Translation
The angels said to Mary, “God has chosen you, made you noble, and made you eminent over all women in the world. O Mary, remain devoted to your Sustainer God, humble yourself, and bow together with those who submit to God. These are the matters unseen [in history] that God reveals to you. You were not there when they were casting lots to decide who will take charge of Mary and when they contended with one another on this matter.” The angels said to Mary, “God gives you the advent of a word from Him [a son for you], whose name will be Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, to be eminent in this world and in the hereafter and shall be close to God. He [Jesus] will speak to people from an early age to full maturity, and he will be of those who are good people.”180
Mary replied, “My Lord, how can I have a son when no man had ever touched me?” God said, “This is the will of God. When He wills a thing, He says, ‘Be,’ and it becomes. God will teach him [Jesus] knowledge, wisdom, the Torah, and the Bible and make him an apostle to the children of Israel. Jesus will say, ‘I have come as a sign of God, that I am able to create out of clay a bird [spiritual destiny of higher plane], breathe into it [inspire], and it becomes alive [transformed] with God’s permission, that I heal the blind and the leprous and bring consciousness to those who are [spiritually] dead with God’s permission and I inform you what you should eat [to sustain current life] and what you should store in your dwellings [in the afterlife]. These are signs that I bring so that you may believe [in God and the nature of our lives].’”181
Interpretation
180. In Islamic and Abrahamic history, a number of women have been given eminence, such as:
(1) Eve, mother of humanity and wife of Adam, the first man and the first prophet;
(2) Sarah, the first wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac, from whose lineage all prophets of Judaism and Christianity came from;
(3) Hagar, the second wife of Abraham, mother of Ishmael and founder of Mecca, whose desperation to find water for her son is brought to life in some of the rituals in Muslim annual pilgrimage acts (Hajj);
(4) the mother of Moses, whose desire to save her son Moses had been directly aided by divine inspiration;
(5) Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is held in highest esteem by both Christians and Muslims alike;
(6) Khadijah, first wife of Prophet Mohammad, whose intellect, practical wisdom, and business acumen guided the Prophet’s life during the crucial periods of the Prophet’s own growth and his prophethood;
(7) Aisha, the last wife of the Prophet, who provided rare glimpses into their domestic life and the teachings of the Prophet in a way that no one could; and finally
(8) Fatimah, the Prophet’s daughter and mother of Hasan and Hossain and wife of Ali, one of the youngest and early followers of the Prophet, who is held very dear to the heart of Shia Muslims and all Muslims alike, and many Christian female saints are named after her.
181. The birth of Jesus is a matter of great discourse in our contemporary world and continues to dominate our recent conversation as it did during his birth among the Jewish community in Nazareth whose refusal to accept him as a prophet and persecution of him and his followers led to the creation of a new religion called Christianity. According to Islamic faith and historical narrative, he was a prophet of God to Jewish people to bring back the essence of God’s religion to contemporary people, and he was not intent on creating a new religion. Jesus’s power to heal sick people and people in need, both physical and spiritual, has also given rise to all sorts of superstition and false claims by his followers to possess similar power in his name and to attribute capabilities or miracles to Jesus that are only the domain of the divine being, God Himself.
REFLECTION
Jesus is a historical figure and a prophet of God to whom more than a billion Christians and more than a billion Muslims pay homage. Some Christians have come to regard him as God or Son of God or one of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for example), whereas the Qur’an regards him as a prophet of God just like other prophets of God and respects and honors him the same as it honors Prophet Mohammad. One of the biggest challenges for our contemporary society is to find the truth, without degrading and blaming anyone or any faith, and to reconcile our understandings and our differences among all the religions and ideological forces.
ACTION
Muslims have, at least from the point of view of the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet, maintained a very consistent posture among all the prophets of God and religious personalities, who all are from the same God and who are motivated by the same universal inspiration and obligation to honor God as the Creator and to honor fellow humans as we strive to achieve our common humanity on this planet. Unfortunately, some of the conservative and fundamentalist Muslims, especially in Middle East and in some parts of the Indian Subcontinent, due to lack experience with religious plurality, harbor enmity against Christians and people of other Muslim sects that is uncalled for and without any basis in Islam or the tradition of the Prophet.
Key Arabic Terms
64. Masiha Isa Ibn Mariam: Jesus Christ, son of Mary
65. Mahdi wa kahlan: Cradle to manhood