Mary and Jesus in Islam

Jesus and Mary Leave For Egypt

Jesus was born forty-two years after the ascension of Augustus[^1] [of the Roman Empire], fifty-one years after the king of the Ashkanites[^2], kings of the sects, had passed away. Today's Syria and its surrounding areas were under the authority of Caesar of Rome who had appointed Herod[^3] as the king on his behalf. When Herod, who was ruling over the areas then inhabited by the Children of Israel, came to know the story of the Messiah, he wanted to kill him. The Children of Israel saw a star according to whose appearance they, utilizing their books, calculated the date of his birth. Allah sent an angel to Joseph the

[^1] “Augustus” is his title which means “revered.” His name was Octavius or Caius Octavius, and he lived from 63 B.C. to 14 A.D. He was a contemporary of Jesus Christ and a grand nephew of Julius Caesar. He also was the first Roman emperor. (Caius) Julius Caesar (102 B.C. - 44 B.C.), who extended Rome's control to France (then land of the Gauls, original inhabitants of the France before Celtic Germanic tribes kicked them out and occupied their land in the third century B.C.) and Britain, adopted him and named him Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. After his (Caesar's)

assassination, Augustus gained power in Rome. In 31 B.C., he defeated Queen Cleopatra of Egypt (69 B.C. - 31 B.C.) at Actium, Greece, on September 2, 31 B.C. It was then that he became master of the Roman world.

[^2] Or Ashkenazim, one of the two major Jewish sects; the other is the Sephardim.

[^3] It was through Marc Antony (83 B.C. - 30 B.C.), a protege of Julius Caesar, that Herod (or Herod the Great) secured such a position which he maintained from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. In his last years, he fell a victim to insanity, executing his sons Aristobulus, Alexander, and Antipater. He is the one who ordered the mass massacre of children.

(62)

carpenter to warn him against Herod and his evil scheme, ordering him to flee with the boy and his mother to Egypt and to return once Herod was dead. Joseph transported Mary and her son on a donkey till they reached a place in Egypt to which the Almighty refers in this verse: “And We made the son of Mary and his mother a sign, and We gave them a shelter on a lofty ground having meadows and springs” (Qur'an, 23:50).