The Annunciation to Mary as Retold in the Qurʾān
Jacob Fareed Imam Saint Antony’s College Word Count: 24,939
A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Islamic Studies and History
I hereby certify that this is entirely my own work unless otherwise stated.
1 June 2018
Table of Contents
Dedication i Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations iii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Missing Fiat: Sūrat Maryam 5 Introduction 5 Surah Summary 5 Mary in the Qurʾānic Context 8 A Purposeful Change? 15 Ephrem’s Wordplay 19 Sogyāthā 20 The Syriac Celebration of Mary 26 The Questions Raised 33
Chapter 2 Mary, the Source of the Leader: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 35 Introduction 35 Surah Summary 36 Correlation to Sūrat Maryam 38 The Subtext 41 Mary’s Levitical Lineage 45 Solving the Anachronism: Typology or Conflation? 54 The Exegesis of Miriam 56 The Hebrew Bible’s Presentation of Miriam 57 Eastern Christian Portrayals of Miriam 58 Rabbinic Perspectives on Miriam 62 Narrative Conflation 66
Conclusion A Similar Beginning as Genesis? Textual Appropriation in the Qurʾān 69
Bibliography 73
For
Father Mark Avila Who has above all for me revealed the life of study as the life of prayer
and
in memory of Richard Hatton
Acknowledgements
If the present work makes a contribution to the scholarship on Mary and, consequently, Jesus in the Qurʾān, it will be above all due to those who have supported me and my research during its composition.
I will begin by recognising that the Marshall Commission was the first to believe in and support this project. Without its generous provision I would not have completed the current work, let alone completed it in the United Kingdom.
This MPhil thesis was written under the guidance of Professor Nicolai Sinai. His dedicated direction and criticism were essential for its success. Prof. Sinai’s reminder that “God sees all details” – a humorous reprimand to my “increasing” attention to detail – turned my view of writing toward a devotional direction. For this, I owe him much.
My impressive colleagues in our small cohort, Saqib Hussain and Joshua Little, have been a great emotional and academic support to me. I have gained much pleasure these past two years as they became my dear friends as well as my faithful teachers.
To Andy Reyes and Samuel Pomeroy, treasured friends and acute critics, the sources of many good ideas and many good conversations, I want to express my special appreciation. Countless problems in the present work were corrected, and many important improvements made, through their careful revision.
John Shinkwin, who endured many first iterations of the first chapter, has been the patient source of encouragement and honesty. Jozef Kosc, equally patient, endured the first iterations of the second chapter and generously read the entire thesis. I am very grateful to both friends.
The Dominican friars of IDÉO (Cairo) and Professor Sebastian Brock have also served as superb sources of inspiration. Their scholarship serves both mind and soul. Their kindness in providing insightful feedback is greatly appreciated.
Lastly, Susie, my mother, and Walter, my godfather, are the eternal sources of encouragement and love. Thank you for orienting me to see this work as a vocation of service.
Abbreviations
ADN Avot deRabbi Natan BM Bercoth Megillah dR Mekhilta dʼRabbi Simʿon b. Jochai ER Ecclesiastes Rabbah M Metsora MS Mekhilta Shirta MLTN Midrash Leqaḥ Tov Numbers MP Midrash Proverbs MdR Mekhilta deRashbi MiS Midrash Samuel MT Midrash Tannaim PR Pesiqta Rabati S Sotah Sh Shirta SN Sifre Numbers SZ Sifre Zuta TBM Tanhuma Buber Metsora TT Midrash Tanhuma Tsav VB Vayehi Beshalaḥ
Unless specified, the texts can be found in New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, translated by Michael
L. Rodkinson. New York: New Talmud Publishing Company, 1896–1903.
Introduction
The Qurʾān is an enigmatic text. Its use of previous narrative sources, adapted with varying degrees of accuracy, hinders the exegete from composing a cohesive commentary. Attempting to address this difficulty, many scholars have argued that we can profit from studying the
Qurʾān in the context of late antique religious traditions.
The Qurʾānic narratives find parallels in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but in forms that often deviate from the Biblical versions. Some scholars have concluded that these deviations suggest the Qurʾān’s reliance on intermediary Jewish and Christian transmissions.
Whereas the New Testament material was obviously transmitted via Christians, the Hebrew
Biblical stories could have been received not only from Jews but also from Christians, who retold those stories as well. Rabbinic literature and the Syriac Christian literature are known to have exhibited a strong influence on the Qurʾān.
