SURAH MARIAM: THE CURSE OF THE APOCRYPHA

“Mention in the book the errors and absurdities of Muhammad’s scribes”

Masud Masihiyyen

In the current and standard Qur’an version of the Islamic world the nineteenth chapter bears the name Mariam, which corresponds to Jesus’ mother Mary in the Christian scripture and tradition. Being a chapter (Surah) of the period prior to Muhammad and his followers’ migration to Medina, Surah Mariam is significant in that it illustrates Muhammad’s early approach to some basic Christian tenets as well as his familiarity with the oral and written data about Christianity in his era. Elwood Morris Wherry’s comprehensive commentary of the Qur’an¹, which is based on Sale’s translation and notes, gives information on the probable date of this Surah’s supposed revelation to Muhammad and categorizes the 98 verses thematically under the title “principal subjects”.

In this study I shall mainly use Wherry’s commentary and meticulously analyze verses 2 through 35. The primary reason underlying my choice of these verses is that they are partly related to Jesus’ nativity and infancy narrative in the canonical Gospel of Luke. Luke the Evangelist narrates John and Jesus’ miraculous births comparatively to highlight some fundamental theological points and presents John as the precursor of Jesus, who is called the Son of God and the Savior. Unsurprisingly, the birth and infancy narrative in this chapter of the Qur’an objects to Jesus’ identification as the Son of God and attempts to explain Jesus’ uniquely miraculous birth through God’s general and arbitrary omnipotence, awkwardly forcing Jesus into the line of ordinary prophets. In addition to this major Islamic deviation from the Christian tenet concerning Jesus’ identity in the New Testament, the account in this Surah also has a number of comparatively minor discrepancies with the teachings of the New Testament about Zachariah, John the Baptist, Mary, and the events occurring prior to and after Jesus’ nativity. The source of the contradictory and baffling statements in the Islamic version of the story will be the subject of my project as I aim to prove both the casual and deliberate distortion of the original accounts of the New Testament by the hands of the scribes devising the Qur’an.

The secondary motive that has driven me to analyze verses 2 to 35 is the existence of a few issues that have given birth to ongoing controversies between Islamic and Christian scholars due to their introduction by Christian polemicists as examples of the Qur’an’s historical errors. The accusation of the Qur’an’s writers for plagiarism from non-canonical Christian literature is also related to the analysis of Surah 19, which will become obvious when the originality of some statements about Mary and Jesus in the Islamic scripture is questioned.  

The name of Surah 19

The fact that the 19^th chapter of the Islamic scripture is named Mariam (Mary) after Jesus’ mother is generally brought up by Muslims and introduced as hard evidence for Mary’s high position in Islam². Even though Christians in general are not as willing as some Muslims to get involved in these kinds of childish plays of rivalry, it should still be made known that the existence of a chapter bearing Mary’s name in the Qur’an is theologically significant only for Muslims. First, some chapters of the Koran have the names of certain animals, which prove that the naming process was completely arbitrary. Surah 19 is named Mariam whilst Surah 2, the longest Surah of the Qur’an, is named the Cow³ (al Baqarah in Arabic).

The name of the 19^th chapter gains sense and significance only in the light of the fact that Jesus’ mother Mary is the sole woman to have a personal name in the entire Islamic scripture. This again can be designated as a revolutionary act by Muslims, most of who either ignore or do not know that in the Jewish and Christian scriptures several women are recorded by their personal names⁴. Thus, the supposed unique and privileged place ascribed to Mary through the title of Surah 19 is derived from the peculiar form of the Koran.

The existence of a chapter with the name of Jesus’ mother in the Qur’an is not a matter of praise or critique for Christianity. Still, every person reading the Qur’an objectively has the right to ask why specifically the name “Mary” was considered fitting for the title of the 19^th Surah. According to the Islamic tradition, the narrative about Jesus’ mother Mary drove the compilers of the Islamic scripture to name this whole chapter after her⁵. If it is true that the sole motive determining the title of the chapter was the account about Mary (and Jesus through her), this once more affirms the theory that the whole process of entitling the chapters of the Islamic scripture was purely arbitrary and not necessarily consistent. Above all, it is rather interesting that there is not one chapter named after Jesus in the entire Qur’an even though Jesus is clearly greater than Mary even in Islam. Thus, the chapters of the Islamic scripture were not necessarily named after the greatest figure their narratives contained.

The analysis of the content and form of the 19^th chapter exposes with how much arbitrariness and insistence the writers of the Qur'an concurred upon the name "Mary" for the title. First, the first name that occurs in this Surah is Zachariah rather than Mary as the second verse introduces the account about Zachariah after the verse that has but a few cryptic letters:

Kaf. Ha. Ya. A'in. Sad. A mention of the mercy of thy Lord unto His servant Zachariah. (Surah 19:1-2)⁶

The narrative about Mary, on the other hand, begins in verse 16:

And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East. (Surah 19:16)

Second, the narratives about different prophets and holy figures are separated from one another through an introductory sentence that refers to the notion of mention/remembrance. This repetitive formula appears in the Surah first with regard to Zachariah’s story, and is linguistically associated with Zachariah’s name since the word Zachariah in Hebrew means “the Lord remembers⁷”. Third, most of the verses of Surah 19 are written in poetic style with a rhyming pattern. Verses 2 to 33 – the narratives about Zachariah and Mary – have the same rhyming pattern, the final words of most verses ending in the letters IYYA.

2) ZAKARIYYA 3) HAFIYYA 4) SHAKIYYA 5) WALIYYA 6) RADIYYA 7) SAMIYYA 8) ITIYYA 9) SHEY’A 10) SAWIYYA 11) ASHIYYA 12) SABIYYA 13) TAKIYYA 14) ASIYYA 15) HAYYA 16) SHARKIYYA 17) SAWIYYA 18) TAKIYYA 19) ZAKIYYA 20) BAGIYYA 21) MAKDIYYA 22) KASIYYA 23) MANSIYYA 24) SARIYYA 25) CANIYYA 26) INSIYYA 27) FARIYYA 28) BAGIYYA 29) SABIYYA 30) NABIYYA 31) HAYYA 32) SHAKIYYA 33) HAYYA

Apparently, the first word from which this rhyming pattern is drawn is Zachariah, which corresponds to ZAKARIYYA in Arabic. When these facts about the content and form of Surah 19 are taken into account, it is rather natural to wonder why the writers of the Qur’an⁸ preferred the name Mariam to Zakariyya. The only plausible explanation is that the ones devising this chapter aimed to counter the Christian tenets concerning Jesus’ nativity by distorting the Gospels, which led them into a chain of faulty conclusions about the sacred texts of Christianity. As those scribes had limited knowledge of the canon of the Christian scripture, they naturally failed to distinguish an apocryphal Gospel from a canonical one. The popularity of non-canonical Christian literature in the Arabian peninsula of Muhammad’s era was another significant factor that caused the smooth adoption of apocryphal accounts into the Islamic scripture⁹. Nonetheless, it will not be fair to blame the existence of some non-canonical Gospels in the Qur’an on the scriptural knowledge of the Christian minority living in Arabia at that time. There is more non-canonical Christian material in the Qur’an basically because Muhammad’s scribes gave priority to the accounts of Jesus’ nativity and infancy in their battle against Jesus’ identification as the Son of God. Since they tried to discard Christianity as a false religion supposedly similar to paganism with regard to God’s having a son, they chose the texts relating Jesus’ nativity as their primary target for denial through perversion. This hideous strategy compelled Muhammad’s scribes to plagiarize from the most popular non-canonical Gospels of infancy: The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, The Gospel of James, and The Arabic Gospel of Infancy.

The writers of the Islamic scripture are accused of plagiarism as the examples of parallelism between the apocryphal texts and the narratives in the 19^th and 3^rd chapters of the Qur’an cannot be jettisoned as trivial or superficial coincidences. Surprisingly, Christian history owes the existence of these non-canonical Gospels of Infancy not to heresies, but to the efforts of some Orthodox¹⁰ Christians who deemed it necessary to relate Virgin Mary’s birth and infancy. Accordingly, the non-canonical sources of Infancy demonstrate such Christian writers’ wish to respond to some critiques of their era and refute the charges targeting Mary’s virginity and chastity. Of these non-canonical sources, the Gospel of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew lay emphasis on the events taking place prior to Mary’s birth and relate Mary’s miraculous conception and subsequent dedication to the Temple.

Mary’s supposed accusation by her folk of an illegitimate affair as a result of her miraculous conception is a prevalent theme in the Qur’an¹¹. This prevalence can be linked to Muhammad’s desire to convince the Jews of Arabia of Mary’s virginity and chastity at the time of their invitation to Islam. Muhammad’s tendency to lay emphasis on Mary’s virginity and embrace the non-canonical Gospels of Infancy (particularly the Gospels of James and Pseudo-Matthew) also functions as the answer to our question concerning the name of the 19^th chapter. This chapter is named after Mary because Mary is the primary holy and chaste figure of the non-canonical Gospels of Infancy through whom Jesus’ birth and infancy are recounted.

What should be accentuated at this point is that the choice of the apocryphal Gospels of infancy in the theological war against Christianity did not prevent the writers of the Qur’an from making comparatively little use of the canonical accounts of Jesus’ infancy. It may be true that the writers of the Qur’an did not have access to the written form of the Gospel of Luke, but this speculation does not entail that it was impossible for those writers or for Muhammad himself to hear about the stories of infancy in the canonical Gospel of Luke. Actually, the 19^th chapter is not free from the influence of a few canonical details recorded by Luke the Evangelist. A careful reader having a look at the verses 2 through 33 can readily observe that the overall narrative style of this chapter bears remarkable similarities with the things recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Luke introduces his Gospel with a short prologue that designates his writing as the meticulous record of the events that occurred in Jesus’ life¹²:

Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning. So it seemed good to me as well, because I have followed all things carefully from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know for certain the things you were taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

Interestingly enough, the writers of Surah 19 ask Muhammad to make mention of certain prophets and holy figures in the book, using a formula that both introduces the narratives and gives the reason for their relation:

A mention of the mercy of your Lord to His servant Zakariya. (19:2)

And mention Marium in the Book when she drew aside from her family to an eastern place (19:16)

And mention Ibrahim in the Book; surely he was a truthful man, a prophet. (19:41)

And mention Musa in the Book; surely he was one purified, and he was an apostle, a prophet (19:51)

And mention Ismail in the Book; surely he was truthful in (his) promise, and he was an apostle, a prophet. (19:54)

And mention Idris in the Book; surely he was a truthful man, a prophet (19:56)

The fact that the first two accounts in the chapter relate John the Baptist and Jesus’ nativities indicates the influence of Luke’s canonical text on the creation of Surah 19. While devising this Surah, Muhammad’s scribes walked in Luke’s footsteps when they recount two angelic annunciations and subsequent miraculous nativities. Verses 2 to 15 narrate the annunciation of John the Baptist’s birth to his father Zachariah and the fulfillment of this promise whilst verses 16 to 33 relate the annunciation of Jesus’ birth to His virgin mother Mary and the completion of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy. The first chapter of Luke’s Gospel has the same chronology of events: the annunciation of John’s miraculous birth to Zachariah (Luke 1:5-25) prepares the way for the same kind of an annunciation to Mary, Jesus’ mother (Luke 1:26-38). In short, Muhammad’s scribes imitate Luke when they maintain the thematic association of John and Jesus’ nativity and present Mary as Zachariah’s female counterpart.

It should be stressed that Luke is not the only Evangelist to narrate Jesus’ miraculous birth and infancy. Matthew records in the first two chapters of his Gospel Jesus’ genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17), the annunciation of Jesus’ miraculous birth to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25), and the events occurring after Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:1-23). The Qur’an, however, seems totally ignorant of this different narrative in Matthew’s Gospel. Joseph’s predestined role as a foster father in the events of Jesus’ birth and infancy is bafflingly disregarded by the writers of the Qur’an. Some scholars bind this to Muhammad’s limited knowledge of the canonical Gospels and Joseph’s significant place in Christian scripture and tradition¹³. Not even once is Joseph’s name mentioned in the entire Islamic scripture¹⁴, but this does not change the fact there is an implicit reference to Joseph and his marriage with Mary in the 3^rd chapter. The long and detailed narrative of Mary’s nativity and infancy in Surah 3, which is overtly a slightly modified version of the story in the apocryphal Gospel of James, talks of some men casting lots so as to determine who will become Mary’s guard:

This is of the tidings of things hidden. We reveal it unto thee (Muhammad). Thou wast not present with them when they threw their pens (to know) which of them should be the guardian of Mary, nor wast thou present with them when they quarrelled (thereupon). (Surah 3:44)

In the original version of the narrative the man who is chosen to guard Mary is said to be Joseph:

And Joseph, throwing away his axe, went out to meet them; and when they had assembled, they went away to the high priest, taking with them their rods. And he, taking the rods of all of them, entered into the temple, and prayed; and having ended his prayer, he took the rods and came out, and gave them to them: but there was no sign in them, and Joseph took his rod last; and, behold, a dove came out of the rod, and flew upon Joseph's head. And the priest said to Joseph, Thou hast been chosen by lot to take into thy keeping the virgin of the Lord. (Gospel of James chapter 9)¹⁵

When it is remembered that Muhammad’s scribes made use of the non-canonical Gospels of Infancy as their primary source and that the writers of these Gospels had chosen Luke’s Gospel as the framework for their new narratives, the lack of a reference to Matthew’s canonical Gospel in the Qur’an finds a good basis. After all, the authors of the non-canonical Gospels are not interested in Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph. For those authors it is much better and more fitting to follow Luke, in whose nativity and infancy narrative Mary takes the leading role. The preference of Luke’s framework to that of Matthew’s in the narration of Jesus’ birth and infancy by the authors of the apocryphal Gospels is perfectly compatible with the fact that in the two distinct infancy narratives of the Qur’an (Surah 19 and 3) Mary is presented as the major and dominant character in the course of events.

