, “Do look after this dedicated infant,” whereupon they competed with one another in looking after her since she was the daughter of their leader. Zakariyya said to them, “I am more worthy of her than you since her aunt lives in my house.” The rabbis said, “We shall not let you decide that, for if she were to be left with the person who is most worthy of her and her nearest in kin, she should have been left with her mother who gave birth to her. But we shall cast the lots about her, and she will be looked after by the one whose arrow wins.” They agreed to do so.

of this great lady, the events involving her marriage with Prophet Muhammed, as well as the chronology of her past marriages and offspring, in my best work yet titled Allah: The Concept of God in Islam which was published in 1418 A.H./1997 by Ansariyan Publications.

(49)

Nineteen men came to the Jordan River. They threw their arrows, or their pens whereby they used to write the Torah, in the water. The pen or arrow belonging to Zakariyya surfaced over the water while the rest were submerged. Ibn Ishaq and a group of other scholars, including al-Suddi, have all said that Zakariyya's pen pierced the water and stood up in it as though its water were mud, while their pens were washed away by the tide. Allah Almighty has said, “You were not with them when they cast their pens (to decide) which of them should have Maryam in his charge” (Qur'an, 3:44). Thus did Zakariyya, who was their high rabbi and prophet, win, and this is why Allah Almighty has said that Zakariyya took custody of and looked after her.

Muhammed ibn Ishaq has said, “When Zakariyya took charge of her, he gave her to her aunt, Yahya's mother, and asked her to nurse her till she reached womanhood. It was then that he built a room for her in his mosque to be her sanctuary, placing its door in the middle.” Whenever he entered to see her, he noticed that she had unseasonable fruits, that is, summer fruits were with her during the winter, and vice versa, so he would ask her where she had received them from, and she would say that they were from Allah, from the fruits of Paradise.

Muhammed ibn Ishaq has also said that the Children of Israel were then inflicted with a famine, yet she kept receiving her sustenance thus, as Zakariyya was becoming increasingly unable to look after her. He, therefore, went out to the Children of Israel and said, “O Children of Israel! You know, by Allah, that I have become quite old and too weak to look after the daughter of `Imran; so, which one of you will look after her when I am gone?” They said, “By Allah we, too, are worn out and are in difficulty as you can see.” Each one of them would recommend to the other to be the one to look after her, and they kept doing so till they did not find anyone ready to do it.

They decided to cast their lots this time too, and the arrow this time came to be that of a righteous carpenter from among the Children of Israel named Joseph son of Jacob son of Matan, and he was Maryam's cousin. So he took her. Maryam saw in his face the weight of the burden, whereupon she said to him, “O Joseph! Think well of Allah, for He will sustain us.” Joseph started receiving sustenance on account of her, and he would bring her every day of what he had earned to take care of her needs. Whenever he brought it to her and she was in the house of worship at

(50)

Jerusalem, Allah would multiply it for him and increase it. Whenever Zakariyya entered to see her, he used to see a remnant of sustenance that was more than what Joseph had brought her, hence his question to her, “O Mary! Whence comes this to you? She said: It is from Allah. Surely Allah gives to whomsoever He pleases without measure” (Qur'an, 3:37).

Christians have for years been debating about Mary, whether she was the “mother of God,” as some call her, or whether she was an ordinary pious lady. We do not wish to contribute to such a debate, preferring to leave them wandering forever in their wilderness as they please...