According to Witztum, “Within the Syriac tradition the sources that tend to present the most parallels are verse homilies and hymns.”1 These were performed publicly and served to instruct a wide population. One of the distinctive features of Syriac liturgical poetry is the dialogue poem in which two characters, usually Biblical, conduct an argument in alternating verses.2 These sogyāthā (sg. soghītha) were later adopted in Arabic and Persian, where the genre was very popularly written in sajʿ3– much like the Qurʾānic text itself.4 Such poems were usually designated for antiphonal singing and served to instruct a wide population.5 These
1 Joseph Benzion Witztum, “The Syriac Milieu of the Quran” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2011), i. 2 Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 340. 3 Clive Holes, “The Dispute of Coffee and Tea: A Debate-Poem from the Gulf” in Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature ed. J.R. Smart (Abingdon: Routledge, 1996), 302–315. 4 Cf. Devin Stewart, “Sajʿ in the Qurʾān: Prosody and Structure”, Journal of Arabic Literature 21.2 (1990), 101–139. 5 Sebastian Brock, “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East ed. G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Peeters Press, 1991), 109–120, 110. 2 literary genres would have been ideal channels for the diffusion of Biblical material amongst the Qurʾānic community.
This thesis will establish that, in both form and content, the Qurʾānic retellings of the
Annunciation Narrative (Q 3, Medinan, and Q 19, Meccan) resemble Syriac Christian liturgical material. In this thesis, I will refer to “subtext” as the larger literary and religious tradition in which the Qurʾān is participating. Of course, particular sources dominate the subtext of the
Qurʾānic narrative, but they may equally well represent the milieu in which the Qurʾān was produced as well as define the milieu itself.
My interest in revealing the sources of the Qurʾānic narratives lies not only in tracing the evolution of Biblical themes into their Islamic versions, but more importantly in understanding how the Qurʾān appropriated, revised, and adapted these stories in order to convey its own message. It is my opinion that rather than seeking the misunderstandings or confusions of the Qurʾānic community – as scholarship in the past has often done – it is more constructive to ask in what ways the Qurʾān reflects earlier trends and in what ways it orients the received traditions in new directions.
In a 2012 article, Griffith began to re-theorize a new approach to Qurʾānic exegesis.6
He argues that the story of the Qurʾān goes beyond a mere assimilation of traditions, but rather places these traditions within a new context. Thus, we ought to ask not only how the stories are familiar with previous traditions but also how they differ. It becomes the task of the scholar to merge the studies of Qurʾānic intertextuality and Qurʾānic exegesis into a single analysis.
In turning to the Annunciation of Jesus to Mary more specifically, we may distance our approach from that of Samir and Mourad in their insightful essays on the Qurʾānic Mary. Samir looks for the external influences on the Qurʾān, whilst Mourad demonstrates that the Qurʾān
6 Sidney Griffth, “Christian lore and the Arabic Qurʾan: the ‘Companions of the Cave’ in surat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition”, in The Qurʾān in its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds (London: Routledge, 2008), 109–138. 3 perpetuates widespread Christian traditions and images.7 While both projects are important to identify the sources of the Qurʾānic narratives, they contribute little to our understanding of the
Qurʾānic text itself. The new methodology that Griffith proposes demands a process of synthetic exegesis as it integrates intertextual studies with a narrative analysis of the text itself.
My analysis will demonstrate a high likelihood that the Qurʾānic author was intimately familiar with the Syriac exegetical tradition on this sacred narrative – as well as its underpinning theology. Primarily, my new findings are concentrated on Q 19, though there are important new elements and a novel reformulation of the already well-researched Q 3 surrounding Mary’s lineage. Having good cause to believe the author of the Qurʾān knew the
Syriac exegetical tradition, I will suggest that the story’s differences in detail serve particular doctrinal emphases of the Qurʾān, which I will then explicate.
The Marian Annunciation Narrative will serve as the main focus of this analysis. It has traditionally embodied the divine approach – God’s approaching humanity – in both the Islamic and the Christian traditions. Chapter 1 discusses the narrative of Mary’s annunciation in Q 19 and argues that the text cannot be understood as an orthodox Christian creation, as some scholars have contended. Whereas the Syriac tradition understood that God made a marriage proposal to humanity through Mary, the Qurʾānic Annunciation Narrative excises all hints of nuptial intimacy from its retelling. Building on these findings, Chapter 2 goes on to discuss
Mary’s annunciation in Q 3. As we will see, Mary’s particular lineage and her exchange with the angel served as the model not only of a person’s interaction with the divine but also of the conception of the religious cult. In this second chapter, I shall propose that there is not merely a Christian subtext of the narrative but also a Rabbinic one. In conclusion, I will propose a new
7 Suleiman A. Mourad, “Mary in the Qurʾān: A Reexamination of her Presentation” in The Qurʾān in its Historical Context, 163–174; Suleiman A. Mourad “From Hellenism to Christianity and Islam: The Origin of the Palm Tree Story Concerning Mary and Jesus in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Qurʾān”, Oriens Christianus 86 (2002): 206–216. Suleiman A. Mourad, “On the Qurʾanic Stories about Mary and Jesus”, Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1.2 (1999): 13–24. Samir Khalil Samir, “The Theological Christian influences on the Qur'an: A Reflection” in The Qur'ān in its Historical Context, 141–162. 4 categorisation in understanding the Qurʾān’s use of Biblical material. By analysing the story’s various details in a theological light, we can begin to discern the direction of the Qurʾānic theological project in its late antique context.