The comparative analysis of the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an with both the canonical Gospel of Luke and the non-canonical Gospels of Infancy reveals that Muhammad’s scribes did not keep faithful to the original form of any of these sources, but distorted one text at the expense of the other for the sake of harmonizing them. To put it differently, the process of perversion was a natural outcome of the presumption of Muhammad’s scribes’ that the different versions of the stories of Jesus’ birth had to be synthesized before their insertion and adaptation into the Islamic scripture. This eventually led the writers of the Qur’an to devise a new and contradictory fiction that looks like a patchwork. The Qur’an’s writers’ absurd efforts to harmonize in a rush the distinct stories of Jesus’ birth and infancy are apparent in the historical blunders that exist in the 19^th chapter. More, the discrepancies between this new fiction fabricated by Muhammad’s scribes and the Christian canonical and traditional sources arise from the same scribes’ endeavor to supposedly correct and combine these variations.   

The narrative about Zachariah and John

A mention of the mercy of thy Lord unto His servant Zachariah. When he cried unto his Lord a cry in secret, Saying: My Lord! Lo! the bones of me wax feeble and my head is shining with grey hair, and I have never been unblest in prayer to Thee, my Lord. Lo! I fear my kinsfolk after me, since my wife is barren. Oh, give me from Thy presence a successor Who shall inherit of me and inherit (also) of the house of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, acceptable (unto Thee). (It was said unto him): O Zachariah! Lo! We bring thee tidings of a son whose name is John; we have given the same name to none before (him). He said: My Lord! How can I have a son when my wife is barren and I have reached infirm old age? He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me, even as I created thee before, when thou wast naught. He said: My Lord! Appoint for me some token. He said: Thy token is that thou, with no bodily defect, shalt not speak unto mankind three nights. Then he came forth unto his people from the sanctuary, and signified to them: Glorify your Lord at break of day and fall of night. (And it was said unto his son): O John! Hold fast the Scripture. And we gave him wisdom when a child, And compassion from Our presence, and purity; and he was devout, And dutiful toward his parents. And he was not arrogant, rebellious. Peace on him the day he was born, and the day he dieth and the day he shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:2-15)

As we said before, most of the things stated in this narrative of the Qur’an are similar to the narrative recorded by Luke in the first chapter of his Gospel. Luke first recounts in details how John’s miraculous nativity was announced to his father Zachariah (Luke 1:5-25). After the narrative of the annunciation of Jesus’ birth to Mary and Mary’s visit to John’s mother Elizabeth, Luke relates John’s birth (Luke 1:57-80). Certainly, the infancy narrative in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an falls short of even getting close to the literary style and quality of Luke’s record despite the fact that it is highly influenced by the basic narrative styles of both canonical and non-canonical Christian scripture. The Qur’an’s dependence on the Bible for the clarification of its vague statements is perfectly visible when the above verses of the 19^th chapter are compared with the detailed narrative given by Luke. In addition to the problems with its form, this Islamic narrative contains a few discrepancies with the things taught about Zachariah and John in the canonical Gospel of Luke. These awkward deviations from the original form of the stories actually support the theory that Muhammad’s scribes’ naïve desire to harmonize different stories ineptly gave birth to a new and more contradictory account that contained many mistakes.

The first example of such deliberate acts of deviation from the original sources of Christianity is related to Zachariah’s lineage. The writers of the 19th chapter of the Qur’an contend with the help of an implication that Zachariah was a descendant of Jacob although the account in the canonical Gospel of Luke teaches that Zachariah was from the priestly order of Abijah and from Aaron’s progeny in accordance with his service in the Temple. To contrast:

Lo! I fear my kinsfolk after me, since my wife is barren. Oh, give me from Thy presence a successor Who shall inherit of me and inherit (also) of the house of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, acceptable (unto Thee). (Surah 19:5-6)

During the reign of Herod king of Judea, there lived a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah, and he had a wife named Elizabeth, who was a descendant of Aaron. (Luke 1:5)

Although this difference cannot be considered a contradiction per se because of Aaron’s being a descendant of Jacob, it is still weird that the Islamic scripture skips so many generations and tries to affiliate Zachariah directly with Jacob, the father of all the Israelites. Before investigating the mysterious existence of the phrase “the house of Jacob” in the Islamic version of Zachariah’s story, it is necessary to state that the Qur’an establishes no literal or metaphorical connection between Zachariah and the family of Aaron. Interestingly, the entire Islamic scripture refers to “the house of Aaron” only once:

And their Prophet said unto them: Lo! the token of his kingdom is that there shall come unto you the ark wherein is peace of reassurance from your Lord, and a remnant of that which the house of Moses and the house of Aaron left behind, the angels bearing it. Lo! herein shall be a token for you if (in truth) ye are believers. (Surah 2:248)

Besides, apart from a few implicit details subject to contradictory interpretations, the narrative in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an says nothing about Zachariah’s priestly service in the Temple. However, the undeniable similarities between the account of Zachariah’s vision in Luke and the account of the angelic annunciation of John’s birth in Surah 19 support Zachariah’s identification as a priest entering the holiest place of the Temple for a religious duty. Particularly, the vague reference to Zachariah’s coming out of the “MIHRAB” (meaning sanctuary) after the angelic vision associates Zachariah with the Judaic priesthood, the formation of which dates back to Aaron. This implicit priestly service in the Temple necessitates Zachariah’s tribal affiliation at least with Aaron if not particularly with Abijah, whose name is expected to represent a useless detail for Muslims when the tendency of the writers of the Qur’an to avoid details and personal names is recalled.

Zachariah’s implicit tribal affiliation with Jacob rather than with Aaron in the 19^th chapter cannot be considered a simple mistake based on the confusion of two Hebrew names since the names “Aaron” and “Jacob” have nothing in common. Muslim scholars try to evade this problem through the invention of another Jacob living in Zachariah’s era¹⁶, but this pure speculation turns out to be weak due to the reference in verse 6 to Jacob’s progeny in plural (the house of Jacob), which surprisingly coincides with Jacob’s designation as the father of Israel as well as the Israelites’ identification as the children of Jacob (Israel). More to the point, there is a verse in the Qur’an where the name “Israel” is overtly used as the second personal name of Jacob, and this single verse occurs in Surah 19:

These are they unto whom Allah showed favour from among the prophets, of the seed of Adam and of those whom We carried (in the ship) with Noah, and of the seed of Abraham and Israel, and from among those whom We guided and chose. When the revelations of the Beneficent were recited unto them, they fell down, adoring and weeping. (Surah 19:58)

This invaluable piece of information gets us closer to the solution of this mysterious substitution of Jacob for Aaron in the Islamic account about Zachariah in Surah 19. In order to solve the mystery, it is crucial to analyze the meaning of the cryptic reference to “the house of Jacob” in the 6^th verse of the 19^th chapter. First, in the entire Qur’an this phrase appears totally twice: once in Zachariah’s narrative in Surah 19, and once in Joseph’s story in Surah 12. To compare these verses¹⁷:

Who shall inherit of me and inherit (also) of the house of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, acceptable (unto Thee). (Surah 19:6)

 Thus thy Lord will prefer thee and will teach thee the interpretation of events, and will perfect His grace upon thee and upon the family of Jacob¹⁸ as He perfected it upon thy forefathers, Abraham and Isaac. Lo! thy Lord is Knower, Wise. (Surah 12:6)

Evidently, the phrase “the house of Jacob” in Zachariah’s prayer refers to Jacob’s family and progeny. The question regarding the origin of this odd and mysterious thematic association drawn between Jacob and Zachariah in the Qur’an cannot be answered unless another thematic connection between Zachariah and the male character of an apocryphal Gospel of infancy is revealed. Rather interestingly, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which is a Gospel written in the second century and falsely attributed to the Apostle Matthew, narrates the annunciation of Mary’s miraculous birth to her parents, but makes no reference either to Zachariah or John¹⁹. This Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is both similar to and different from the Gospel of Luke. It is similar in that it contains two accounts of miraculous births and infancies and relates the angelic apparition from Mary’s perspective. Its difference is based on the replacement of Zachariah’s story with the remarkably similar story of Mary’s parents. The comparative reading of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew with the Gospel of Luke reveals that Pseudo-Matthew has the story of Mary’s father (Joachim) and mother (Anna) where Luke has that of John’s father (Zachariah) and mother (Elizabeth). These couples suffer from the same problem: they are childless in a society where having no offspring is considered a disgrace. God intervenes in the lives of these couples and gives them the good news of a child. In the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew the child that is miraculously born of a barren mother and old father is Mary whereas the child in Luke is John.  

In Pseudo-Matthew Mary’s father Joachim is said to be a shepherd experiencing the angelic visitation away from the Temple unlike John’s father Zachariah, who is a priest experiencing the same vision in the sanctuary of the Temple while performing the religious duty of offering incense. Nevertheless, Joachim’s sorrow and prayer are linked to the Temple in Jerusalem because he is rebuked by a priest who reminds him of being childless in Israel during the religious ritual of offering incense to God:

And it happened that, in the time of the feast, among those who were offering incense to the Lord, Joachim stood getting ready his gifts in the sight of the Lord. And the priest, Ruben by name, coming to him, said: It is not lawful for thee to stand among those who are doing sacrifice to God, because God has not blessed thee so as to give thee seed in Israel. Being therefore put to shame in the sight of the people, he retired from the temple of the Lord weeping, and did not return to his house, but went to his flocks, taking with him his shepherds into the mountains to a far country, so that for five months his wife Anna could hear no tidings of him. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 2)²⁰

This amazing set of parallelisms between the stories of John’s father in Luke and Mary’s father in Pseudo-Matthew would definitely cause the writers of the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an to assimilate some points of Joachim’s story through inept harmonization. While simultaneously plagiarizing from the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and hearing about Zachariah’s story from Christians, Muhammad’s scribes resorted to distorting the text of Pseudo-Matthew, which they used as their major source and framework. The result was the awkward insertion of Zachariah’s name into Joachim’s story and the consequent transfer of the data peculiar to Joachim to Zachariah. In short, Muhammad’s scribes transformed Joachim into Zachariah! In Pseudo-Matthew Joachim was said to be specifically from the tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Jacob (Israel):

In those days there was a man in Jerusalem, Joachim by name, of the tribe of Judah. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 1)

More, in the apocryphal Gospel of James, which is mostly similar to Pseudo-Matthew, Joachim’s affiliation with Jacob’s progeny is repeated:

In the records of the twelve tribes of Israel was Joachim, a man rich exceedingly; and he brought his offerings double, saying: There shall be of my superabundance to all the people, and there shall be the offering for my forgiveness to the Lord for a propitiation for me. (Gospel of James chapter 1)

Joachim’s tribal affiliation in Pseudo-Matthew and the Gospel of James with the tribes²¹and thus with Israel (Jacob’s alternate name) seems to be the cause of the supposed ties between Zachariah and the house of Jacob in the Islamic scripture. If we get back to our fundamental theory that the writers of the Qur’an mostly copied from Pseudo-Matthew for the devisal of Surah 19, it becomes necessary to search the text and find other elements that would convince Muhammad’s scribes of Zachariah’s tribal affiliation specifically with Jacob. As we said before, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew identifies Joachim as a man descending from the tribe of Judah. Judah is also the name of one of Jacob’s sons. In addition, Joachim’s story has the name Ruben, which is the name of another son on Jacob:

And it happened that, in the time of the feast, among those who were offering incense to the Lord, Joachim stood getting ready his gifts in the sight of the Lord. And the priest, Ruben by name, coming to him, said: It is not lawful for thee to stand among those who are doing sacrifice to God, because God has not blessed thee so as to give thee seed in Israel. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 2)

 The sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, as well as Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. (Genesis 35:23)

The rough combination of all these elements eventually prompted the writers of the Qur’an to make a stronger connection between Joachim and the family of Jacob in Genesis²². When this was combined with their mistaken presumption that Joachim was actually Zachariah, they made Zachariah affiliated with the house of Jacob. This mistaken historic information about Zachariah’s lineage may be underestimated when some major discrepancies between the Qur’an and the Gospel of Luke are taken into account. Still, this deliberate deviation is of great significance in that it points out the basic strategy adopted by the writers of the Qur’an in their systematized modification of the narratives.

Another verse in the narrative about Zachariah and John in the 19^th chapter displays a discrepancy with the teachings recorded in Luke, and is presented by non-Muslim polemicist as a historical blunder of the Islamic scripture. This verse causing a controversy between Christian and Muslim apologists concerns the historicity of Zachariah’s son’s name. According to Luke, the angel delivering the good news of the miraculous birth of a son to Zachariah tells him to name his son John (Yochanan in Hebrew and Iwannis in Greek):

And Zechariah, visibly shaken when he saw the angel, was seized with fear. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you will name him John. (Luke 1:12-13)

The verse in the Qur’an has a baffling additional piece of information that is not compatible with historic facts:

(It was said unto him): O Zachariah! Lo! We bring thee tidings of a son whose name is John; we have given the same name to none before (him). (Surah 19:7)  

This verse claims that the name John (Yahya in the original text) was not given to anyone before the birth of Zachariah’s son. This, however, contradicts the fact that some people living before John had his name:

All of the officers of the Judahite army and their troops heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah to govern. So they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The officers who came were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite. (2 Kings 25:23)

 The sons of Josiah: Johanan was the firstborn; Jehoiakim was born second; Zedekiah third; and Shallum fourth. (1 Chronicles 3:15)

 From the descendants of Azgad, Johanan son of Hakkatan, and with him 110 men. (Ezra 8:12)

 The descendants of Levi were recorded in the Book of the Chronicles 1  as heads of families up to the days of Johanan son of Eliashib. (Nehemiah 12:23)

The weird statement about the origin of the name John in the Qur’an seems to have resulted from the mistaken adaptation of a similar theme in the canonical Gospel of Luke as Luke says the name John was unusual in that no one among Zachariah’s relatives had this name²³:

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother replied, “No! He must be named John.” They said to her, “But none of your relatives bears this name. So they made signs to the baby’s father, inquiring what he wanted to name his son. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed. (Luke 1:59-63)

Muslim scholars do their best to stave off this erroneous form of plagiarism either by working out a metaphorical sense from the Qur’an verse or by claiming that Yahya is not the same as John in the Bible²⁴. Those who follow the first strategy argue that the expression in the verse denying the historicity of the name John (Yahya) does not actually refer to Zachariah’s son’s personal name, but to his distinctive personal traits and unique place in God’s sight. The adherents of this theory support their allegations with the help of another verse in the 19^th chapter in which an almost identical structure is used to indicate God’s oneness and uniqueness:

Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them! Therefor, worship thou Him and be thou steadfast in His service. Knowest thou one that can be named along with Him? (Surah 19:65)

The Muslim scholars who object to the literal translation of this verse and regard John’s name as an indicator of his alleged unique character overlook an important fact: in the 7^th verse of Surah 19 Allah first introduces John’s name before the bizarre claim that no one had the same name before him, and says nothing about John’s character. This testifies to the coherence between the occurrence of John’s personal name and the allegation about its being a brand new name. In other words, Allah presumably announces that what is unique is not the child himself (his character, etc), but his very name, which is said to be Yahya.

Those who insist on etymologically distinguishing the name Yahya from the Biblical name John (Yochanan), on the other hand, disregard the historic evidence that Zachariah’s son was known by the name “John” in Israel. Besides, trying to solve this problem in the Qur’an verse by doubling John’s name is of no help since all the Islamic accounts about John have but one name. Finally, the Qur’an never talks of a supposed confusion or ignorance regarding the actual name of Zachariah’s son²⁵.

It is not difficult or impossible to make suggestions for the reasons underlying the adoption of the name Yahya by Muhammad’s scribes. First, the name Yahya rhymes with the Arabic version of the name Zachariah. Second, the devisers of this chapter may have wished to render John’s name similar to his father’s name Zachariah (from the root ZIKR, which means “to recall” or “mention”) in terms of attaching a meaning to it in Arabic. After all, it is not an unknown thing that the writers of the Qur’an give Arabic names to some non-Arabic figures²⁶.

On the other hand, the question why the writers of the Qur’an modified the name Yochanan to Yahya remains a mystery unless one strives to discover the possible reason for Muhammad’s scribes’ aversion to the Hebrew name Jochanan. Muhammad most probably heard and knew that in the apocryphal Gospels of Infancy Mary’s parents were called Joachim and Anna. However, his scribes’ hasty and fallacious conclusion that the account of Mary’s miraculous birth in the Gospels of Pseudo-Matthew and James originally belonged to Zachariah’s son made him construct a vocal association between the names of Mary’s parents and the name Jochanan, which sounded like the deliberate combination of the names Joachim and Anna. In Muhammad’s weird reasoning the name Jochanan possibly represented the child of the couple named Joachim and Anna. In order to eliminate any possible link between the original form of the account in Pseudo-Matthew and the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an, Muhammad asked his scribes not only to delete Joachim and Anna’s names, but also to discard the very name Jochanan, which sounded like the synthesis of those two names.

Although it is most probable that the historical blunder concerning John’s name in the Qur’an is thematically connected with the unusualness of the name given to Zachariah’s son in Luke’s narrative, an important detail in Surah 19 reveals the influence of the apocryphal Gospel of Matthew in the formation of this blunder. In the 7^th verse of the 19^th chapter the supposition that “the name Yahya (John) was not given to anyone before him” is embedded into the angelic annunciation whereas in Luke the additional information that “no one among Zachariah’s relatives had the name John” is separate from Zachariah’s vision in the Temple. Why and how did this mistaken presumption of Muhammad’s scribes make its way into the message of the angel then? In order to find the answer, it suffices to read the angelic annunciation of Mary’s birth to her father Joachim in the Pseudo-Matthew:

At the same time there appeared a young man on the mountains to Joachim while he was feeding his flocks, and said to him: Why dost thou not return to thy wife? And Joachim said: I have had her for twenty years, and it has not been the will of God to give me children by her. I have been driven with shame and reproach from the temple of the Lord: why should I go back to her, when I have been once cast off and utterly despised? Here then will I remain with my sheep; and so long as in this life God is willing to grant me light, I shall willingly, by the hands of my servants, bestow their portions upon the poor, and the orphans, and those that fear God. And when he had thus spoken, the young man said to him: I am an angel of the Lord, and I have to-day appeared to thy wife when she was weeping and praying, and have consoled her; and know that she has conceived a daughter from thy seed, and thou in thy ignorance of this hast left her. She will be in the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit shall abide in her; and her blessedness shall be greater than that of all the holy women, so that no one can say that any before her has been like her, or that any after her in this world will be so. Therefore go down from the mountains, and return to thy wife, whom thou wilt find with child. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 3).

By no coincidence, in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew an angel identifies Mary as a unique person that has a match neither in the past nor in the future. When one takes into consideration that the writers of the Qur’an attributed to Zachariah some of the information originally belonging to Mary’s father Joachim, it becomes clear that the particular sentence designating Mary’s uniqueness in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew was directed to John the Baptist after it had been hastily construed in association with the statements about John’s unusual name in the Gospel of Luke. To summarize:

• In the angelic annunciation of the non-canonical Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew Mary was defined as a unique person.
• In the canonical Gospel of Luke John is said to be a name that none of Zachariah’s relatives had. This made the name partly unique for Zachariah’s family alone!
• Joachim was replaced with Zachariah by Muhammad’s scribes, which resulted in the replacement of the annunciation of Mary’s miraculous birth with the annunciation of John’s miraculous nativity. This resulted in the supposition that the unique child was John rather than Mary.
• The alleged uniqueness of John was combined with the distinctness of his name, which gave birth to the mistaken assertion that no one had the name “John” before!

There is another interesting point that illustrates Muhammad’s scribes’ weird strategy of ascribing to John in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an what was originally ascribed to Jesus’ mother Mary in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. In Pseudo-Matthew, the idea of Mary’s uniqueness is once more visited when Mary refuses to get married at the age of fourteen after the completion of her period of dedication to the Temple. This is such an unusual thing that the Pharisees hold an occasional meeting to solve the problem of Mary’s case. The high priest named Abiathar makes a formal speech and addresses the tribes of Israel to take action:

Now it came to pass, when she was fourteen years old, and on this account there was occasion for the Pharisees' saying that it was now a custom that no woman of that age should abide in the temple of God, they fell upon the plan of sending a herald through all the tribes of Israel, that on the third day all should come together into the temple of the Lord. And when all the people had come together, Abiathar the high priest rose, and mounted on a higher step, that he might be seen and heard by all the people; and when great silence had been obtained, he said: Hear me, O sons of Israel, and receive my words into your ears. Ever since this temple was built by Solomon, there have been in it virgins, the daughters of kings and the daughters of prophets, and of high priests and priests; and they were great, and worthy of admiration. But when they came to the proper age they were given in marriage, and followed the course of their mothers before them, and were pleasing to God. But a new order of life has been found out by Mary alone, who promises that she will remain a virgin to God. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 8)

Obviously, Mary’s new order of life that has not been adopted by anyone before her is amazingly similar to the Islamic assertion that Zachariah’s son had a new name that no one had before! It is evident that we owe the historical blunder about John’s supposedly unique name in the Qur’an to Muhammad’s scribes’ systematized adaptation of the accounts about Mary to John. The more one reads from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the easier it becomes to understand why the narrative in the Islamic scripture about Zachariah and John has discrepancies with the narrative in Luke’s Gospel.

If we get back to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, we read that the unique decision of Mary’s virginity is discussed by the Pharisees when the tribes of Israel come together. The aim of this meeting is to find through prayers and inquiry the person to whom Mary will be entrusted:

And when all the people had come together, Abiathar the high priest rose, and mounted on a higher step, that he might be seen and heard by all the people; and when great silence had been obtained, he said: Hear me, O sons of Israel, and receive my words into your ears. … But a new order of life has been found out by Mary alone, who promises that she will remain a virgin to God. Wherefore it seems to me, that through our inquiry and the answer of God we should try to ascertain to whose keeping she ought to be entrusted. Then these words found favour with all the synagogue. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 8)

The act of determining the right person for Mary’s entrustment turns into a ritual planned and guided by God. Joseph is chosen at the end of this divinely conducted process, which is completed in three days and during which the angel of the Lord appears to the high priest and gives him the sign of Joseph’s election:

And the lot was east by the priests upon the twelve tribes, and the lot fell upon the tribe of Judah. And the priest said: To-morrow let every one who has no wife come, and bring his rod in his hand. Whence it happened that Joseph brought his rod along with the young men. And the rods having been handed over to the high priest, he offered a sacrifice to the Lord God, and inquired of the Lord. And the Lord said to him: Put all their rods into the holy of holies of God, and let them remain there, and order them to come to thee on the morrow to get back their rods; and the man from the point of whose rod a dove shall come forth, and fly towards heaven, and in whose hand the rod, when given back, shall exhibit this sign, to him let Mary be delivered to be kept. On the following day, then, all having assembled early, and an incense-offering having been made, the high priest went into the holy of holies, and brought forth the rods. And when he had distributed the rods, and the dove came forth out of none of them, the high priest put on the twelve bells and the sacerdotal robe; and entering into the holy of holies, he there made a burnt-offering, and poured forth a prayer. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying: There is here the shortest rod, of which thou hast made no account: thou didst bring it in with the rest, but didst not take it out with them. When thou hast taken it out, and hast given it him whose it is, in it will appear the sign of which I spoke to thee. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 8)

To highlight the important points of this account:

• Mary’s unique decision to remain a virgin is discussed by the tribes of Israel in the Temple.
• The high priest asks God for a sign to choose the right person that will keep Mary.
• The process of selection takes three days (the first day is of the decision and casting lots, the second of bringing the rods, and the third of the return of the rods in expectation for a divine sign.)
• The high priest goes into the holiest place of the Temple and offers incense before taking out the rods.

The writers of the 19^th chapter once again transferred the important points of this account to the story of John’s nativity as a result of their tendency to incorporate John into the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew in Mary’s stead. This they achieved despite the big temporal gap between the narratives of the annunciation of Mary’s miraculous birth and of the miraculous selection of a man that will keep and guard Mary. Muhammad’s scribes made use of the following inferences to force the major thematic components of the independent account of Joseph’s selection in Pseudo-Matthew into the account of John’s nativity:

• The narrative of Joseph’s miraculous selection for Mary in Pseudo-Matthew was considered a continuity of the relation of Mary’s annunciation in that both incidents pointed out Mary’s uniqueness.
• Since John was made to take Mary’s place in the story of the annunciation and miraculous nativity, the notion of being a character that has an unprecedented peculiarity or attribute was transferred to John’s story after a drastic change in form. Thus, Mary’s unprecedented choice of virginity (Mary is said “not to take the course of her mothers”) was modified to John’s having an unprecedented name (John is said in Luke “not to be named after his father”).
• The major points of the story of Joseph’s selection were dissociated from Mary and moved backward in time for insertion into the story of John’s nativity (his annunciation to his father). Thus, the account of Joseph’s selection was made to coincide with the account of John’s annunciation.

The writers of the Qur’an made these alterations because they were misled by the amazing similarities between the account of Joseph’s selection in Pseudo-Matthew and that of John’s annunciation to Zachariah in Luke. In both accounts:

• A priest entered the holiest place of the Temple to offer incense (Zachariah in Luke whilst Abiathar in Pseudo-Matthew)
• An angelic apparition occurred for the annunciation of a significant incident. (Zachariah in Luke heard the good news of John’s miraculous birth whilst Abiathar received the instructions of determining the right person for Mary’s entrustment)
• The significant event that occurred was miraculous because of God’s intervention (Zachariah in Luke needed a miracle to be the father of a son at the old age while Abiathar needed a sign to choose the correct person to keep Mary)  

These similar motifs motivated Muhammad’s scribes to eliminate the account of Joseph’s selection in Pseudo-Matthew after transferring its major components to the narrative of John’s annunciation by the angel. Additionally, the identification of the priest in Pseudo-Matthew as Abiathar caused no problem for the writers of the Qur’an because they heard that in the same account of Joseph’s selection in the Gospel of James the same priest was said to be Zachariah:

And when she was twelve years old there was held a council of the priests, saying: Behold, Mary has reached the age of twelve years in the temple of the Lord. What then shall we do with her, test perchance she defile the sanctuary of the Lord? And they said to the high priest: Thou standest by the altar of the Lord; go in, and pray concerning her; and whatever the Lord shall manifest unto thee, that also will we do. And the high priest went in, taking the robe with the twelve bells into the holy of holies; and he prayed concerning her. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him, saying unto him: Zacharias, Zacharias, go out and assemble the widowers of the people, and let them bring each his rod; and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, his wife shall she be. And the heralds went out through all the circuit of Judaea, and the trumpet of the Lord sounded, and all ran. (Gospel of James chapter 8)

The high priest’s designation as Zachariah in the Gospel of James rather than as Abiathar (Pseudo-Matthew) became the final drop to convince Mohammad’s scribes of the validity of their hasty conclusions²⁷, which would eventually take the narrative in Surah 19 further away from Luke’s Gospel. We owe the rest of the discrepancies between Zachariah’s story in Surah 19 and in the Gospel of Luke to the rough combination of some motifs in Pseudo-Matthew’s narrative of Joseph’s selection and those of the narrative of John’s annunciation in Luke. To list and compare these motifs:

Pseudo-Matthew (chapter 8)

The priest talked to the people about Mary’s case on the third day after taking counsel and deciding what to do:

Now it came to pass, when she was fourteen s years old, and on this account there was occasion for the Pharisees' saying that it was now a custom that no woman of that age should abide in the temple of God, they fell upon the plan of sending a herald through all the tribes of Israel, that on the third day all should come together into the temple of the Lord.

