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Qurʾān > Mary

Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān

Mary
(4,652 words)

Mary (Ar. Maryam) the mother of Jesus (q.v.; ʿĪsā) is the

most prominent female gure in the Qurʾān and the only Article Table of Contents
one identi ed by name (see ʾ ).
Mary, Zechariah, Jesus, and
Her story is related in three Meccan sūras (19, 21, 23) and
John
four Medinan sūras (3, 4, 5, 66; see
ʾ ), and the nineteenth sūra, Sūrat Maryam, is Mary's birth and service in
the temple
named for her. Overall, there are seventy verses that refer
to her and she is named speci cally in thirty-four of these Mary's rank and puri cation
(Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 162). According to the God's spirit ( rūḥ) and a word
qurʾānic accounts, signs of divine favor surrounded her (kalima) from God: Mary and
from birth. As a young woman, she received the angels' the birth of Jesus
(see ) message that God had chosen her and Membership in the created
puri ed her, chosen her above the women of the worlds, order
followed by their annunciation of a child born from God's Mary and Eve
spirit (q.v.), a word from God (see ) cast Bibliography
into Mary, whose name was Jesus son of Mary, the
“anointed one” or Messiah, one of God's righteous
prophets (see ). The
qurʾānic revelation celebrates Mary as an example for the believers because of her chastity
(q.v.), obedience (q.v.) and faith (q.v.); it also a rms God's oneness by emphasizing the created
nature of Mary and of her son Jesus (see ; ).

¶
Mary, Zechariah, Jesus, and John
In sūras 3, 19 and 21, Mary's story is intertwined with that of her guardian, the prophet
Zechariah (q.v.; Zakariyyā). In sūras 19 and 21, the accounts of Zechariah's prayer for a child in
old age and the glad tidings of the birth of John (Yaḥyā; 19:2-15; 21:89-90; see
; ) directly precede the passages on Mary's sinless conception of the
prophet Jesus ( 19:16-35; 21:91; see ). In sūra 3, however, Zechariah's story (
3:38-41) is inserted between the verses on Mary's birth and childhood ( 3:33-7) and the
angels' message to Mary of God's special grace (q.v.) upon her, followed by their annunciation
of the birth and prophethood of Jesus ( 3:42-51). The angels' words announcing the birth of
John to Zechariah ( 3:39) are almost identical with those on the birth of Jesus to Mary (
3:45); and Zechariah's ( 3:40) and Mary's ( 3:47) questioning of the message, and the divine,
or angelic, a rmation of God's omnipotence to Zechariah ( 3:40) and Mary ( 3:47) also bear
strong similarities. Furthermore, the wording of God's praise and blessing on John ( 19:12-5) is
almost identical with Jesus' words of blessing about himself, spoken in the cradle ( 19:30-3;
see ʾ ).

This close association between the gures of Zechariah and Mary on the one hand and those of
John and Jesus on the other establishes a special place for Mary in the qurʾānic context of
prophetic history. Some medieval Muslim theologians (see ʾ )—
especially of the short-lived Ẓāhirī school, such as Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba (d. 456/1064) — even
assigned the rank of “prophethood” (nubuwwa), as opposed to “messengerhood,” (risāla, see
) to Mary and also the mothers of Isaac (q.v.) and Moses (q.v.) ¶ and the wife of
Pharaoh (q.v.). They justi ed this classi cation on the grounds that these women received
knowledge (see ) from God through word or inspiration (Ibn
Ḥazm, Milal, 119-21; see ). Consensus-based Sunnī theology,
however, strongly rejected this position as a heretical innovation (q.v.; bidʿa, see also ).

Mary's birth and service in the temple

The story of Mary's birth, early life in the temple, and divinely-decreed superior rank is related
in sūra 3, revealed in Medina (q.v.). The qurʾānic verses a rm that Mary's special status began
even before she was born. God privileged Adam (see ), Noah (q.v.), the family of
Abraham (q.v.) and the family of ʿImrān (q.v.) with special status ( 3:33). Before giving birth to
Mary, her mother, the wife of ʿImrān, consecrated her unborn child to God's service (assuming
that she was carrying a boy). Seeing that the baby was a girl, and knowing that service in the
temple was a male prerogative, she was bewildered, since God had accepted the o fering even
though the child was female (see ).

