page_title: Mary in Islam
section_title: Birth
hierarchical_section_title: Mary in Islam / In the Quran / Birth
caption_attribution_description: English: This image shows Mary's lineage, going back to her grandfather (according to Islam)
context_page_description: Mary, the mother of Isa, holds a singularly exalted place in Islam as the only woman named in the Quran, which refers to her seventy times and explicitly identifies her as the greatest of all women, stating, with reference to the angelic saluation during the annunciation, "O Mary, God has chosen you, and purified you; He has chosen you above all the women of creation." In the Quran, her story is related in three Meccan chapters and four Medinan chapters, and the nineteenth chapter of the scripture, titled "Mary", is named after her. The Quran refers to Mary more often than the Bible.
  According to the Quran, divine grace surrounded Mary from birth, and, as a young woman, she received a message from God through the archangel Gabriel that God had chosen her, purified her, and had preferred her above all "the women of the worlds." This event, according to the same narrative, was followed by the annunciation of a child who was to be miraculously conceived by her through the intervention of the divine spirit while she was still virgin, whose name would be Jesus and who would be the "anointed one," the Promised Messiah.
context_section_description: The birth of Mary is narrated in the Quran with references to her father as well as her mother. Mary's father is called Imran. He is the equivalent of Joachim in Christian tradition. Her mother, according to al-Tabari, is called Hannah, which is the same name as in Christian tradition (Saint Anne). Muslim literature narrates that Imran and his wife were old and childless and that, one day, the sight of a bird in a tree feeding her young aroused Anne's desire for a child. She prayed to God to fulfill her desire and vowed, if her prayer was accepted, that her child would be dedicated to the service of God.
  
  According to Iraqi scholar and translator, N.J. Dawood, the Quran confuses Mary mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Moses, by referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus' father as Imran, which is the Arabic version of Amram, who in Exodus 6:20, is shown to be the father of Moses. Dawood, in a note to Surah 19:28, where Mary the Mother of Jesus is referred to as the "Sister of Aaron", and Aaron was the brother of Mary sister of Moses, states: "It Appears that Miriam, Aaron's sister, and Maryam (Mary), mother of Jesus, were according to the Koran, one and the same person." Although Islamic studies of the beginning of the 20th century tended to see this as a mistake in genealogy, in more recent Islamic Studies of the 21st century the general consensus is, according to Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai & Michael Marx, that the Quran does not make a genealogical error but instead makes use of Typology. This is, following Wensincks conclusion, supported by the figurative speech of the Quran and the Islamic tradition: 
  Maryam is called a sister of Hārūn and the use of these three names Imrān, Hārūn and Maryam, has led to the supposition that the Kur'ān does not clearly distinguish between the two Maryams of the Old and the New Testaments. It is not necessary to assume that these kinship links are to be interpreted in modern terms. The words "sister" and "daughter", like their male counterparts, in Arabic usage can indicate extended kinship, descendance or spiritual affinity. Muslim tradition is clear that there are eighteen centuries between the Biblical Amram and the father of Maryam.
   Similarly, Stowasser concludes that "to confuse Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron in Torah is completely wrong and in contradiction to the sound Hadith and the Qur'anic text as we have established".
  The Quranic account of Mary's birth does not affirm an Immaculate Conception for Mary as Islam does not accept the doctrine of original sin, or an inherited fault in humans, as it is found in Christianity. No such doctrine exists in Islam.
  A descendant of Caliph Ali, Shia Imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq, describes the birth of Mary in detail. According to one narration, God informs Imran that he will grant him with a boy that will heal the blind and the leper and raise the dead by God's permission. When Imran relays the information to his wife, Hannah, she thought that she would conceive a boy. When she delivered Mary, she said "Oh my Lord! Verily I have delivered a female, and the male is not like the female, for a girl will not be a prophet" to which Allah replies "And God knows better what has been delivered[3:36]". When he granted Jesus to Mary, the promise to Imran was fulfilled.
caption: Mary's relation to John and Zechariah
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