Chapter 1 The Missing Fiat: Sūrat Maryam
INTRODUCTION
Sūrat Maryam dramatically presents God’s power to bestow prophetic children to those who faithfully adhere to his commands. In this chapter, I shall look at the general themes of Q 19:1–
63 and particularly Q 19:1–33, which tell of the annunciations to Zachariah and Mary. To examine these passages properly, I shall propose a Syriac subtext for these stories. In this chapter, I shall argue that a distant source, both in terms of content and in terms of implicit meaning, of Q 19’s Annunciation to Mary is a sixth-century Syriac poem of the Annunciation to Zachariah. By conflating the themes of these two narratives, Q 19’s Annunciation to Mary loses the free consent of Mary to bear Jesus – a feature widely celebrated by the Christian
Syriac communities. It is this consent, according to the Syriac tradition, which is the human acceptance of the divine wedding proposal. I shall also contend that Q 19 deems Jesus to be created equal and no higher than John the Baptist in an attempt to flatten the hierarchy of these prophets. I shall determine that the similarities to and differences from the subtext do not occur by accident but rather deliberately alter the Biblical stories to instruct a particular theology. To do this, I will first provide an overview of Q 19:1–63 before turning to the angelic annunciations at the beginning of the surah.
SURAH SUMMARY
The story of the divine annunciation of John begins with his father Zachariah praying to the
Lord in secret (nādā rabbahu nidāʾan ẖafiyyā). After presenting his problem to the Lord in 6 prayer, Zachariah states that God has never ignored his supplications (lam akun bi-duʿāʾika rabbi šaqiyyā; Q 19:4). He then submits his request for an heir, and God grants this request.
Similar to Zachariah, Mary is alone, having withdrawn from her family to a secluded place (intabaḏat min ahlihā makānan šarqiyyā; Q 19:16). But unlike Zachariah, Mary does not present a request for a child – nor does she do so anywhere else in the Qurʾān. Nonetheless,
God’s will is accomplished, and she bears Jesus as a virgin, as she reveals herself to be in v.
20: lam aku baġiyyā. Contrary to Chalcedonian logic, Mary’s virginity does not imply that this child is the son of God, as vv. 34–37 clearly state. Verses 38–40 introduce, or, perhaps, clarify, the subject of the rest of the surah: fidelity to the Lord.
This commentary is followed by the story of Abraham. In vv. 42–48, he is found pleading with his father to believe in the true God instead of impotent idols, veneration of which would only lead to disastrous eschatological consequences. This Abraham says to contrast his efficacious God with the powerless gods of his father. After Abraham’s father threatens to stone him (v. 46), Abraham leaves, proverbially shaking the dirt off his sandals, dismissing his unbelieving heritage as he does so. Abraham’s announcement in v. 48, “I will invoke my Lord; perhaps I shall not pray to my Lord in vain (ʿasā allā akūna bi-duʿāʾi rabbī
šaqiyyā),” reprises Zachariah’s prayer in v. 4. Though it is not explicit in this verse that
Abraham asks for children, we might infer that he does for two reasons: first, elsewhere in the
Qurʾān Abraham does request obedient offspring (Q 2:124), and, second, the response to the request comes in God granting him, “Isaac and Jacob, and both of whom we made prophets”
(v. 49).
Moses is the fourth prophet mentioned in the surah, in v. 50: “Make mention of Moses in the book (wa-ḏkur fī l-kitābi mūsā).” Though he does not beseech God in this surah, Sūrat
Ṭā Hā (Q 20:9–30) informs us that Moses did ask God for the help of his brother (v. 29): “Grant me a vizier from my family (wa-ǧʿal lī wazīran min ahlī), Aaron, my brother.” In Q 20:30 and 7
19:53, God grants his request. We may here note the reoccurrence of the verb nādā in Q
19:3.24.52. This “calling” demarcates the genesis of human-Dine interactions. Unlike the other prophets mentioned in this surah, for Mary and Moses it is God who initiates the communication.
Following Moses, the surah mentions Ishmael and Enoch who are said to be prophets in vv. 54 and 56. The narration concludes as we come to a long summation verse (v. 58):
Those were the ones upon whom God bestowed favour from among the prophets of the
descendants (ḏurriyyah) of Adam, and of those we carried [in the ship] with Noah, and
of the descendants (ḏurriyyah) of Abraham and Israel, and of those whom we guided
and chose. When the verses of the Merciful were recited to them, they fell in prostration
and weeping.