ʿImrān's wife named her daughter Mary and invoked God's protection (q.v.) upon her and her
o fspring against Satan ( 3:35-6; see ). God accepted Mary graciously and made her
grow up in a goodly manner, placing her in the charge of Zechariah ( 3:37). Whenever
Zechariah would enter upon her in her prayer room, he found miraculous sustenance with
which God had provided her ( 3:37). According to authenticated tradition, it was because of
her mother's prayer for God's protection that both Mary and her son Jesus escaped “the
pricking of the devil” at birth, which happens to all other human beings and is the reason why
babies ¶ cry when they are born (Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 370-1, 461).

The exegetical literature ( tafsīr, see ʾ : ) and

the genre of literature known as “tales of the prophets” ( qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ) further relate that
Mary grew up in the temple where she worshiped day and night until her unequalled piety
(q.v.) and righteousness became known among the Israelites (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vi, 402-3; see
; ). She lived in the miḥrāb, a secluded cell or upstairs
chamber; the door to this chamber was always locked and only Zechariah had the key. He
would lock her into the room but, as noted above, whenever he visited her, he found wondrous
provisions: winter fruit during summer time and summer fruit during winter time (Ṭabarī,
Tafsīr, vi, 353-8; Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 328; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 373, 385; Baljon, Koran interpretations, 22,
65-6). Among the people who served with Mary in the temple, mention is made of Joseph, a
carpenter, who is sometimes identi ed as Joseph son of Jacob and/or Mary's cousin on her
mother's side (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xvi, 49-50; Rāzī, Tafsīr, xxi, 202; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, 388, 390).

Mary's rank and puri cation

Following four verses that tell of the tidings to Zechariah of John's birth ( 3:38-41), the
relevant verses of sūra 3 further pursue the theme of God's special favor on Mary: (1) in the
words of the angels, “God has chosen you and puri ed you and chosen you above the women of
the worlds” ( 3:42); (2) their exhortation to be “devoutly obedient toward your lord (q.v.),
prostrate yourself, and bow down with those who bow down” ( 3:43; see
); and (3) an indication that the right to her guardianship was settled by the
casting of lots among quarrelling contestants ( 3:44; see ). ¶ Exegesis has
interpreted the “ rst choosing” in 3:42 (i.e. the rst item in this tripartite divine message to
Mary) as God's acceptance of Mary for his service, providing her in the temple with sustenance
that freed her from all labor (see ) and granting her the ability to hear the
angels' words. The “second choosing” (i.e. the third item in this divine message) is said to have
consisted in God's gift of Jesus without a father, the child's words in Mary's defense from the
cradle, the status of Mary and Jesus as a sign or miracle (q.v.; āya, see also ) for the world
and God's guidance of Mary (Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, i, 277; Rāzī, Tafsīr, viii, 45-6; Bayḍāwī,
Anwār, i, 155).

On the question of Mary's rank above the women of the worlds, the exegetical debate is
remarkable both for its intensity and the lack of consensus. At stake is Mary's ranking among
the qurʾānic women gures but also, and perhaps more importantly, in relation to the elite
women of Islam, especially the Prophet's wives Khadīja (q.v.) and ʿĀʾisha (see ʿ ʾ
) and his daughter Fāṭima (q.v.). The problem is addressed by questioning whether Mary's
preeminence is absolute (over all other women and for all times) or relative (over the women
of her own time). The larger number of traditions recorded in tafsīr and qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ
literature establish, on the authority of the Prophet (see ʾ ), that Mary
and Fāṭima, Khadīja and Āsya (the Pharaoh's wife) are the best women of the world and also
the ruling females in heaven (see ; ); traditions on ʿĀʾisha's
inclusion in this group are fewer in number. While Āsya's and Mary's merit is established on
the basis of 66:11-2, Khadīja's merit is seen in her great service to the Prophet's mission, and
that of ʿĀʾisha in her status as Muḥammad's most beloved wife (see ¶ )
and a prominent authority on his legacy after his death (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vi, 393-400; Rāzī, Tafsīr,
viii, 45-6; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 375-81; Rashīd Riḍā, Manār, iii, 300). According to some qiṣaṣ al-
anbiyāʾ reports, Mary and Āsya, Khadīja and ʿĀʾisha share the privilege of being Muḥammad's
wifely consorts in paradise (q.v.; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 375-83; see ).

