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qālat ʾannā yakūnu lī ghulāmun wa-lam yamsasnī basharun wa-lam ʾaku baghiyyan
She said, ‘How shall I have a child seeing that no human being has ever touched me, nor have I been unchaste?’
— Ali Quli Qarai
19MaryamمريمVerse 20 of 98
Mary
She said, ‘How shall I have a child seeing that no human being has ever touched me, nor have I been unchaste?’
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Maryam – Verses 18 - 20
18. “She said: ‘Verily I take refuge in the Beneficent (Allah) from you! if you are God-fearing.”
19. “He (the angel) said: ‘Verily I am only a messenger of your Lord that I bestow on you a pure son’.”
20. “She said: ‘How shall there be for me a son while no man has touched me, neither have I been unchaste.”
One of the recommendations of Allah to His Messengers is that they should take refuge in Allah. Therefore, this state has been the moral life of the prophets and the saints of Allah, and that is why when the pious persons feel the probability of committing sin, they tremble in fear and take refuge in Allah, The Beneficent. It is evident that, at that time, a great fear overcame her when this pious woman saw that a handsome foreigner had entered her sanctuary, therefore, she immediately said:
Her Mentioning the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, and qualifying Him by His general mercy, on the one hand and encouraging the man to piety and being God-fearing, on the other, were all intended to deter that unfamiliar man if he had intended something evil. By saying these words, Mary was expecting a reaction from the stranger, an expectation laden with fear and abundant anxiety. But this situation did not last very long, and the stranger spoke and stated his great mission:
This statement comforted Mary’s pure heart, as if water was poured over a fire. But this relief did not last long, because immediately after that he added that he had come to bestow on her a son who would be pure from the point of temper, manner, body, and spirit. The verse continues saying:
However, the term /zakiyy/, used in the verse, is derived from /zakat/ in the sense of: ‘purity, growth, and blessing’, while the word /baqyan/, here, means ‘a prostitute’. In this Surah the subject of being granted a child from Allah has been mentioned several times: the bestowal of Jesus to Mary in verse 19; that of Isaac and Jacob to Abraham in verse 49. Moreover the remittal of Aaron to Moses in verse 53; and the glad tidings of a child to Zachariah in verse 7 are among them.
Having a child is something of great value, but greater than this is the purity of the child. By hearing these word, Mary was seized with a severe trembling and again she became very worried. In that situation, and only thinking about the natural means of having a child, she wondered and: