The Quran Speaks About Virgin Mary

The Quran Speaks about Virgin Mary The Sūrah, named after Virgin Mary, was revealed prior to the first emigration of Muslims from Makkah to Ethiopia/Ĥabasha in Year 615. It takes its title from Āyah 16. Āyāt 01-40 are reported to have been recited by Ja'far bin Abū Tālib in the court of Emperor/Negus Ashama when he called the migrants to explain Islām’s perspective on Mary and her son Jesus.

Besides Jesus, the Sūrah covers Zachariah, Yaĥya/John, Abraham followed by brief references to Isaac, Israel/Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Ishmael, Idrīs/Enoch, Adam and Noah – all intended to impress the point that Muĥammad preached the same Faith that had been preached by his predecessor Prophets, and they and their followers faced long battles with falsehood, rejection, mockery and persecution. But ultimately the truth prevailed.

The central theme focuses on Allāh’s Unity and Uniqueness, firmly rejects all concepts and fallacies about assigning a child or a partner to Him. It also touches on the important issue of the Resurrection. Note the message of following Āyāt: Jesus said: Allāh is surely my Lord and your Lord. Worship Him alone. That is the only Right Approach to Salvation.

Abraham said: Do not worship the Satan: every act of submission that runs counter to truth, reason and morality. The Satan has always been disobedient to the Lord.

The people who neglect Prayers and pursue passions and lusts, thus become negligent of their duty to Allāh, We shall drag them and bring them around the hell, kneeling.

We made the Qur’ān easy to read and understand, so that you may give with it good news to those who are conscious of Allāh in their actions and affairs, and a warning to those who are given to futile contention.

Allāh makes those excel in guidance who regularly seek His Guidance.

The Sūrah constitutes a part of Chapter Sixteen.

I seek Allāh’s protection from the Satanic, accursed and evil forces - both within the human soul and social environment.

I/We start with the Name of Allāh who is the Infinitely Merciful and the Ever-Compassionate.

19:16 a. O Prophet Muĥammad! b. And relate the narrative of Mary – a young, saintly, virgin lady - through this Divine Book. c. 66:12 presents Mary as one of the two exemplary ladies, the other being the wife of Pharaoh. d. Prophet Muĥammad, ALLAH bless him always, is reported by al-Bokhāri to have mentioned her as one of the four greatest ladies, the other three being: ‘Āsiyā, the wife of Pharaoh; Khadījah and Fāţimah – Prophet’s wife and daughter, respectively. e. When she isolated herself from her family to the place east of the Temple to which she had been dedicated by her mother - 03:35-37, and where she would remain in spiritual meditation and solitude. f. This signifies the practice of the Christians facing eastward when offering prayers and revere the eastern direction: Ezekiel 43:04.

19:17 a. Then she set up a screen to veil herself from them for purposes of religious devotion and meditation. b. WE, then, sent OUR angel-envoy to her, and it took on the shape of a human in all similarity, as 06:09 implies that humans cannot perceive an angel in its true manifestation, ALLAH thus caused him to appear to Mary in a shape familiar to her perception.

19:18 a. Mary seemed to have become shaken and startled by a stranger’s sudden appearance in her place of seclusion, and in panic she screamed: b. Go away. 'Truly I seek protection of AL-RAĤMAN, the Lord of Infinite Mercy, against your evil designs. c. Do not come near me if you have any fear of HIM' and abstain from committing any evil.

19:19 a. The angel-envoy sought to calm her by saying: b. 'I am only an angel-envoy of your RABB – the Lord Supreme, c. and I have been sent to announce to you a boy/son to be born of you, most righteous, pure. d. Angel-envoys had also appeared in human form before this event to Abraham and Lot - 15:5265.

19:20 a. She was shocked and said: b. 'How and from where shall I have a boy/son, when I am not even married and no human has ever touched me, c. and, also I have never been involved in indecent act, and I am not unchaste?'

19:21 a. The angel-envoy replied: b. 'So it shall be’ even if you are not married and no human has ever touched you.

c. Thus said your RABB – the Lord Supreme: 'It is insignificant for ME, WE shall do this, and you shall have a son – see also 21:91 and 66:12 - as WE cause events to happen which may otherwise be inconceivable before they actually materialize.

d. And WE shall make him an Exemplary Symbol for the humankind of OUR Power on account of his birth without a father while Adam and Eve (Ĥawwā in Arabic) were a greater symbol who were born without both parents, and a blessing from US for assigning him the Prophethood. e. And this is matter already decided.’

19:22 a. So in due course she was pregnant with him, b. then she went to deliver him to a distant place.