The priest asked God for a sign with regard to the miraculous selection of a person for Mary:

Wherefore it seems to me, that through our inquiry and the answer of God we should try to ascertain to whose keeping she ought to be entrusted.

The miraculous process of Joseph’s selection took three days, which was related both to the sign of the divine choice and the priest’s speech to the people:

And the lot was east by the priests upon the twelve tribes, and the lot fell upon the tribe of Judah. And the priest said: To-morrow let every one who has no wife come, and bring his rod in his hand. (Day 1)

Whence it happened that Joseph brought his rod along with the young men. And the rods having been handed over to the high priest, he offered a sacrifice to the Lord God, and inquired of the Lord. And the Lord said to him: Put all their rods into the holy of holies of God, and let them remain there, and order them to come to thee on the morrow to get back their rods; and the man from the point of whose rod a dove shall come forth, and fly towards heaven, and in whose hand the rod, when given back, shall exhibit this sign, to him let Mary be delivered to be kept. (Day 2)

On the following day, then, all having assembled early, and an incense-offering having been made, the high priest went into the holy of holies, and brought forth the rods. (Day 3)

Gospel of Luke (chapter 1)

Zachariah asked God how he could be a father despite his old age, which indicated his doubts.

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well.” (1:18)

Zachariah was made dumb because he asked for sign to be sure that the divine promise was reliable and true:

And now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will be silent, unable to speak, until the day these things take place.” (1:20)

Zachariah’s muteness lasted until after John’s birth:

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother replied, “No! He must be named John.” They said to her, “But none of your relatives bears this name.” So they made signs to the baby’s father, inquiring what he wanted to name his son. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed. Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue released, and he spoke, blessing God. (1:59-64)

Muhammad’s scribes’ awkward and mistaken harmonization of all these items (present in two distinct and independent accounts) resulted in the contradictory and faulty Islamic assertion that Zachariah asked God for a sign when the angel delivered to him the good news of John’s birth,  and that the chosen divine sign was his three-day muteness:

He said: My Lord! How can I have a son when my wife is barren and I have reached infirm old age? He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me, even as I created thee before, when thou wast naught. He said: My Lord! Appoint for me some token. He said: Thy token is that thou, with no bodily defect, shalt not speak unto mankind three nights. (Surah 19:8-10)

This new version of Zachariah’s story in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an does not only contradict John’s infancy account in the Gospel of Luke, but also gives the reader the fallacious impression that John’s conception and birth took only three nights. Accordingly, there is an abrupt transition to John’s infancy from the verses narrating Zachariah’s exit from the sanctuary:

Then he came forth unto his people from the sanctuary, and signified to them: Glorify your Lord at break of day and fall of night. (And it was said unto his son): O John! Hold fast the Scripture. And we gave him wisdom when a child, And compassion from Our presence, and purity; and he was devout, And dutiful toward his parents. And he was not arrogant, rebellious. Peace on him the day he was born, and the day he dieth and the day he shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:11-15) 

Finally, it is not difficult to guess that the writers of the Qur’an followed the same method of rough harmonization of the themes in independent accounts while relating Zachariah’s exit from the sanctuary. According to the verses above, Zachariah asked people through gestures to constantly glorify God. This “silent” dialogue between Zachariah and the people outside the sanctuary in Surah 19 bears similarities to Pseudo-Matthew’s narration of the things that Mary’s father does after his visit by the angel for the annunciation of Mary’s miraculous birth:

Then Joachim, throwing himself on his face, lay in prayer from the sixth hour of the day even until evening. … And when Joachim awoke out of his sleep, he called all his herdsmen to him, and told them his dream. And they worshipped the Lord. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 3)

The narrative about Mary and Jesus

And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. She said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God- fearing. He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died ere this and had become a thing of naught, forgotten! Then (one) cried unto her from below her, saying: Grieve not! Thy Lord hath placed a rivulet beneath thee, And shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee. So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal. Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing.  O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy? He spake: Lo! I am the slave of Allah. He hath given me the Scripture and hath appointed me a Prophet, And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive, And (hath made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:16-33)

The narrative about Mary and Jesus in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an can be considered an original and independent fiction due to the number of discrepancies it has with both the canonical Gospel of Luke and the non-canonical Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. A cursory look at this account may lead one to the conclusion that the writers of this Surah only maintained in their new fiction the chronology of the events in Jesus’ birth and infancy. The narration starts with the angelic visitation to Mary for the annunciation of Jesus’ miraculous birth and ends in Jesus’ supposed speech in the cradle for the proclamation of His prophetic mission. This order of events reflects the parallelism drawn by the authors of this chapter between John and Jesus through Zachariah and Mary, which can be found in the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke.

In this Islamic version of the story the good news of Jesus’ birth is said to be delivered to Mary after her withdrawal to an Eastern place:

And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East And had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. (Surah 19:16-17)

The English translation above actually reflects the influence of the traditional Islamic commentary concerning the setting of Jesus’ annunciation in this chapter of the Qur’an, for the word “chamber” is missing from the original language of the Islamic scripture. Accordingly, Shakir’s translation of these verses is more accurate since it translates the Arabic phrase MAKANAN SHARKIYYA as an Eastern place:

And mention Marium in the Book when she drew aside from her family to an eastern place; so she took a veil (to screen herself) from them; then We sent to her Our spirit, and there appeared to her a well-made man. (Surah 19:16-17)²⁸

This reference to an Eastern place in the story of Jesus’ annunciation is rather vague and puzzling, and it is not possible to solve its mystery with the help of the data present in the canonical Gospel of Luke or the non-canonical Gospels of infancy. None of these sources even imply that the angelic visitation to Mary took place when Mary withdrew to an Eastern place. In Luke the good news of Jesus’ miraculous birth is delivered to Mary in Nazareth:

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27)

In the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which is the primary source of infancy narratives used by Muhammad’s scribes for the devisal of the 19^th chapter, there is no reference to an Eastern place either. It is only implied that the angel’s visit occurs after Joseph receives Mary into his house:

Then Joseph received Mary, with the other five virgins who were to be with her in Joseph's house. These virgins were Rebecca, Sephora, Susanna, Abigea, and Cael; to whom the high priest gave the silk, and the blue, and the fine linen, and the scarlet, and the purple, and the fine flax. For they cast lots among themselves what each virgin should do, and the purple for the veil of the temple of the Lord fell to the lot of Mary. And when she had got it, those virgins said to her: Since thou art the last, and humble, and younger than all, thou hast deserved to receive and obtain the purple. And thus saying, as it were in words of annoyance, they began to call her queen of virgins. While, however, they were so doing, the angel of the Lord appeared in the midst of them, saying: These words shall not have been uttered by way of annoyance, but prophesied as a prophecy most true. They trembled, therefore, at the sight of the angel, and at his words, and asked her to pardon them, and pray for them. And on the second day, while Mary was at the fountain to fill her pitcher, the angel of the Lord appeared to her, saying: Blessed art thou, Mary; for in thy womb thou hast prepared an habitation for the Lord. For, lo, the light from heaven shall come and dwell in thee, and by means of thee will shine over the whole world. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 8-9)

The conventional Islamic commentaries claim that Mary’s withdrawal from her family points at her dedication to the service of the Temple and that the Eastern place in question is therefore one of the Eastern chambers of the Temple in Jerusalem²⁹. This assertion illustrates Muslim scholars’ wish to strengthen the supposed coherence between the account about Mary in Surah 19 and the one in Surah 3, for the narrative in Surah 3, which is obviously plagiarized from the apocryphal Gospel of James, recounts Mary’s dedication to the service of the Temple by her parents:

(Remember) when the wife of 'Imran said: My Lord! I have vowed unto Thee that which is in my belly as a consecrated (offering). Accept it from me. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower!  And when she was delivered she said: My Lord! Lo! I am delivered of a female - Allah knew best of what she was delivered - the male is not as the female; and lo! I have named her Mary, and lo! I crave Thy protection for her and for her offspring from Satan the outcast. (Surah 3:35-36)

Nevertheless, this effort to construct a thematic association between the two different accounts about Mary in Surah 19 and 3 is futile for two reasons.  First, the narrative in the 19^th chapter does not even imply that Mary was dedicated to the service of the Temple by her parents before her birth since this chapter skips the parts of Mary’s conception and childhood and begins with the annunciation of Jesus’ birth. Second, it is impossible to prove that an Eastern place automatically pertains to a certain section of the Temple. As every building may have a certain chamber in the East, it is illogical to conclude that the Eastern place Mary withdrew to was absolutely within the Temple in Jerusalem. Had the writers of this narrative wanted to have Mary located in the Temple, they would have used a qualifier that served to designate a place of worship. Besides, the account of Mary’s dedication to God and service in the Temple in the third chapter does not contain the adjective “Eastern” although it talks of the certain sanctuary where angels supposedly visited and fed Mary (Surah 3:37). This makes it clear that the phrase “Eastern place” in 19:16 has no thematic or logical connection with the Temple in Jerusalem.

To complicate the issue, the 17^th verse of Surah 19 alleges that the annunciation of Jesus’ birth took place not only after Mary’s withdrawal to an Eastern place, but also after her screening herself from people through a veil:

So she took a veil (to screen herself) from them; then We sent to her Our spirit, and there appeared to her a well-made man. (Surah 19:17)³⁰

One of the traditional commentaries on this chapter binds Mary’s act of screening herself to her taking a bath in a house during her menstrual period just before going back to the Temple³¹. This explanation seems to be far from truth because in the verse above Mary’s screening herself takes place right after her withdrawal from her family to an Eastern place. If that Eastern place is a chamber of the Temple, we can but suppose that Mary washed herself behind a veil in the Temple, which is totally absurd! The way Muslim commentators interpret the 17^th verse of chapter 19 evidently undermines their primary allegation that Mary withdrew herself to a chamber of the Temple. What then does this supposed act of screening oneself pertain to?

It is not improbable that the writers of the Qur’an had in mind the notion of seclusion when they wanted to set a connection between Mary’s withdrawal and her screening herself from people through a veil. They might have attributed to Mary the act of screening oneself because of their intention to relate the annunciation of Jesus’ miraculous birth in isolation. This concept of isolation would also strengthen the parallelism between Zachariah and Mary. However, the order of the events leading to the account of Mary’s visitation by an angel dismisses this possibility since Mary’s vision is a totally unexpected and miraculous experience! Mary’s withdrawal from her family and her screening herself from them just before the miraculous incident of the annunciation would inevitably describe Mary as a person preparing for the angelic visit! When combined with this supposition, the chronology of the events in the Qur’an would eventually give the impression that Mary intentionally withdrew from her family specifically to an Eastern place and screened herself from them in expectation for the angel’s visit, knowing beforehand what would occur. Nonetheless, the narrative of the angelic apparition betrays the presumption that Mary was aware of the things predestined by God before the annunciation. It is crucial to analyze the narrative of the angelic visit to Mary in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an before solving the mystery of her withdrawal to an eastern place.

Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. She said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God- fearing. He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. (19:17-20)

There are two points that should be highlighted in this Islamic version of the story. First, there is a baffling remark that God sent His “Spirit” to Mary for Jesus’ annunciation. Second, this Spirit of God is said to be a “messenger” of the Lord that appears in the form of a perfect man. The analysis of the account in Luke’s Gospel takes us to the source of the first faulty presumption:

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled by his words and began to wonder about the meaning of this greeting. So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:26-35)

The awkward designation of angel Gabriel (who is traditionally called the messenger of the Lord due to his mission of bringing revelation to prophets in the Old Testament) as the Spirit of God in chapter 19 stems from Muhammad’s scribes’ mistaken combination of the two events in Jesus’ annunciation. In the original source of the story the messenger of the Lord (angel Gabriel) appears to Mary and tells her that she will later conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit (Spirit of God). In the Qur’an, however, the descent of the Spirit of God upon Mary for Jesus’ birth coincides with the visit of the messenger of God, and this temporal coincidence begets the fallacious Islamic assertion that angel Gabriel is the Spirit of God, who went to Mary to announce Jesus’ conception.