This leaves the question of Mary's ranking in relation to the Prophet's daughter Fāṭima. In
Muslim piety, especially Shīʿī piety (see ʿ ʾ ), the gures of Mary and
Fāṭima are closely associated. Mary was one of four miraculous midwives who assisted Khadīja
in Fāṭima's birth (McAuli fe, Chosen of all women, 26-7), Mary appeared to Fāṭima to console
her during her last illness (Ayoub, Redemptive su fering, 50), both were visited by angels, and
both received miraculous sustenance during childhood and the periods of isolation preceding
the birth of their child, or children. Their association also involves attribution to both of a
shared quality of purity ( ṭahāra, see ), which meant freedom from
menstruation (q.v.) and bleeding at childbirth (McAuli fe, Chosen of all women, 22-3; Ayoub,
Redemptive su fering, 70-2, 75; see ; ), while
their deepest tie lies in their joint image of mistress of sorrows (Ayoub, Redemptive su fering, 27,
30, 39, 48-50). Although according to the Qurʾān, Jesus was persecuted and rejected by his
people but not slain, Shīʿī hagiography has recognized strong a nities between Jesus and
Ḥusayn (Ayoub, Redemptive su fering, 35; see ), as also between their
holy mothers. In popular devotions (see ), Mary and
Fāṭima, sacred gures of solace and hope (q.v.), are at times revered simultaneously (Smith and
¶ Haddad, Virgin Mary, 180-1). While some traditions — reported on the authority of the
Prophet — award Mary and Fāṭima equal rank as the two reigning females in the celestial
realm of the hereafter, most Shīʿī authorities rank Fāṭima above Mary; indeed, Fāṭima is
sometimes referred to as Maryam al-kubrā, “Mary the Greater” (McAuli fe, Chosen of all
women, 23-4, 26-7). In the Sunnī tafsīr, these notions are almost absent, while opinions are also
largely divided on the exact meaning of Mary's purity ( ṭahāra) or puri cation ( taṭhīr).

Most interpreters rely on those traditions which establish that, in the physical sense, Mary was
a woman like all others. She is said to have begun menstruating during the time of her service
in the temple, from which Zechariah removed her to his wife's care until she had regained
physical purity, and to have been ten, or thirteen, or fteen years old at the time of the angelic
annunciation of the birth of Jesus, by which time she had completed two menstrual cycles
(Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xvi, 45-6; Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, iii, 7-8; Rāzī, Tafsīr, xxi, 196-201; Bayḍāwī,
Anwār, i, 578-9; Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 328; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 385, 457). Traditions on the forty days of
isolation that Mary is said to have observed after the delivery of her child “until she was healed
of childbirth” further indicate to many interpreters that Jesus' birth was in its physical
symptoms an ordinary event (Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, iii, 11; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 393).
Conversely, some interpreters have recorded traditions and/or their own scholarly opinions
that Mary's purity included chastity as well as freedom from bleeding (Rāzī, Tafsīr, viii, 46;
Bayḍāwī, Anwār, i, 155). According to the modernist Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), it was this
quality of puri cation that enabled Mary to serve in the temple while Fāṭima's equally
miraculous freedom from the de lement of ¶ menstruation was the cause of her honori c title
al-zahrāʾ, “the radiant, luminous” (Rashīd Riḍā, Manār, iii, 300). In classical as well as modern
sources, however, such readings have remained marginal to the consensus-based doctrine that
Mary's purity was “ethical,” meaning that it concerned her character and soul (see
ʾ ). While physically a woman like all others, she was free of all lowly character traits
and exempted from all sin (see , ). Sunnī exegesis thus came to de ne
Mary's purity in terms of ʿiṣma, “sinlessness,” the quality that Islamic dogma ascribes to God's
prophets (see ). Nevertheless, to the scholars who interpreted her story, Mary's
status remained sui generis because of the equally consensus-based Islamic doctrine that her
physical nature was that of an ordinary woman (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, vi, 400; Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf,
i, 277; Rāzī, Tafsīr, viii, 46; Bayḍāwī, Anwār, i, 155; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 374; Rashīd Riḍā, Manār,
iii, 300). In the medieval sources, some prominence was awarded to the link between Mary's
purity and her mother's prayer to God to protect her daughter and her daughter's o fspring
against Satan ( 3:36; cf. Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 370-1, 461). A few modernist qurʾānic interpreters
have questioned whether Mary's holiness, quite apart from all considerations of her physical
purity, would not qualify her for inclusion among men in the full sense of their status in Islamic
doctrine, liturgy and law (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 173, 179; see
ʾ ; ʾ : ).

Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human father, consensus among classical
and modern scripturalist scholars has consistently maintained that Mary was a virgin ( batūl)
when she conceived her child from God's spirit. While ¶ the term ‘virgin’ ( batūl) does not
appear in the Qurʾān, the devout often use it in reference to Mary. In Sunnī and especially Shīʿī
popular piety, the title is also applied to Fāṭima (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 179-80).
Exegetical literature largely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed after
Jesus' birth. While Mary's puri cation “from the touch of men” implied perpetual virginity to
some religious scholars (cf. Rāzī, Tafsīr, viii, 46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some
modern interpreters appear to deny that Mary retained her virginity beyond Jesus' birth (cf.
Bahī, Sūrat Maryam, 14). Even though, however, some nineteenth and twentieth century
modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian subcontinent have rejected the notion of Mary's
motherhood while a virgin (Baljon, Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith
and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the tenet of the
virgin birth of Jesus.

God's spirit ( rūḥ) and a word (kalima) from God: Mary and the birth of Jesus

The earliest and longest account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus is found in the
sūra of Mary ( 19:16-33), revealed in Mecca, which relates the annunciation, Jesus' birth, and
Jesus' rst words.
Mary had withdrawn from her family to an eastern place and was in seclusion. And we sent our
spirit (rūḥ) to her, and it took the shape of a well-proportioned human. She said: “I take refuge
with the Compassionate from you. [Go away] if you fear God.” He said: “I am only your lord's
messenger, that I give you a pure boy.” She said: “How could I have a boy when no human has
touched me and I am not an unchaste woman?” He said: “Thus. Your lord says: It is easy for me,
and so that we make him ¶ a sign for the people and a mercy (q.v.) from us. It is a settled
matter” ( 19:17-21).

Mary conceived and retired to a remote place where the pains of childbirth drove her to the
trunk of a palm tree (see ). In her despair she cried out that she wished she had died
before this and been forgotten, but then she heard a voice from below her instructing her to
cease grieving, drink of the little brook that God had placed beneath her, eat of the fresh ripe
dates of that tree, be joyful and abstain from speaking with anyone. When she then brought her
baby to her people, they accused her of unchastity, but Jesus in the cradle announced himself
to them as God's blessed prophet whom God had charged with prayer, almsgiving and lial
piety toward his mother ( 19:22-33).

In 21:91, also of the Meccan period, Mary is called “She who guarded her shame. Then we
breathed (or blew) into her of our spirit ( rūḥ), and we made her and her son a sign for the
worlds,” while in 23:50, also of the Meccan period, the son of Mary and his mother are
likewise revealed to be a sign from God. The third passage about God's spirit in the context of
Mary's motherhood is found in 66:11-2, dated to Medina, “And God has given an example to
those who believe… [in] Mary the daughter of ʿImrān who protected her shame and we
breathed (or blew) into it [or her] of our spirit (rūḥ). And she testi ed to the truth of her lord's
words and his books and was of the devoutly obedient.” According to 19:17, 21:91, and 66:12,
Mary thus conceived Jesus from God's spirit.

In 4:171, Jesus is identi ed as “God's messenger ( rasūlu llāh), his word that he cast into Mary
and a spirit from him.” Jesus was supported with the holy spirit (q.v.; rūḥ al-qudus, 2:87, 253;
5:110). The casting of God's spirit into Mary recalls the gift of God's spirit to Adam shaped ¶
from clay (q.v.; 15:29; 32:9; 38:72) while Jesus' support by means of the holy spirit recalls the
strengthening of those in whose hearts (see ) faith is rmly established “with a spirit
from himself” ( 58:22). The Qurʾān speaks of the trusted spirit as the agent of God's revelation
( 26:193; cf. 16:102). The spirit is mentioned together with, but separate from, the angels (
70:4; 78:38; 97:4) and as a gift conveyed by the angels to God's chosen servants ( 16:2). In its
role as conveyor of revelation, the spirit is identi ed as Gabriel (q.v.; Jibrīl, 2:97). In Mary's
story, the spirit is the life-creating force of, or from, God. Qurʾānic commentary, however, has
consistently di ferentiated between “our spirit sent to Mary in the form of a well-proportioned
man” ( 19:17) and “our spirit [of] which we breathed into Mary” ( 21:91; 66:12), identifying
the former with the angel Gabriel and the latter with the life substance with which God
(directly) awakened Adam to life from clay, just as it (directly) awakened Jesus to life in Mary's
womb (Rāzī, Tafsīr, xxi, 196, 200-1; xxii, 218; xxx, 50; Ṭanṭāwī, Tafsīr, 26, 30; Quṭb, Ẓilāl, iv, 2306).
The classical interpreters established that Gabriel was a means, or instrument, of God's creative
power, whence they linked his agency with God's breathing, or blowing, of his spirit into Mary
by developing the theme of Gabriel's blowing at Mary's garment or person (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xvi,
48; Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, iii, 8; Rāzī, Tafsīr, xxi, 201; Bayḍāwī, Anwār, i, 578-9; Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 328;
Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 387-8). In contrast to the usual course of nature ( kharq al-ʿāda), the divine
breath caused Mary to conceive. While the physical aspect of how this occurred was of interest
to some medieval rationalist exegetes like al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209; Tafsīr, viii, 50-2) and a few
modernist interpreters like ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935; Manār, iii, 308), most ¶ classical
and modern interpreters have reckoned the physical manner of Mary's conception from the
spirit a divine mystery beyond human understanding and, therefore, not of human concern
(Bahī, Sūrat Maryam, 14; Quṭb, Ẓilāl, i, 396-7; iv, 2307).