19:23 a. And when severities of labor pains drove her to cling to the trunk of a date-palm tree, thus stressing the natural, normal circumstances of this childbirth,

b. in her anguish she cried out: c. 'Ooh, I wish I had died before this, and I had been the one who was forgotten, completely forgotten’ long before all this.

19:24 a. Then a voice called her out from underneath her, or from beneath the date-palm tree: b. ' Do not feel grieved! c. Surly Your RABB – the Lord Supreme has caused a little stream to flow below you. See also 23:50.

19:25 a. So if you shake the trunk of the date-palm tree towards you, b. and it will cause fresh and ripe dates fall down by you – thus the popular perception among the Christians that Jesus was born in winters is repudiated. It was the time of late summers when fresh ripe dates are found on palm-trees in Nazareth/Bethlehem.

19:26 a. So eat of fresh and ripe dates, and drink of fresh stream water, and soothe your eyes, i.e., refresh yourself. b. And if you happen to see any human being, then abstain from conversing, and convey by way of signal/gesture, not words - as in 19:11 c. 'I have declared a Fast to AL-RAĤMAN, the Lord of Infinite Mercy, to abstain from conversing, so I shall not talk today to any human being.’

19:27 a. Then the baby-boy was born and after she was healed of childbirth, she came back with him to her people, holding him in her arms. b. They were shocked to see the baby-boy and accused her of being unchaste saying: c. 'O Mary! d. Indeed, you have come with a totally unprecedented and unbelievable thing!

19:28

a. O Sister of Aaron! – a reference to her lineage as she was of the Leviticus ethnicity and was a cousin of Elisabeth, the wife of Zachariah, hence she descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses. b. Your father was not an insolent or a morally weak person, and your mother too was never unchaste!'

19:29 a. Thereupon she pointed at him - the baby-boy – signifying that they should speak to him. b. They agitated and reacted angrily: c. 'How shall we converse with the one who is as yet in cradle, an infant?'

19:30 a. With allegations and insinuations all around, Jesus, the baby-boy spoke on his own:

b. 'Indeed, I am a Servant of ALLAH – the One God. c. HE has already decreed that HE would grant me the Book of Divine Revelations, and would make me a Prophet. See also 03:46 and 05:110.

19:31 a. And HE has made me the one who would be blessed wherever I may be; b. and HE has mandated me with establishing the Prayer, and paying out the Zakāt and to preach and enjoin the same on others, so long as I live.

19:32 a. And likewise, HE has made me kind and dutiful to my mother, thus explicitly refuting the one Christian hypothesis that he had a father by the name of Joseph, the carpenter; b. and HE has not made me a domineering tyrant, who is devoid of gracious behavior.

19:33 a. And blessings of ALLAH be on me - the day I was born, b. and blessings be on me the day I die, c. and blessings shall be on me the day I shall be resurrected alive.' d. Statements 19:30-33 may also be understood as having been uttered by Jesus at a much later time, i.e. after he had reached maturity and been actually ordered to preach openly his prophetic mission and received the Injīl. However, both scenarios affirm Jesus’ full humanness, not divinity. e. See also 03:59 ‘Jesus is before ALLAH like Adam. HE created him from dust, then said to him: Be! And he was.’

19:34 a. This was Jesus, the son of Mary. b. A Word of the Truth, about the nature of which they doubt and contest - an allusion to the Christian slanderous belief that he was the son of God and, therefore, God incarnate. See also 03:59; 04:156.

19:35 a. It is inconceivable and not befitting to the Majesty of ALLAH – the One God - to have a son/child. b. Pure and Exalted is HE. See also 02:116.

c. Whenever HE commands a thing to be, d. HE only says to it, ‘Be,’ and, then, it comes to be. See also 03:59.

19:36 a. And thus it was Jesus who always said: b. Truly ALLAH is my RABB – the Lord Supreme, and your RABB – the Lord Supreme; c. so worship no entity or being, real or myth, but HIM alone. d. That is the only Right Approach to Salvation. See also 03:51 and 43:64. e. Injīl contains several references rejecting the notion of divinity of Jesus; see for example, Mathew 07:21states ‘None of those who call me Lord will enter the Kingdom of God…;’ Mark 12:29 records ‘The most important one is this. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one;’ see also John 05:30, 07:16 and 28-29, 13:20, 14:20, 20:17; Mark 09:37, 10:17-18; Mathew 07:21, 10:40, 19:16-17; etc.

19:37 a. Yet the various factions among the Jews and the Christians who differ among themselves about Jesus: the former rejecting him, and the later deifying him. b. So woe to all those men and women, young and old, who disbelieve Jesus’ humanness, when that Dreadful Day arrives and they appear before US.