In the Qur’an verses relating Jesus’ annunciation it is also written that the messenger of the Lord appeared to Mary in the form of a perfect man. This teaching is alien to Luke’s narrative, and adds a new item to the list of the discrepancies between the Gospel of Luke and the Islamic scripture. The account in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew once more clarifies why in the Islamic version of the story the angel of the Lord is said to have taken bodily form and why Mary is scared of this seemingly human visitor: 

Again, on the third day, while she was working at the purple with her fingers, there entered a young man of ineffable beauty. And when Mary saw him, she exceedingly feared and trembled. And he said to her: Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 9)

After this point the writers of the Qur’an seem to abandon the Pseudo Gospel’s narrative and get close to Luke’s narration when they adopt the question posed by Mary regarding the means of her conception as a virgin:

He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? (Surah 19:19-20)

In the Gospel of Luke we read that Mary asked angel Gabriel almost an identical question:

So the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?” (Luke 1:30-34)

In Pseudo-Matthew, however, Mary surprisingly does not pose this question or remind the angel of her virginity. Besides, in this non-canonical Gospel there is an abrupt transition from the story of the angel’s visitation to the story of Joseph’s finding Mary pregnant on his return home:

Then the angel of the Lord added: Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God: Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a King, who fills not only the earth, but the heaven, and who reigns from generation to generation. While these things were doing, Joseph was occupied with his work, house-building, in the districts by the sea-shore; for he was a carpenter. And after nine months he came back to his house, and found Mary pregnant. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 9-10)

Strikingly, the question posed by Mary to the messenger of the Lord in verse 20 has an additional clause that cannot be found in Luke’s text:

She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? (19:20)

The word translated by Pickthall as “unchaste” in this verse is actually the same word used in verse 28:

O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. (19:28)

One cannot resist wondering why Pickthall applies euphemism to the same word in verse 20 although in Arabic the word occurring in both of these verses is BAGIYYA, which means “harlot” or “prostitute”. Pickthall and some other Muslim commentators may be ashamed of this word’s existence in their scripture. The real problem is not why in a Qur’an verse the word “harlot” appears in a sentence attributed to Mary, but why Mary is depicted through this verse as a paranoid virgin that feels obliged to deny the charges of being a harlot before anyone makes such an accusing claim!

More, the clause through which Mary denies being a harlot in verse 20 looks awkward and misplaced in that Mary first stresses her virginity and then says that she is not a harlot. Mary’s statement about her virginity (in the sense of “not being touched by a man” in verse 20) entails her not being a prostitute since it is logically impossible for a woman to be a harlot and not having been touched by men at the same time. However, the order of the clauses in Mary’s statement (question) makes one think that Mary’s virginity did not exclude the possibility of her being a BAGIYYA, which is rather weird. The only thing we can do now is to suppose that this misplacement of the clauses was dependent on stylistic reasons. The word BAGIYYA was inserted into the second part of the verse because it perfectly fit the rhyming pattern of the chapter, ending in the letters IYYA.

The angel’s response to Mary in the Qur’an is astonishingly short. The means of Jesus’ miraculous conception is only explained in terms of God’s almightiness:

He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. (19:21)

An interesting peculiarity of this short and evasive angelic message in the Qur’an is that it does not mention the name “Jesus”. Thus, the writers of the Qur’an do not reveal the name of Mary’s miraculously born son in the account of His annunciation because they imitate the writer of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, who does not put the name “Jesus” into the message of the angel appearing to Mary:

Again, on the third day, while she was working at the purple with her fingers, there entered a young man of ineffable beauty. And when Mary saw him, she exceedingly feared and trembled. And he said to her: Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And when she heard these words, she trembled, and was exceedingly afraid. Then the angel of the Lord added: Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God: Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a King, who fills not only the earth, but the heaven, and who reigns from generation to generation. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 9)

According to the new fiction of Muhammad’s scribes, Mary goes to a distant place right after the angel’s visit and annunciation:

And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. (Surah 19:22)

At first glimpse, the teaching in Surah 19 that Mary took a journey right after the angel’s visit and annunciation is similar to the account recorded by Luke, who says that Mary went to the hill country of Judea after the angel’s departure from her. However, Luke makes it clear that Mary takes a journey not to give birth to Jesus in a different place as implied in the Qur’an, but to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is said by the angel to be in the sixth month of her miraculous pregnancy:

“And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age – although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month! For nothing will be impossible with God.” So Mary said, “Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. In those days Mary got up and went hurriedly into the hill country, to a town of Judah, and entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. (Luke 1:36-40)   

It can be postulated that the writers of the Qur’an maintained the idea of Mary’s journey right after the angel’s visitation after distorting the original chronology of the events in Luke and linking Mary’s journey to Jesus’ nativity. Oddly enough, in the Islamic version of the story Jesus’ nativity occurs as soon as Mary withdraws to a distant place right after the angelic apparition. As a result of this weird flow in the narrative, Mary appears to be a woman giving birth to Jesus immediately after the conception! On the basis of the following descriptive verses of Jesus’ nativity, the reader of the Qur’an is forced to suppose that either Jesus was born prematurely or Mary’s journey to a far country took at least 9 months:

And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died ere this and had become a thing of naught, forgotten! Then (one) cried unto her from below her, saying: Grieve not! Thy Lord hath placed a rivulet beneath thee, And shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee. So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal. (Surah 19:22-26)

This part of the Islamic narrative of Jesus’ nativity does not contain any new and independent material in perfect accordance with Muhammad’s scribes’ addiction to plagiarizing from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Unsurprisingly, Pseudo-Matthew records a non-canonical incident of miraculous provision of food and drink for Jesus’ mother Mary:

And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 20)

It should be stressed that this more detailed and better form of the narrative in the apocryphal Gospel primarily serves to identify the owner of the voice asking Mary not to grieve and instructing her to get fruit from the palm tree in verse 24. Although it is impossible to know the source of the voice in the Islamic account, the original and unmodified form of the story in the non-canonical Gospel above identifies the speaker as infant Jesus. The writers of the Qur’an are compelled to hide the identity of the one making that utterance, for their perverted chronology of the events prevents them from making Jesus appear at this point of the story before His birth.

The similarities between the account in Pseudo-Matthew and the one in the 19^th chapter of the Islamic scripture are remarkable and undeniable³². In both stories Mary takes rest in the shade of a palm tree, experiences the miraculous provision of fruit and water, and rejoices with refreshment. The most important difference between these accounts, on the other hand, concerns the time of this miraculous event. In contrast to Pseudo-Matthew, who says that this incident occurred on the third day of Mary, Joseph, and infant Jesus’ journey to Egypt, the 19^th chapter says that this miracle happened at the time of Jesus’ birth. This difference in the temporal setting of the story is also reflected on the reason causing Mary to take rest in the shade of a palm tree: the motive of resting is linked to Mary’s labor in the Qur’an while to the excessive heat of the desert in Pseudo-Matthew. 

Some scholars have doubts about the originality of this narrative in Pseudo-Matthew and speculate that it may have been adopted from Buddhist sources before its appearance in the Islamic scripture in a slightly different form. For instance, Tisdall contends that the account in Pseudo-Matthew as well as the one in Surah 19 lack originality:

But we have now to inquire from what source the Qur'an borrowed the idea that Christ was born at the foot of a tree: and also what is the origin of the legend that the tree bowed down to let the mother and Child eat of its fruit. It is hardly necessary to say that for neither the one statement nor the other is there the very slightest foundation in the Canonical Gospels. The source of both incidents is found in the books of the Buddhist Pali Canon, which, as we are informed in the Maha-Vamso, was reduced to writing in the reign of King Vattagamani of Ceylon, probably about 80 B.C. at latest49. But it is very possible that very considerable parts of these Pali books were composed several hundred years earlier. The legends contained in them were, in later but still very early times, widely spread, not only in India and Ceylon but also in Central Asia, China, Tibet, and other lands. Buddhist missionaries are mentioned in Yesht XIII., 16, as having appeared in Persia as early as the second century before Christ. (The Original Sources of the Qur’an, chapter IV)³³

Tisdall’s argument implies that the connection in the Qur’an between the account of the palm tree and Jesus’ nativity indicates the influence of Buddhist records of miraculous nativities more directly than the non-canonical Gospels of Infancy. It is also true that the features related to the place of Jesus’ birth in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an make Jesus similar not only to the heroes of some Buddhist sources, but also to Mithra, who was believed to be born under a tree and near a river³⁴. Nonetheless, Tisdall’s theory regarding the source of this account in non-canonical Gospels is based on the way the writers of the Qur’an changed the setting of Jesus’ nativity. Consequently, the real question that must be asked here is why Muhammad’s scribes needed to twist the original account in Pseudo-Matthew by presenting this incident as one coinciding with Mary’s delivery.  

The answer to this question gets us one step closer to solution to all the previously stated mysteries of Surah 19. The writers of the Qur’an follow the same strategy of tampering with the original time of the events in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew while endorsing the presumption that Mary was accused by her people of an illegitimate affair as a result of Jesus’ miraculous conception. In the Qur’an we read that Mary’s folk attempted to designate her as an unchaste woman when they saw her with a baby:

Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing.  O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. (19:27-28)

In Pseudo-Matthew the same accusation is brought up when Mary becomes pregnant after the angel’s visitation rather than after Jesus’ nativity. Another important point of the narrative in Pseudo-Matthew is that Joseph is said to be the first person to have doubts about Mary’s chastity:

While these things were doing, Joseph was occupied with his work, house-building, in the districts by the sea-shore; for he was a carpenter. And after nine months he came back to his house, and found Mary pregnant. Wherefore, being in the utmost distress, he trembled and cried out, saying: O Lord God, receive my spirit; for it is better for me to die than to live any longer. And the virgins who were with Mary said to him: Joseph, what art thou saying? We know that no man has touched her; we can testify that she is still a virgin, and untouched. We have watched over her; always has she continued with us in prayer; daily do the angels of God speak with her; daily does she receive food from the hand of the Lord. We know not how it is possible that there can be any sin in her. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 10)

Later an angel appears to Joseph in a dream to convince him of Mary’s virginity and chastity by informing him of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy:

And when he was thinking of rising up and hiding himself, and dwelling in secret, behold, on that very night, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in sleep, saying: Joseph, thou son of David, fear not; receive Mary as thy wife: for that which is in her womb is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and His name shall be called Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. And Joseph, rising from his sleep, gave thanks to God, and spoke to Mary and the virgins who were with her, and told them his vision. And he was comforted about Mary, saying: I have sinned, in that I suspected thee at all. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 11)

Being unaware of these angelic apparitions and Jesus’ miraculous conception, Mary’s folk charge both her and Joseph with the sin of fornication until Mary and Joseph pass a special test of innocence:

After these things there arose a great report that Mary was with child. And Joseph was seized by the officers of the temple, and brought along with Mary to the high priest. And he with the priests began to reproach him, and to say: Why hast thou beguiled so great and so glorious a virgin, who was fed like a dove in the temple by the angels of God, who never wished either to see or to have a man, who had the most excellent knowledge of the law of God? If thou hadst not done violence to her, she would still have remained in her virginity. And Joseph vowed, and swore that he had never touched her at all. And Abiathar the high priest answered him: As the Lord liveth, I will give thee to drink of the water of drinking of the Lord, and immediately thy sin will appear. Then was assembled a multitude of people which could not be numbered, and Mary was brought to the temple. And the priests, and her relatives, and her parents wept, and said to Mary: Confess to the priests thy sin, thou that wast like a dove in the temple of God, and didst receive food from the hands of an angel. And again Joseph was summoned to the altar, and the water of drinking of the Lord was given him to drink. And when any one that had lied drank this water, and walked seven times round the altar, God used to show some sign in his face. When, therefore, Joseph had drunk in safety, and had walked round the altar seven times, no sign of sin appeared in him. Then all the priests, and the officers, and the people justified him, saying: Blessed art thou, seeing that no charge has been found good against thee. And they summoned Mary, and said: And what excuse canst thou have? or what greater sign can appear in thee than the conception of thy womb, which betrays thee? This only we require of thee, that since Joseph is pure regarding thee, thou confess who it is that has beguiled thee. For it is better that thy confession should betray thee, than that the wrath of God should set a mark on thy face, and expose thee in the midst of the people. Then Mary said, stedfastly and without trembling: O Lord God, King over all, who knowest all secrets, if there be any pollution in me, or any sin, or any evil desires, or unchastity, expose me in the sight of all the people, and make me an example of punishment to all. Thus saying, she went up to the altar of the Lord boldly, and drank the water of drinking, and walked round the altar seven times, and no spot was found in her. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 12)  

In the Islamic version of the story this test of innocence is omitted since baby Jesus’ speech in the cradle is made to function as the indicator of Mary’s chastity. This is why right after Jesus’ birth Mary is supposedly instructed to keep silent:

So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal. (Surah 19:26)

This alleged fast of silence lays the groundwork for baby Jesus’ speech in the cradle in the ensuing part of the story. We read that Mary obeys this command and points at baby Jesus when her folk accuses her of fornication:

Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy? (19:27-29)

Baby Jesus’ miraculous speech in the cradle in this part of the Islamic narrative is significant as it marks the boundary of Muhammad’s scribes’ plagiarism from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and their relevant transition to another apocryphal source in search of new and appealing material for their fiction.

As we have stated before, the writers of the Qur’an made morbid mistakes while copying from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and trying to adapt non-canonical sources to their fiction. Their mistakes mostly resulted from the confusion of independent accounts having thematic parallelism. In other words, Muhammad’s scribes ineptly compressed and assimilated some notions and events on the basis of their similarity or pertinence. In some cases these hasty combinations gave birth to a chain of mistakes, having a drastic effect on the style of the entire story.

