An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 26: Jesus: Conceived by the Angel Gabriel and Born Under a Date Tree (Mary (Maryam) 1-98)

Mary (Maryam) 1-98
Jesus:  Conceived by the Angel Gabriel and Born Under a Date Tree.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0

For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com

Mary (Maryam) 1-20

“‘O Zechariah! Indeed We give you the good news of a son, whose name is “John.” Never before have We made anyone his namesake.’ “

This chapter begins by telling the story of the birth of John (the Baptist, I think). I know this story has been given in an earlier surah. In a strangely similar fashion to Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah asks God for a son, despite his wife being beyond child-bearing age. God grants this, because it is simple for Him, and so John is born, who, we are told, is a Godwary child and obeys his parents. In case you were wondering, the Arabic transliteration for John is “yaḥyā”, with a little dot under the “h” that doesn’t copy across.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in fact this chapter is one of those that opens with the mysterious set of Arabic characters, in this case “Kāf, Hā, Yā, ʿAyn, Ṣād.” (k,h,y,’,s). Once John is born the narrative moves to Mary, who takes herself away to “the east” whereupon she meets a handsome stranger who claims that he’s the Angel Gabriel - “Thus did she seclude herself from them, whereupon We sent to her Our Spirit and he became incarnate for her as a well-proportioned human”. “He said, ‘I am only a messenger of your Lord that I may give you a pure son’”. I’m sure he did. It’s interesting that the Quar’an still gives Jesus some form of supernatural parenthood even though it denies that Allah is the fathering type.

Mary 21-40

“The birth pangs brought her to the trunk of a date palm. She said, ‘I wish I had died before this and become a forgotten thing, beyond recall.’”

No manger for Qur’anic Mary, she apparently gives birth at the foot of a date tree. The next verse tells us that “he” spoke to Mary and told her that a spring was there for water and to shake the tree for dates, but in this case the lack of pronoun attributions are so confusing that even the commentators don’t know if “he” is the Angel Gabriel or Jesus in her womb.

Apparently Mary then gives birth because “Then carrying him she brought him to her people. They said, ‘O Mary, you have certainly come up with an odd thing!”. An odd thing indeed, because the baby talks and tells the people that ”Indeed I am a servant of Allah! He has given me the Book and made me a prophet” plus some more stuff about obedience.

“That is Jesus, son of Mary, a Word of the Real concerning whom they are in doubt,” say the people, but soon fall into factions and thus are due a good burning on the “Day of Regret” (i.e. Judgement Day).

Mary 41-60
“And mention in the Book Abraham. Indeed he was a truthful one, a prophet.”

This section is a recital of different prophets, using the formula given in the quote above but with a different prophet each time. Abraham gets the most details, pestering his father about worshipping only Allah until his father tells him to go away. “Father! I am indeed afraid that a punishment from the All-beneficent will befall you, and you will become Satan’s accomplice’”

Next, Moses gets a mention - “We called him from the right side of the Mount and We drew him near for confidential discourse”, followed by Ishmael - “He used to bid his family to [maintain] the prayer and to [pay] the zakāt, and was pleasing to his Lord” and lastly Idris who only gets the very vague description that “We raised him to a station exalted.” The last verses of this section bemoan that after all these great prophets of old, people fell back into “perversity”.

Mary 61-80

“The Lord of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them. So worship Him and be steadfast in His worship. Do you know anyone who could be His namesake?’”

I don’t have a lot to discuss with these verses. They cover a familiar description of Paradise and of Hell, and then discuss that people will be separated and placed in whichever one they deserve. Which, essentially, comes down to those that have offered worship to Allah going to Paradise and those that have asked awkward questions or considered their achievements to be their own doing getting an eternal punishment.

Mary 81-98

“Have you not regarded that We unleash the devils upon the faithless to urge them impetuously?”

More of the same kind of things, except here the verses seem specifically aimed at Christians since it talks of a “they” that have ascribed a son to Allah. “You have certainly advanced something hideous!” says the Qur’an, because “It does not behoove the All-beneficent to take a son”. So, it seems a bit ambiguous towards Christians. On the one hand, the Qur’an claims that Jesus is a worthy prophet and even appoints him a supernatural parenthood, but refuses full-on divinity for Jesus because God is one and only. No Trinitarian doctrine for Islam, thank you very much.

Well, that was a short but sweet book. I think pretty much all the topics have been covered before so there isn’t a lot to discuss.