A second angelic annunciation scene to Mary is related in 3:45-51, revealed in Medina, where
it is preceded by the accounts of Zechariah's guardianship of Mary and Mary's special blessings
in the temple, presented above. In 3:45, the angels announce to Mary that “God gives you glad
tidings of a word (kalima) from him whose name is the Messiah (al- masīḥ) Jesus son of Mary,
highly regarded in this world and in the hereafter (see ), and one of those
brought close [to God].” Similar to her words to the divine spirit/God's messenger in 19:20,
Mary then questions her lord, “How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?” He said:
“Thus. God creates what he wills. When he has decreed a matter he only says to it: ‘Be!’ and it is”
( 3:47; see ). The angels' glad tidings to Mary of a word (kalima) from God who is
her son ( 3:45) is reiterated in 4:171 which speaks of Jesus as “the Messiah Jesus son of Mary,
God's messenger and his word that he cast into (or bestowed upon) Mary, and a spirit from
him.”

Qurʾānic exegesis has recorded di ferent interpretations of the meaning of God's word (kalima)
in the context of Jesus as a word from God ( 3:45) and Jesus as his (i.e. God's) word which he
cast into, or bestowed upon Mary ( 4:171). The richest formulation of this theological debate is
found in the Tafsīr (viii, 49-50) of the medieval rationalist theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,
whose arguments were at least partially based on older sources such as al-Ṭabarī's (d. 310/923)
Tafsīr (vi, 411) but were also reiterated, with little change, by ¶ the nineteenth century
modernist rationalist school of Muḥammad ʿAbduh (Rashīd Riḍā, Manār, iii, 304-5). To these
exegetical authorities, the meaning of God's kalima, “word,” in the context of Mary's conception
of Jesus is multifaceted and in large part metaphorical (see ). It connotes God's
creative power and his (verbal) act of the creation of Jesus. But kalima also indicates the gospel
(q.v.), the essence of Jesus' prophetic mission; elsewhere, Jesus himself is guratively referred to
as “God's word” by way of de ning his mission, which is to clarify God's message anew and
cleanse the record of past revelations from distortion (see ). Finally, kalima, the word,
is said to be God's message to Mary about the birth of Jesus. To most modern and contemporary
religious experts, however, who show little interest in the whole scholastic rationalist tradition,
the theological problematic of Jesus as a word from God ( 3:45) or (God's) word bestowed
upon Mary ( 4:171) is not an urgent concern, and they place it in the category of the Qurʾān's
obscure ( mutashābih) teachings, “a matter above human understanding and, therefore, none
of man's concern” (e.g. Quṭb, Ẓilāl, i, 397; see ; ).
Membership in the created order

Both major accounts on the manner in which Mary conceived and bore her son Jesus ( 19,
Meccan, and 3, Medinan, quoted above) end with the a rmation of Jesus' full humanity.
Speaking in the cradle, Jesus announces that

I am God's slave. He has given me the book (q.v.) and has made me a prophet. He has made me
blessed wherever I be and has charged me with prayer (q.v.) and almsgiving (q.v.) as long as I
live, and lial piety toward my mother. And he has not ¶ made me tyrannical and villainous
(see ; ). And peace be upon me the day I was born and the day I die and
the day I am resurrected alive (see ). Such is Jesus the son of Mary — to say the
truth which they doubt. It is not for God to acquire (or to take to himself) any child. Praised be
he (see ; )! When he decides a matter he only says to it: ‘Be!’
and it is ( 19:30-5).