The prevalent example of this strategy and its tragic outcomes are apparent in the adoption of the account in Pseudo-Matthew concerning Mary’s accusation by Joseph and her folk. The writers of Surah 19 had to change the time of this event and place it after Jesus’ nativity because Joseph’s existence in the original text bothered them a lot. Since they previously modified the account referring to Joseph by applying its major thematic components to John, they decided to take Joseph out of Mary’s life altogether. After the narration of the angel’s visitation to Mary, they decided to incorporate the theme of Mary’s accusation by Joseph into their Surah only after Joseph’s elimination from the story. Consequently, they omitted the second independent account of the angelic apparition and annunciation that had Joseph’s name although they maintained its central theme by awkwardly inserting it into the account of Mary’s visitation by the angel. In the light of this textual modification, it becomes easy to understand why Mary in Surah 19 reminds the angel that she is not a harlot even before anyone questions her chastity. Thus, Mary’s explicit statement refusing the charges of prostitution is actually uttered by her virgin friends to Joseph in the original form of Pseudo-Matthew:

She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? (Surah 19:20)

 And the virgins who were with Mary said to him: Joseph, what art thou saying? We know that no man has touched her; we can testify that she is still a virgin, and untouched. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 10)

It is also noteworthy that the angel appearing to Mary for the annunciation of a miraculous conception forms an odd sentence to explain his mission and the cause of his visit:

He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. (Surah 19:19)

This so-called angelic statement implies that the angel was not only supposed to give the good news of Jesus’ nativity, but also to cause Mary’s pregnancy. This most likely stems from the misinterpretation of what Mary’s virgin friends say to Joseph about the source of the unexpected pregnancy in Pseudo-Matthew:

We know not how it is possible that there can be any sin in her. But if thou wishest us to tell thee what we suspect, nobody but the angel of the Lord has made her pregnant. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 10)

Since Muhammad’s scribes skipped the dialogue between Mary’s virgin friends and Joseph, they incorporated the claim about the angel’s role in Mary’s conception into the account of the annunciation. Muhammad’s scribes’ aversion to Joseph also compelled them to ascribe to Mary a sentence that was originally uttered by Joseph in Pseudo-Matthew. Consequently, Joseph’s complaint and wish to die because of Mary’s unexpected pregnancy was transferred to Mary. To compare:

While these things were doing, Joseph was occupied with his work, house-building, in the districts by the sea-shore; for he was a carpenter. And after nine months he came back to his house, and found Mary pregnant. Wherefore, being in the utmost distress, he trembled and cried out, saying: O Lord God, receive my spirit; for it is better for me to die than to live any longer. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 10)

And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died ere this and had become a thing of naught, forgotten! (Surah 19:23)

The abrupt and absurd leap to Jesus’ nativity right after the angel’s visitation to Mary in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an is based on the rough combination of a number of events occurring in Pseudo-Matthew’s Gospel. First, we read that Joseph decides to flee when he finds Mary pregnant before an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and announces Jesus’ miraculous conception:

And the virgins who were with Mary said to him: Joseph, what art thou saying? We know that no man has touched her; we can testify that she is still a virgin, and untouched. We have watched over her; always has she continued with us in prayer; daily do the angels of God speak with her; daily does she receive food from the hand of the Lord. We know not how it is possible that there can be any sin in her. But if thou wishest us to tell thee what we suspect, nobody but the angel of the Lord [2] has made her pregnant. Then said Joseph: Why do you mislead me, to believe that an angel of the Lord has made her pregnant? But it is possible that some one has pretended to be an angel of the Lord, and has beguiled her. And thus speaking, he wept, and said: With what face shall I look at the temple of the Lord, or with what face shall I see the priests of God? What am I to do? And thus saying, he thought that he would flee, and send her away. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 10)  

The writers of the Qur’an ignored the parts talking about Joseph and adapted some motifs of this account into Mary’s dialogue with the angel of the Lord as a result of assimilating the second annunciation into the first one. Thus, the idea of fleeing was ascribed to Mary rather than to Joseph, which sounded harmonious also with the idea of Mary's journey after the angelic apparition in Luke. On the other hand, the fact that Joseph decided not to flee was disregarded because in Pseudo-Matthew the idea of fleeing with regard to Jesus’ nativity was repeated in the following account. This time Joseph, Mary, and infant Jesus fled because an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and asked him to take the mother and the child and go to Egypt:

Now the day before this was done Joseph was warned in his sleep by the angel of the Lord, who said to him: Take Mary and the child, and go into Egypt by the way of the desert. And Joseph went according to the saying of the angel. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 17)

It is not a coincidence that Pseudo-Matthew relates the account of the palm tree and rivulet on the third day of Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus’ journey to Egypt:

And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 20)  

The thematic parallelism between this account and the one in chapter 10 would motivate the writers of the Qur’an to skip many chapters of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and conclude that the two distinct angelic apparitions experienced by Joseph was the one and same incident experienced by Mary alone. To compare the order of events in Pseudo-Matthew and Surah Mariam of the Qur’an:

In Pseudo-Matthew

•  First angelic apparition to Mary for the annunciation of Jesus’ birth

• Second angelic apparition to Joseph for the annunciation of Jesus’ birth and defense of Mary’s chastity (Joseph is instructed to guard Mary when he thinks of fleeing)
• Third angelic apparition to Joseph after Jesus’ nativity (Joseph is instructed to flee to Egypt with Mary and baby Jesus, and the miracle of gathering fruit and finding water occurs during this flight after Jesus' birth)

In Surah Mariam

• There is only one angelic apparition to Mary for the annunciation of Jesus’ birth.
• Mary oddly defends her unquestioned chastity in her dialogue with the angel of the Lord.
• Mary immediately leaves after the angel’s visitation.
• Mary is instructed by someone to get fresh fruit from the palm tree. (The miracle of gathering fruit and finding water occurs during Mary's flight before Jesus' nativity)

The quick leap from Jesus’ annunciation to His nativity (Mary’s delivery) in the Islamic version of the story is evidently founded on Muhammad’s scribes’ absurd wish to pick up a single account and eliminate all the other independent accounts having similar motifs. Those scribes probably suffered from short memory and presumed that it would be easier to remember and recite shorter narratives. This tendency of theirs would make them bring about another drastic change in the course of the original story of Jesus’ nativity. The faulty temporal coincidence of Jesus’ conception and birth in the 19^th chapter would also necessitate the transfer of the motifs peculiar to the account of Jesus’ birth in Pseudo-Matthew to the account of Jesus’ annunciation. Muhammad’s scribes would encounter another angelic apparition in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which would be subject to elimination as a result of its parallelism with the primary angelic apparition to Mary. According to Pseudo-Matthew, Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem when Joseph and Mary went there on the occasion of a census:

And it came to pass some little time after, that an enrolment was made according to the edict of Caesar Augustus, that all the world was to be enrolled, each man in his native place. This enrolment was made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria, It was necessary, therefore, that Joseph should enroll with the blessed Mary in Bethlehem, because to it they belonged, being of the tribe of Judah, and of the house and family of David. When, therefore, Joseph and the blessed Mary were going along the road which leads to Bethlehem, Mary said to Joseph: I see two peoples before me, the one weeping, and the other rejoicing. And Joseph answered: Sit still on thy beast, and do not speak superfluous words. Then there appeared before them a beautiful boy, clothed in white raiment, who-said to Joseph: Why didst thou say that the words which Mary spoke about the two peoples were superfluous? For she saw the people of the Jews weeping, because they have departed from their God; and the people of the Gentiles rejoicing, because they have now been added and made near to the Lord, according to that which He promised to our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for the time is at hand when in the seed of Abraham all nations shall be blessed. And when he had thus said, the angel ordered the beast to stand, for the time when she should bring forth was at hand; and he commanded the blessed Mary to come down off the animal, and go into a recess under a cavern, in which there never was light, but always darkness, because the light of day could not reach it. And when the blessed Mary had gone into it, it began to shine with as much brightness as if it were the sixth hour of the day. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 13)

The writers of the Qur’an connected the major motifs of this account of Jesus’ nativity with the account of the angel’s visitation to Mary. The result of this approach was the Islamic assertion that the angelic apparition took place after Mary withdrew from her family. The actual cause of this departure was nothing else than the census. Now we know why it is written in Surah 19:16 that Mary withdrew herself from her family. However, the account above does not say that Mary and Joseph went to an Eastern place. Where did this reference to an Eastern place originate from then? In the 19^th chapter we read that Mary withdrew herself to a place twice: first to an eastern place (MAKANAN SHARKIYYA) before the annunciation, and then to a distant place (MAKANAN KASIYYA) after the annunciation. Pseudo-Matthew endorses this pair of journeys taken by Mary because we read there that Mary first goes to Bethlehem just for Jesus’ birth and then to Egypt after Jesus’ birth. Interestingly, Mary’s second journey, which has the form of an escape, is related to her first journey to Bethlehem through the visit of certain men coming from the East. These visitors come to Bethlehem to seek baby Jesus because they say that they have been informed of Jesus’ birth through the rising of his star in the East. King Herod hears of this developing story and seeks the way of murdering baby Jesus. As a result of his evil plots, an angel asks Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and set out for Egypt:

And when the second year was past, Magi came from the east to Jerusalem, bringing great gifts. And they made strict inquiry of the Jews, saying: Where is the king who has been born to you? for we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him. … Then King Herod summoned the magi to him, and strictly inquired of them when the star appeared to them. Then, sending them to Bethlehem, he said: Go and make strict inquiry about the child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. And while the magi were going on their way, there appeared to them the star, which was, as it were, a guide to them, going before them until they came to where the child was. And when the magi saw the star, they rejoiced with great joy; and going into the house, they saw the child Jesus sitting in His mother's lap. Then they opened their treasures, and presented great gifts to the blessed Mary and Joseph. And to the child Himself they offered each of them a piece of gold. And likewise one gave gold, another frankincense, and the third myrrh. And when they were going to return to King Herod, they were warned by an angel in their sleep not to go back to Herod; and they returned to their own country by another road. And when Herod saw that he had been made sport of by the magi, his heart swelled with rage, and he sent through all the roads, wishing to seize them and put them to death. But when he could not find them at all; he sent anew to Bethlehem and all its borders, and slew all the male children whom he found of two years old and under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the magi. Now the day before this was done Joseph was warned in his sleep by the angel of the Lord, who said to him: Take Mary and the child, and go into Egypt by the way of the desert. And Joseph went according to the saying of the angel. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 16-17)

In the Islamic version of the story Mary’s second withdrawal corresponds to her journey to Egypt in Pseudo-Matthew whereas Mary’s first withdrawal to her trip to Bethlehem. The writers of the Qur’an chose only the notion of an Eastern place from the original story of the Magi coming from the East in Pseudo-Matthew (because of its function as the motive for the second journey) and incorporated it into the story of Jesus’ annunciation³⁵, which corresponded to Jesus’ nativity in their distorted chronology of the events.

As for the sentence referring to Mary’s seclusion from her family/people in 19:17, this is most likely an expression used by the writers of the Qur’an to indicate the privacy of Mary’s delivery. In Pseudo-Matthew Mary is directed by angel into the recess of a cave at the time of her labor. This is similar to her hiding herself from people on the occasion of her labor. According to Shakir’s translation, Mary actually veils herself from her family:

So she took a veil (to screen herself) from them; then We sent to her Our spirit, and there appeared to her a well-made man. (Surah 19:17)

Should we take the veil occurring in the above verse literally, another point of similarity between the Islamic version of Mary’s story and the narrative in Pseudo-Matthew becomes apparent. Strikingly, Pseudo-Matthew describes Mary as a virgin chosen by lots to sew the veil of the Temple of God:

Then Joseph received Mary, with the other five virgins who were to be with her in Joseph's house. These virgins were Rebecca, Sephora, Susanna, Abigea, and Cael; to whom the high priest gave the silk, and the blue, and the fine linen, and the scarlet, and the purple, and the fine flax. For they cast lots among themselves what each virgin should do, and the purple for the veil of the temple of the Lord fell to the lot of Mary. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 8)

More to the point, it is stressed in Pseudo-Matthew that the angel announcing Jesus’ birth appeared to Mary while she was working at the veil of the Temple:

Again, on the third day, while she was working at the purple with her fingers, there entered a young man of ineffable beauty. And when Mary saw him, she exceedingly feared and trembled. And he said to her: Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 9)

Here we once more witness another case of Muhammad’s scribes’ cramming too many ideas into one single account. To summarize the themes adopted and inserted into the narrative of Jesus’ annunciation in Surah 19 by the writers of the Qur’an:

• An angel appeared to Mary and gave the good news of Jesus’ birth when she had the duty of sewing the veil of the Temple of the Lord.
• An angel appeared to Mary and told her to get into a cave for delivery when Mary took her first journey to Bethlehem.
• Magi came from the East to find baby Jesus because they said they had seen his star rise in the East. This revelation resulted in Mary’s second journey.

In the Islamic version of Mary’s story the promise and fulfillment of Jesus’ nativity coincided. This was why the writers of the Qur’an said that the angel appeared to Mary in an Eastern place when she hid herself from people through a veil, haphazardly combining the elements of the narrative of Jesus’ birth with those of His annunciation.

As we have already mentioned, the narrative in Surah 19 contradicts the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew with regard to the time of Mary’s accusation by her folk. In Pseudo-Matthew Mary is accused of an illegitimate affair when she is found pregnant after the angel’s visit (chapter 12) whereas in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an Mary is accused of the same sin as soon as she carries baby Jesus to her folk:

Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing. (Surah 19:27)

The idea in verse 27 that Mary was blamed for being unchaste when she was seen with baby Jesus conveys a literal meaning to Pseudo-Matthew’s metaphorical language indicating Mary’s pregnancy:

After these things there arose a great report that Mary was with child. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 12)

The writers of the Qur’an were not bothered by changing the time of Mary’s accusation by her people because the report of Mary’s “being with child” in the above verse can be interpreted in the sense of Mary’s “carrying baby Jesus” after the delivery. The context of the verse in Pseudo-Matthew, however, makes it clear that Mary’s “being with child” pertained to her pregnancy and carrying a baby in her womb.

