Mary in Islam

Maryam: honoured above the women of the worlds

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of the most honoured people in Islam. Muslims call her Maryam. She is the only woman named in the Qur’an, where her name appears more often than in the New Testament, and the Qur’an’s 19th chapter, Sūrat Maryam, carries her name.

Sources Hussain, LMU Magazine, 2021(opens in a new window)

Dedicated to God from before her birth

The Qur’an tells how Mary’s mother, the wife of ʿImrān, promised her unborn child to God’s service and named her daughter Maryam (3:35–36). God accepted her and raised her well, and the prophet Zakariyyā (Zechariah) became her guardian (3:37). He was also family: Muslim sources describe his wife as Mary’s sister or her maternal aunt, and a hadith calls John and Jesus maternal cousins. Mary grew up devoted to worship in her place of prayer, the miḥrāb. Muslim tradition describes her living there in seclusion, kept apart from other men, with Zakariyyā the one who visited her. Whenever he came, he found provision with her, and she told him it came from God (3:37). Classical commentators explain that this was fruit out of season: summer fruit in winter and winter fruit in summer, in an age with no way of keeping it. Even before her greatest test, she was being cared for from the unseen.

Sources The Qur’an (Sahih International)(opens in a new window); Haddad, SeekersGuidance, 2009(opens in a new window); Commentaries on 3:37(opens in a new window)

Chosen and purified

Angels spoke to Mary directly, long before her greatest test. They told her that God had chosen her, purified her and chosen her above the women of the worlds, and they called her to devotion and prayer (3:42–43).

Sources The Qur’an (Sahih International)(opens in a new window)

The virgin birth of Jesus

Mary withdrew from her family to a place to the east and set a screen between herself and them. An angel came to her in the form of a man and told her she would have a pure son. She asked how she could have a son when no man had touched her, and was told that this was easy for God (19:16–21; 3:45–47). Muslims, like Christians, believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary without a human father.

Sources The Qur’an (Sahih International)(opens in a new window); Ibrahim, OUPblog, 2020(opens in a new window)

Beneath the palm tree

In the pains of labour Mary went to the trunk of a palm tree. She was comforted: a stream was provided beneath her, she was told to shake the palm so that fresh dates would fall, and to tell people she had vowed not to speak (19:22–26).

Sources The Qur’an (Sahih International)(opens in a new window)

The first miracle: a newborn who speaks

Mary’s people knew her as a devout woman from a righteous family, so when she came back carrying a baby they were shocked, reminding her that her father was no wrongdoer and her mother was not unchaste (19:27–28). Mary did not answer; she pointed to the child. The newborn Jesus spoke, saying he was God’s servant and a prophet, dutiful to his mother (19:29–33; also 3:46 and 5:110). In the Qur’an’s account this is the first of Jesus’s miracles, and it clears his mother’s name. Christmas in much of Latin America centres on the Niño Dios in the pesebre, yet few people know that in the Qur’an the newborn Jesus speaks to defend his mother.

Sources The Qur’an (Sahih International)(opens in a new window)

Joseph and marriage

In the Gospels, Mary is “betrothed” to Joseph (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:27). In the Jewish custom of the time, betrothal was not just a promise: it was the binding first stage of marriage. From then on the couple counted as married, even before they lived together, and separating required a divorce. The Qur’an tells Mary’s story with no betrothal and no husband: Joseph is never mentioned, and no man has any claim on her. She belongs wholly to the worship of God, and one published scholarly answer finds that she most likely remained a virgin all her life. Catholic and Orthodox Christians also believe she remained a virgin; what stands out in the Islamic account is that marriage has no part in her story at all.

Sources Ibrahim, OUPblog, 2020(opens in a new window); SeekersGuidance, 2011(opens in a new window); Lamm, Chabad.org(opens in a new window)

References

  1. Amir Hussain, Our Lady of the Qur’an, LMU Magazine, Loyola Marymount University, 21 July 2021. https://magazine.lmu.edu/articles/our-lady-of-the-quran/(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  2. Celene Ibrahim, The Qur’an on Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the Nativity, OUPblog, Oxford University Press, 23 December 2020. https://blog.oup.com/2020/12/the-quran-on-mary-the-mother-of-jesus-and-the-nativity/(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  3. Abdullah Anik Misra (checked by Faraz Rabbani), What Is the Islamic Understanding of Maryam, the Mother of Prophet ʿIsa, Being Married?, SeekersGuidance, 9 February 2011. https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-counsel/what-is-the-islamic-understanding-of-maryam-the-mother-of-prophet-isa-being-married/(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  4. Gibril F. Haddad, Are ʿIsa and Yahya Considered Cousins in Islam?, SeekersGuidance, 7 September 2009. https://seekersguidance.org/answers/islamic-belief/are-isa-and-yahya-allah-be-well-please-with-them-considered-cousins-in-islam/(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  5. Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Marriage Ceremony, Chabad.org, adapted from The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/465162/jewish/The-Jewish-Marriage-Ceremony.htm(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  6. Commentaries on Qur’an 3:37 (Tafsir Ahsan al-Bayan, and Bhutvi citing Ibn Jarir al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir), tohed.com. https://en.tohed.com/tafsir/3/37/(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  7. The Qur’an, 3:35–47 and 19:16–34, consulted in the Sahih International translation at quran.com. Passages are paraphrased. https://legacy.quran.com/19/16-34(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.

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