Jesus' apostleship, his prophetic career, and the special blessings from God which are outlined
in greater detail in 3:48-58, at the end of the angels' annunciation to Mary of the birth of her
son ( 3:45-47), also conclude with the a rmation of his creaturedom: “Jesus is before God like
Adam. He created him from dust then said to him: ‘Be!’ and he is” ( 3:59). In the verses of
4:171-2 and 5:17, 72-3, 75-6, and 116-7, revealed in Medina, special emphasis is placed on Mary's
and Jesus' full humanity, including refutation that they should form part of a “trinity” (q.v.).

In their interpretations, Muslim exegetes assert that the a rmation of God's oneness is the
central issue and purpose of all the verses on Mary. Mary, God's handmaiden, and her son Jesus,
God's slave and prophet, are not “gods” ( 5:17, 72, 75-6, 116). The refutation of the notion of
“three” (trinity) of 4:171 and 5:73 is the divinely-revealed correction of a blasphemous
Christian association (see ) of Mary “the female consort” and
Jesus “the son” with God, in a “family setting.” The qurʾānic refutation of this blasphemy (q.v.)
corresponds with the rejection of equally blasphemous pagan Arabian allegations that the
angels were God's “daughters” whom God begat with the jinn (q.v.; in interpretation of 37:149-
59; cf. 43:19-20) or that pagan ¶ deities were God's “daughters” (53:19-23; see ,
- ; ; ).

Mary and Eve

In clarifying the nature of Jesus as fully human, the Qurʾān repeatedly likens Jesus to Adam
because both are God's creations whom God brought to life by his divine word and decree.
Ḥadīth has expanded this equation into a human tetragram where Mary parallels Adam, and
Jesus parallels Eve. Just as Eve was created from Adam without a woman, so was Jesus created
from Mary without a man (Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, ii, 387). The Qurʾān-based Muslim doctrine that
Adam's and Eve's disobedience (q.v.) was but a “slip” or “error” (q.v.), repented and forgiven (by
the divine gift of prophethood; see ; ), has, however,
precluded any other linkage between Eve and Mary in this context. It is only in some esoteric
Ṣūfī (see ʾ ) sources that the tetragram of Adam, Eve, Mary, and Jesus,
placed into the context of God's self-revelation, has been said to signify God's forgiveness for
the sin of Eve through Mary (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 182-3).

Barbara Freyer Stowasser

Bibliography

Primary:

M. al-Bahī, Tafsīr sūrat Maryam, Cairo 1978

Bayḍāwī, Anwār

Ibn Ḥazm, Milal, 5 vols., Jeddah 1982

Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, 2 vols., Cairo 1968

Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ

id., The tales of the prophets of al-Kisaʾi, trans. W.M. Thackston, Boston 1978

Quṭb, Ẓilāl, 6 vols., Beirut 1982

Rashīd Riḍā, Manār

Rāzī, Tafsīr, 32 vols., Cairo 1934-62

Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 16 vols., Cairo 1954-68; 32 vols., Beirut 1972

M. al-Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī, al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ lil-Qurʾān al-karīm. Part xvi. Tafsīr sūrat Maryam, Cairo
1985

Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, 4 vols., Cairo 1953

¶
Secondary:

J.-M. Abd-el-Jalil, Marie et l'Islam, Paris 1950

M. Ayoub, Redemptive su fering in Islam. A study of the devotional aspects of ʿAshuraʾ in Twelver
Shiism, The Hague 1978

Baljon, Modern

J. Iskander, Maria im Koran, Augsburg 1999

J.D. McAuli fe, Chosen of all women.

Mary and Fatima in qurʾānic exegesis, in Islamochristiana 7 (1981), 19-28

G. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qurʾān, London 1965

N. Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity, Albany 1991, esp. 156-66

J.I. Smith, and Y.Y. Haddad, The virgin Mary in Islamic tradition and commentary, in 79
(1989), 161-87

B.F. Stowasser, Women in the Qurʾān, traditions, and interpretation, New York 1994

Cite this page

Stowasser, Barbara Freyer, “Mary”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuli fe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Consulted online on 15 March 2018 <http://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2066/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00113>