The verses of the Qur’an depicting Mary’s accusation by her folk contain a phrase that cannot be found in any canonical scripture or non-canonical Christian literature:

O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. (Surah 19:28)

Muhammad’s scribes bafflingly contend that Mary’s folk identified her as Aaron’s sister while addressing her with the accusation of sexual immorality. This identification is one of the outstanding and major historical blunders of the Qur’an, and takes the form of an everlasting controversy between Muslim scholars and Christian polemicists. The source of the Christian critique is the fact that the Bible talk of two significant women with the name Mary³⁶, one being the Mary of the Exodus (and of the Old Testament period) and the other being the Mary of the New Testament (Jesus’ mother). Of these two distinct women that lived at least a thousand years apart from each other, Mary of the Exodus is identified as Amram’s daughter, who is also said to be the father of Aaron and Moses:

Now the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And to Amram she bore Aaron, Moses, and Miriam their sister (Numbers 26:59)

In the New Testament the names of Mary’s parents are not given although in non-canonical Gospels of Infancy Mary’s parents are traditionally named Joachim and Anna:

After these things, her nine months being fulfilled, Anna brought forth a daughter, and called her Mary. And having weaned her in her third year, Joachim, and Anna his wife, went together to the temple of the Lord to offer sacrifices to God, and placed the infant, Mary by name, in the community of virgins, in which the virgins remained day and night praising God. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 4)

And, behold, two angels came, saying to her: Behold, Joachim thy husband is coming with his flocks. For an angel of the Lord went down to him, saying: Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God hath heard thy prayer Go down hence; for, behold, thy wife Anna shall conceive. (Gospel of James chapter 4)

The blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary sprung from the royal stock and family of David, born in the city of Nazareth, was brought up at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord. Her father was named Joachim, and her mother Anna. (Gospel of the Nativity of Mary chapter I)³⁷

To make things more puzzling, the two chapters belonging to the Medina period of the Qur’an identify Mary as Imran’s (Amram in Hebrew) daughter:

And Mary, daughter of 'Imran, whose body was chaste, therefor We breathed therein something of Our Spirit. And she put faith in the words of her Lord and His scriptures, and was of the obedient. (Surah 66:12)

(Remember) when the wife of 'Imran said: My Lord! I have vowed unto Thee that which is in my belly as a consecrated (offering). Accept it from me. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower! And when she was delivered she said: My Lord! Lo! I am delivered of a female - Allah knew best of what she was delivered - the male is not as the female; and lo! I have named her Mary, and lo! I crave Thy protection for her and for her offspring from Satan the outcast. (Surah 3:35-36)

The supposition in the Qur’an that Jesus’ mother Mary was Imran’s daughter and Aaron’s sister strengthen the argument that Muhammad’s scribes mistakenly regarded Jesus’ mother Mary as the Mary living in Moses’ period³⁸.

It is no surprise that Muslims scholars invent alternative interpretations for 19:28 to defend their scripture and refute the charges of historical mistakes. According to one theory, Mary is metaphorically called the sister of Aaron because she is a descendant of Aaron. Thus, Mary’s designation as Aaron’s sister is alleged to reflect her tribal affiliation with Aaron, which is also relevant to Mary’s dedication to the service of the Temple in Surah 3:

And her Lord accepted her with full acceptance and vouchsafed to her a goodly growth; and made Zachariah her guardian. Whenever Zachariah went into the sanctuary where she was, he found that she had food. (Surah 3:37)

This theory is rather weak due to two facts. First, nowhere in the Qur’an is Aaron affiliated with the service of the Temple. More to the point, only in Surah 19 is Mary called the sister of Aaron, and this account does not mention Mary’s dedication to the service of the Temple or her contact with Zachariah. In the 3^rd chapter of the Qur’an, which relates Mary’s days of service in the sanctuary of the Temple, Mary is not called Aaron’s sister either. Second, the word that is metaphorically used to indicate one’s tribal affiliation with someone is “son” and “daughter” rather than “brother” or “sister”. If Muhammad’s scribes had really intended to mean Mary’s affiliation with Aaron’s progeny in chapter 19, they would have made Mary’s folk call her “a daughter of Aaron”.

Another less popular theory teaches that Mary was addressed by her people as Aaron’s sister because Mary’s accusers wanted to make a connection between her piousness and prophet Aaron. The problem with this theory is that it ignores the question why there is nothing in the entire Qur’an to support the asserted parallelism between Aaron and one’s (especially a female’s) piousness³⁹. Interestingly, Surah 66:12, which makes an explicit reference to Mary’s chastity and piousness, does not present Mary as a sister or daughter of Aaron, but refers to Mary’s biological father:

And Mary, daughter of 'Imran, whose body was chaste, therefor We breathed therein something of Our Spirit.

It is also noteworthy that Imran’s identification as Mary’s father in the Medina period of the Qur’an is dependent on Mary’s identification as Aaron’s sister in Surah 19. Further, the form of the sentence in 19:28 displays that Aaron is the key figure through whom the identity of Mary’s biological parents are implied. The people accusing Mary of immorality first address her as the sister of Aaron and then make a reference to her biological parents. The only logical reason for the occurrence of the words “father” and “mother” in the same context as the word “sister” in the verse below is Mary’s supposed biological affiliation with Aaron:

O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. (Surah 19:28)

It can be wondered why the writers of the Qur’an referred to Mary as Aaron’s sister alone and did not call her Moses’ sister as well. The answer to this question is embedded in the following verse quoted from the Book of Exodus:

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand-drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand-drums and with dances. (Exodus 15:20)

Evidently, the genuine Mary (Miriam in Hebrew) of the Old Testament was designated as the sister of Aaron, for it was not crucial to mention both of Miriam’s brothers while referring to the members of her family. Moreover, Aaron was the older one of Miriam’s two brothers⁴⁰. Muhammad’s scribes heard this phrase (the sister of Aaron) and tried to accommodate it to their fiction about Jesus’ mother Mary. While giving the account of Mary’s accusation by her folk, they mistook the Miriam of the Old Testament as the virgin mother of Jesus through their habit of combining the narratives that had a strong parallelism as well as transforming two similar figures into one single person through elimination.

The thematic parallelism that gave birth to the erroneous teaching that Jesus’ mother Mary was the same person as Miriam, the sister of Aaron, was not relegated to the identicalness of the two female figures’ names. Muhammad’s scribes heard that Miriam was considered a prophetess (Exodus 15:20). Although they rejected the notion of female prophets, they naively concluded that the Miriam who was considered a prophetess was more likely to be Jesus’ mother because of the stories related about her in the Gospels of infancy than the Miriam of the Old Testament.  

Second, Muhammad’s scribes forged a connection between the verse of Exodus where Miriam, the sister of Aaron, was said to be dancing to praise God and the narrative of the non-canonical Gospel of James, where Mary, the mother of Jesus, was said to dance and praise God. To compare:

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand-drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand-drums and with dances. Miriam sang in response to them, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.” (Exodus 15:20-21)

And the priest said: Mary, why hast thou done this? and why hast thou brought thy soul low, and forgotten the Lord thy God? Thou that wast reared in the holy of holies, and that didst receive food from the hand of an angel, and didst hear the hymns, and didst dance before Him, why hast thou done this? (Gospel of James chapter 15)

The forged parallelism between these independent accounts was astonishingly strengthened by the writers of the Qur’an, who claimed that Mary’s people addressed her as the sister of Aaron when they accused her of fornication. This illustrates how they combined the two sources on the basis of a reference to Miriam’s dancing and why they introduced their historical blunder about Mary’s identity right in the account of Mary’s accusation by her folk.

The final thematic association the writers of the Qur’an drew between the verses of Exodus and those of the Gospel of James concerned the notion of Miriam’s return to Israel after a miraculous and significant incident: Miriam, the sister of Aaron, danced after the miraculous Exodus on the way to Israel while in the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an Mary, the mother of Jesus, returned to her folk after the miraculous and significant event of Jesus’ nativity. All these superficial similarities between the Old Testament verse about Miriam and the non-canonical Gospels of infancy tragically convinced Muhammad’s scribes that Miriam of the Exodus was Jesus’ mother!

In the final part of the Islamic version of Jesus’ nativity and infancy we read that baby Jesus performed a miracle by speaking in His cradle when Mary’s folk questioned her chastity:

O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy? He spake: Lo! I am the slave of Allah. He hath given me the Scripture and hath appointed me a Prophet. (Surah 19:28-30)

The teaching that Jesus miraculously spoke in His cradle is not peculiar to this chapter of the Qur’an. The non-canonical Arabic Gospel of Infancy records the same miracle that Jesus allegedly performed in the early days of His infancy:

We find what follows in the book of Joseph the high priest, who lived in the time of Christ. Some say that he is Caiaphas. He has said that Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world. (Arabic Infancy Gospel chapter 1)⁴¹

Apparently, Muhammad’s scribes plagiarized from this apocryphal source after perverting the content of Jesus’ speech so that they could adapt this account to the Islamic tenet designating Jesus as a messenger of God rather than as the Son of God. Before examining the deliberate distortion of Jesus’ speech in the cradle, it is necessary to note that the incorporation of this miracle into the 19^th chapter of the Qur’an is partly based on Muhammad’s scribes’ supposition that Mary was Zachariah’s counterpart even to the point of Zachariah’s muteness before John’s nativity. Those scribes simply reasoned that Mary’s alleged fast of silence would both form a parallelism between Zachariah and Mary with regard to the notion of silence and make baby Jesus’ miraculous speech in the cradle crucial and meaningful.

While tampering with the original form of baby Jesus’ speech in the Arabic Gospel of Infancy, the writers of the Qur’an meticulously replaced basic Christian notions and tenets with the purely Islamic ones. To compare:

The interesting and problematic part of this modification process was that the writers of the Qur’an did not understand Jesus’ identification as the Logos (the Word of God). Since they did not know that in Christian theology the word Logos pertained to God’s uncreated Wisdom and Word, they could but attach to this term the meaning of a scripture because of the idea that a scripture was a part of the Word of God. As a consequence of the Logos’ confusion with scriptures, Muhammad’s scribes had to teach that Jesus was given a book/scripture like the Qur’an when He was a little baby in the cradle. This teaching distinguishes Jesus from Moses and Muhammad, who in Islam are believed to be messengers that got a scripture from God at a late period of their lives. In addition, the Qur’an claims that the final revelation to Muhammad came in portions:

And (it is) a Qur'an that We have divided, that thou mayst recite it unto mankind at intervals, and We have revealed it by (successive) revelation. (Surah 17:106)

And those who disbelieve say: Why is the Qur'an not revealed unto him all at once? (It is revealed) thus that We may strengthen thy heart therewith; and We have arranged it in right order. (Surah 25:32)

These verses disregard the Islamic supposition that Jesus was given a book at once when he was a baby. Besides, the reasons given in the verses above for the crucial division of the Qur'an into portions lose their validity when they are applied to the book supposedly revealed to Jesus⁴². In any case the assertion in Surah 19 that Jesus had a scripture in full when He was still a baby is closer to the Christian tenet that Jesus is the Word of God and the term “Gospel” does not refer to Qur’an-like scripture supposedly revealed to Jesus.

The way the writers of the Qur’an put the following words in baby Jesus’ mouth shows their eagerness to forcefully add Jesus into the chain of former Islamic messengers:

And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive. (Surah 19:31)

The remaining two sentences of Jesus’ alleged speech in the cradle are identical in form with the things said about John in the account of his infancy:

And (hath made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:32-33) (Jesus)

And dutiful toward his parents. And he was not arrogant, rebellious. Peace on him the day he was born, and the day he dieth and the day he shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:14-15) (John)

This parallelism is based on the fact that Muhammad’s scribes were bewildered to find no account in Pseudo-Matthew that presented and highlighted infant Jesus’ characteristics. The only thing they could find was a long chapter devised to praise infant Mary:

And Mary was held in admiration by all the people of Israel; and when she was three years old, she walked with a step so mature, she spoke so perfectly, and spent her time so assiduously in the praises of God, that all were astonished at her, and wondered; and she was not reckoned a young infant, but as it were a grown-up person of thirty years old. She was so constant in prayer, and her appearance was so beautiful and glorious, that scarcely any one could look into her face. And she occupied herself constantly with her wool-work, so that she in her tender years could do all that old women were not able to do. And this was the order that she had set for herself: From the morning to the third hour she remained in prayer; from the third to the ninth she was occupied with her weaving; and from the ninth she again applied herself to prayer. She did not retire from praying until there appeared to her the angel of the Lord, from whose hand she used to receive food; and thus she became more and more perfect in the work of God. Then, when the older virgins rested from the praises of God, she did not rest at all; so that in the praises and vigils of God none were found before her, no one more learned in the wisdom of the law of God, more lowly in humility, more elegant in singing, more perfect in all virtue. She was indeed steadfast, immoveable, unchangeable, and daily advancing to perfection. No one saw her angry, nor heard her speaking evil. All her speech was so full of grace, that her God was acknowledged to be in her tongue. She was always engaged in prayer and in searching the law, and she was anxious lest by any word of hers she should sin with regard to her companions. Then she was afraid lest in her laughter, or the sound of her beautiful voice, she should commit any fault, or lest, being elated, she should display any wrong-doing or haughtiness to one of her equals. She blessed God without intermission; and lest perchance, even in her salutation, she might cease from praising God; if any one saluted her, she used to answer by way of salutation: Thanks be to God. And from her the custom first began of men saying, Thanks be to God, when they saluted each other. She refreshed herself only with the food which she daily received from the hand of the angel; but the food which she obtained from the priests she divided among the poor. The angels of God were often seen speaking with her, and they most diligently obeyed her. If any one who was unwell touched her, the same hour he went home cured. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 6)

However, the scribes thought that this narrative was actually about Jesus rather than Mary. Unsurprisingly, what drove them to this conclusion was again the thematic parallelism between the narrative of Mary’s infancy in Pseudo-Matthew and the narrative of Jesus’ childhood in the Arabic Gospel of Infancy. As the Arabic Gospel depicted Jesus as an infant speaking in His cradle, Muhammad’s scribes determined to transfer some major points of the account depicting infant Mary in Pseudo-Matthew to infant Jesus’ speech in the 19^th chapter. To compare, in Pseudo-Matthew Mary was portrayed as a blessed and devout child constantly praying as well as helping the poor. This resulted in the formation of the following sentence in the Qur’an:

And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive. (Surah 19:31)

The summary of Mary’s virtues in the 6^th chapter of Pseudo-Matthew was inserted into baby Jesus’ speech in the cradle:

And (hath made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. (Surah 19:32)

The idea that Mary always saluted people was also added into Jesus’ speech after its transformation into the Islamic formula of peace (salutation):

Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! (Surah 19:33)

The fact that Pseudo-Matthew contained a chapter about infant Mary also compelled Muhammad’s scribes to make a connection between this chapter and John’s infancy as a result of their systematic replacement of Mary in Pseudo-Matthew with John in Surah 19. They eventually described infant John as a child full of wisdom. Their claim that Jesus was given a scripture was also applied to John in a slightly different form as a consequence of the parallelism between John (Mary in the original account) and Jesus:

And it was said unto his son): O John! Hold fast the Scripture. And we gave him wisdom when a child. (Surah 19:12)

Further, the way this chapter associates both infant Jesus and John with the notions of wisdom and obedience to parents is compatible with what Luke says about infant Jesus:

And all who heard Jesus were astonished at his understanding and his answers. (Luke 2:47)

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. (Luke 2:51)

Jesus’ reference to the day of His birth, death, and resurrection in verse 33 of the 19^th chapter does not necessarily indicate Muhammad’s familiarity with the passion and resurrection narratives of the canonical Gospels. The most interesting feature of Jesus’ general speech in Surah 19 is that it summarizes Jesus’ supposed mission as an Islamic messenger, but does not support the Islamic denial of Jesus’ crucifixion and death. Obviously, Muhammad’s scribes were not familiar with Christ’s crucifixion until late Medina period, when they adopted anti-Jewish sentiments that led them to the embracement of some Gnostic teachings.

The following verses mark the end of the Islamic account of Jesus’ nativity and infancy in Surah 19:

Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. It befitteth not (the Majesty of) Allah that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. (Surah 19:34-35)  

After verse 33 Muhammad’s scribes quit being preoccupied with the style of this narrative and accordingly stopped using the words that ended in “IYYA” to imply that the verses ensuing verse 33 were not included into the supposedly accurate historical narratives of John and Jesus’ nativity and infancy. They patched to the end of the narrative their personal critique of the misunderstood form of the basic Christian tenet concerning Jesus’ identity (Christians call Jesus the Son of God, but they never mean that God took Jesus to Himself as a child).

The introduction of this faulty and misleading commentary into the 19^th chapter right after the account about Jesus exposes Muhammad’s scribes’ true aim in narrating John and Jesus’ stories of infancy and childhood and casts doubts over the accuracy and genuineness of the recorded things.  In other words, the charge directed at Christians in verses 34-35 prove that the writers of the Qur’an manipulated and distorted canonical and non-canonical Christian scriptures in accordance with their final comment and supposed truth concerning Jesus.

The leap to the critique of the so-called Christian doctrines also reveals the lack of coherence in Surah 19 between infant Jesus' speech and the primary reason motivating that speech. Athough the writers of this chapter imply that Jesus spoke in His cradle when His mother Mary was accused of an illegitimate affair, the content of Jesus' speech seems unaware of this implication. Infant Jesus says nothing about His mother's chastity and does not explain why and how He was born of a virgin. More, we cannot learn from the Qur'an how Mary's folk responded to the supposed miracle of a baby speaking in His cradle.

The final point we would like to emphasize on the basis of Jesus’ nativity and infancy narrative in Surah 19 is related to the following statement:

Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. (Surah 19:35)

The writers of the Qur’an bind Jesus’ miraculous birth to God’s almightiness and creative word because they choose to evade the question why Jesus’ uniquely miraculous birth was necessary. Muslim scholars make use of the same statement quoted above to explain why Jesus is called a word from God and God’s word in the Qur’an (Surah 3:45 and 4:171). They claim that Jesus is a word from God because He was created by God’s command⁴³. Although the account in Surah 19 supports the assertion that Jesus was created by Allah’s word, there is nothing in this account that makes an association between Jesus’ birth and the creative word of God. In Pseudo-Matthew the angel appearing to Mary does not define Jesus as God’s word. More interestingly, Pseudo-Matthew does not depict Mary as the Word of God although in the narrative of Mary’s annunciation, the angel says to Mary’s mother Anna that Mary was created through God’s command:

And while she was thus speaking, suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared before her, saying: Be not afraid, Anna, for there is seed for thee in the decree of God; and all generations even to the end shall wonder at that which shall be born of thee. And when he had thus spoken, he vanished out of her sight. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 2)

Jesus is not called God’s word in the Qur’an until the devisal of the 3^rd chapter, which is almost a word by word copy of the non-canonical Gospel of James:

(And remember) when the angels said: O Mary! Lo! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (unto Allah). (Surah 3:45)

And behold an angel of the Lord stood before her saying: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace before the Lord of all things, and thou shalt conceive of his word. (Gospel of James chapter XI: 2)⁴⁴

If the writers of the Qur’an had really interpreted the title “the Word of God” in the same way as the Muslims scholars do today, they would have called Jesus “a word from God” in the 19^th chapter. The fact that Jesus is called God’s word only in two Surahs of the Medina period proves two things: First, the current Islamic assertion concerning Jesus’ identification as God’s word is a mere fabrication. Second, Muhammad’s scribes copied mostly from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew in the creation of the 19^th chapter whereas they resorted to the Gospel of James in the creation of the 3^rd chapter.

CONCLUSION

The writers of the Islamic scripture were not actually stupid or ignorant people who attempted to create a fiction in order to challenge basic Christian tenets. They considered themselves crafty enough to copy from Christian scripture in order to promote their counter teachings in accordance with Muhammad’s new doctrine and ideology. Plagiarism from Christian writings was a necessity as well as the systematic distortion of those sources. While inventing the first historical narrative about the prevalent figures of Christianity in the Qur’an, Muhammad’s scribes inevitably encountered a number of obstacles due to the cultural and historic peculiarities of their era and space of fiction. First, they became unable to distinguish canonical writings from apocryphal ones since they used the notion of popularity as the main criterion for the validity of a text. The Gospels of nativity and infancy were eventually regarded as primary sources for the adoption of fundamental Christian teachings after their adaptation to Islam since these writings contained very famous stories circulating in the Christian population of the time. 

Second, the writers of the Qur’an were baffled when they heard from some Christians a few additional stories that had both similarities and contradictions with the things recorded in the Gospels of nativity and infancy. The writers could only presume that these discrepancies reflected the textual corruption of their primary source. In order to solve this supposed problem, they focused on the thematic parallelism between these different accounts and made efforts to combine them through the elimination of some figures. This, however, caused more problems because the method of harmonization turned into the systematic unification of some originally independent accounts and thus a very dangerous game in the hands of the writers of the Qur’an. The result of this extreme and unnecessary tendency to harmonize almost every narrative, even the ones having a superficial similarity, was the confusion of characters and teachings, which made the Qur’an not only a book contradicting the New Testament, but also a book full of historical blunders.

Consequently, the peculiar form of the apocryphal Gospels of infancy imposed a curse on the writers of the Qur’an by leading them into their hasty and faulty conclusions and forcing them to illustrate that the Qur’an was not of divine origin, but was a scripture based on the inept distortion of a few apocryphal Christian writings.

APPENDIX I

Who shall inherit of me and inherit (also) of the house of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, acceptable (unto Thee). (Surah 19:6)

Thus thy Lord will prefer thee and will teach thee the interpretation of events, and will perfect His grace upon thee and upon the family of Jacob as He perfected it upon thy forefathers, Abraham and Isaac. Lo! thy Lord is Knower, Wise. (Surah 12:6)

These two verses have differences as well as similarities. They are different because they are two independent sentences uttered by different people (Zachariah in the first while Jacob in the second) and on different occasions (Zachariah’s prayer versus Jacob’s advice to his son Joseph). These two verses are similar in that in both instances we have a father talking about his son in association with the notion of promises and divine blessings. Besides, both fathers use the same formula in order to wish the fulfillment of the promise and blessings at not only individual, but also tribal level. This is why Zachariah’s son is expected to inherit of the father AND of the house of Jacob whilst God is said to perfect His grace not only on Jacob’s son Joseph, but ALSO on the house of Jacob. This parallelism gives the reader the impression that the writers of the Qur’an somehow considered Zachariah directly affiliated with Jacob rather than with Aaron.

APPENDIX II

In addition to the purely coincidental occurrence of the names “Judah” and “Reuben”, Joachim’s account in Pseudo-Matthew has a few thematic analogies with Joseph’s story in the Old Testament. In both narratives the male character (Joachim in Pseudo-Matthew and Joseph in Genesis) is a shepherd tending the flocks who suffers separation from his family. Joachim is said to go away and leave his wife Anna behind because the priest named Reuben does not want him in the Temple of the Lord:

And it happened that, in the time of the feast, among those who were offering incense to the Lord, Joachim stood getting ready his gifts in the sight of the Lord. And the priest, Ruben by name, coming to him, said: It is not lawful for thee to stand among those who are doing sacrifice to God, because God has not blessed thee so as to give thee seed in Israel. Being therefore put to shame in the sight of the people, he retired from the temple of the Lord weeping, and did not return to his house, but went to his flocks, taking with him his shepherds into the mountains to a far country, so that for five months his wife Anna could hear no tidings of him. And she prayed with tears, saying: O Lord, most mighty God of Israel, why hast Thou, seeing that already Thou hast not given me children, taken from me my husband also? Behold, now five months that I have not seen my husband; and I know not where he is tarrying; nor, if I knew him to be dead, could I bury him. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 2)

According to the story in Genesis, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers who hated him out of jealousy. One day Joseph’s brothers made an evil plot to kill him, but “Reuben” saved him from death by suggesting his brothers that they throw him into a cistern. “Judah”, another brother of Joseph, suggested selling him to the Ishmaelites. Finally, Joseph was sold away to a far country and separated from his family:

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, was taking care of the flocks with his brothers. (Genesis 37:2)

Now Joseph’s brothers saw him from a distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this master of dreams! Come now, let’s kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and then say that a wild animal ate him. Then we’ll see how his dreams turn out!” When Reuben heard this, he rescued Joseph from their hands, saying, “Let’s not take his life!” Reuben continued, “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” (Genesis 37: 18:22)

When they sat down to eat their food, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let’s not lay a hand on him, for after all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed. (Genesis 37:25-27)

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters stood by him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” So Joseph’s father wept for him. (Genesis 37:34-35)

Further, in Pseudo-Matthew Joachim is said to be an outstanding person receiving a special blessing from God in Israel, which makes him more similar to Joseph in Genesis:

In those days there was a man in Jerusalem, Joachim by name, of the tribe of Judah. He was the shepherd of his own sheep, fearing the Lord in integrity and singleness of heart. He had no other care than that of his herds, from the produce of which he supplied with food all that feared God, offering double gifts in the fear of God to all who laboured in doctrine, and who ministered unto Him. Therefore his lambs, and his sheep, and his wool, and all things whatsoever he possessed, he used to divide into three portions: one he gave to the orphans, the widows, the strangers, and the poor; the second to those that worshipped God; and the third he kept for himself and all his house. And as he did so, the Lord multiplied to him his herds, so that there was no man like him in the people of Israel. (Pseudo-Matthew chapter 1) 

Undoubtedly, Muhammad’s scribes, who made a mountain out of a mole hill with regard to the notion of similarities, would not overlook this set of parallelisms between the story of Joachim and the story of Joseph.

APPENDIX III

The Islamic teaching that the supposed final divine revelation was given in portions caused a lot of trouble for Muhammad, who was challenged by the pagans of Mecca to get the entire Qur'an all at once. Muhammad seemingly could not find any better excuses for the division of the Qur'an than the ones in the following verses:

And (it is) a Qur'an that We have divided, that thou mayst recite it unto mankind at intervals, and We have revealed it by (successive) revelation. (Surah 17:106) 

And those who disbelieve say: Why is the Qur'an not revealed unto him all at once? (It is revealed) thus that We may strengthen thy heart therewith; and We have arranged it in right order. (Surah 25:32) 

"That you may recite it unto makind at intervals": Muhammad's first excuse concerned the recitation of the Qur'an at intervals. However, this was a weak and fallacious argument because the full revelation of the Qur'an would not necessarily prevent Muhammad from reciting it to mankind in smaller portions. A person having an entire book does not have to read all of it at once. The Islamic assertion that baby Jesus had the entire book when He was a little baby also illustrates the weakness of Muhammad's first excuse. Allah supposedly gave baby Jesus a full book, but did not stipulate that Jesus recite it to mankind at once.

"That we may strengthen thy heart therewith": Muhammad's second excuse is actually worse than the first one as it underestimates God's omnipotence. Would not the supposed revelation itself make Muhammad strong enough? How was Muhammad's strength related to the form of the revelation? This pretext also makes us wonder if God failed to strengthen Jesus' heart when He allegedly gave Him the book (Injeel) in its entirety.

"We have arranged it in right order": This is the worst of the reasons introduced by Muhammad for the division of the Qur'an as it implies that the right order of the Qur'an is dependent on its successive form of revelation. Muhammad probably thought that God would not be able to give His books in right order if He chose to reveal them at once. We once more wonder whether the book supposedly given to baby Jesus was in wrong order because it had been allegedly given at once.