In contrast to the obedient descendants, v. 59 states that “there came after them successors who neglected prayer and pursued desires.” This surah appears to juxtapose the obedient descendants with the unruly posterity. The surah creates a mis en scène of the idea couched in the prayer of Abraham in Q 2:128:
Our Lord, make us submit (muslimayni) to you, and [make] from our descendants a
nation in submission (muslimatan) to you. And show us our rites and accept our
repentance. Indeed, you are the accepting of repentance, the merciful.
Abraham’s prayer for descendants is intricately linked with his prayer for obedience.
What stands out in Q 19 is that Mary – the central figure in the surah – is unique amongst the other characters in that she does not submit a request to God. Given the obvious parallelism between Zachariah’s post-request dialogue with God (vv. 7ff) and Mary’s exchange 8 with the angel (vv. 18ff), which I will demonstrate further below, this absence becomes more striking. In the coming sections, I shall first demonstrate the parallelism between Mary and
Zachariah as portrayed in Q 19 to accentuate the absence of Mary’s request for a child. Further below, I shall unearth the subtext for this passage, which does not merely render Mary presenting a request to God but necessitates her consent toward the divine approach.
MARY IN THE QURʾĀNIC CONTEXT
Michel Cuypers has suggested that vv. 34–40 of Q 19 serve as a transition segment. In the passage’s current form, vv. 34–40 seem to be a central unit dividing the section (vv. 2–63) in two: the first part of this central sequence (vv. 34–37) is the conclusion of the first sequence, mainly about Jesus; the second part (vv. 38–40) introduces the subject of the rest of the surah: belief and unbelief in the Judgement. Going from one subject to the other manifests the “turning point” or “hinge” of this central sequence. Yet Cuypers, like numerous other scholars,8 believes this pericope to be a later addition to the surah’s overall composition.9 If this pericope was indeed a later insertion, then we may surmise that the theological emphasis of the Marian story in its original version was the same as that of the adjacent stories: fidelity to God and God’s
8 Hosn Abboud, Mary in the Qur'an: A Literary Reading (London: Routledge, 2014), 22; Rudi Paret, Der Koran: Kommentar und Konkordanz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1981), Q 19:34–4; Nicolai Sinai, The Qur’an: A Historical- Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 186. 9 Nicolai Sinai, “Processes of Literary Growth and Editorial Expansion in Two Medinan Surahs” in Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur'an, ed. Carol Bakhos and Michael Cook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 69–118, 71 has proposed four signs of an editorial edition: (1) a deviation in verse length; (2) a change in rhyme pattern; (3) the use of diction common to surahs of a later date; (4) improvement of the surah’s overall consistency. Though these criteria are not definitive signs of a spliced passage, they do suggest some form of incongruity. In analysing this passage, we find that, first, Q 19:34–40 does not demonstrate a noticeably different mean verse length than the rest of the surah. Second, the rhyme pattern is very markedly different. Throughout vv. 2–63, excluding 34–40, we find a mono-rhyme that is used only this once in the Qurʾān (-iyyā). For this unique and consistent rhyme to be divided in the middle, we have high suspicion that it is a later addition. Third, though the pericope uses no noticeably Medinan diction, there is an introduction of different words for synonyms continually used beforehand. Abboud, Mary in the Qur’an, 22 has noticed that, “the term Allāh appears for the first time in connection to rabbi. The term ghulām, which was used twice in the story, once by the messenger and once by Maryam, shifts in the commentary to waladin.” Waladin is not used again in the extended passage of Q 19:1–63, though it is seen in vv. 77, 88, 91, and 92. These words are bland, not particular to an individual period, of course, but they all participate in demonstrating the alien nature of these verses to the surah. Fourth, the surah’s consistency would certainly be improved by removing the seven verses as the narrative pattern of introducing prophets with the command to recall (ḏikru / uḏkur) would continue in an uninterrupted narrative. 9 power to overcome natural preventions. That said, Abraham’s narrative clearly concentrates on the former while Zachariah’s focusses on the latter. To demonstrate that Mary’s narrative indeed bears both theological considerations, I will look at the intertextual resonances between the annunciations to Mary and Zachariah before examining their possible subtexts, which will accentuate the theological theme of the narrative.
We find in these passages a mutuality of action between Mary and Zachariah. For example, both Mary and Zachariah are secluded, hidden away when they receive a divine proclamation of a miraculous birth. They both question the announcement – Zachariah asks in v. 8: “How will I have a child despite my wife’s sterility and my old age?” (annā yakūnu lī
ġulāmun wa-kānati mraʾatī ʿāqiran wa-qad balaġtu mina l-kibari ʿitiyyā) while Mary inquires in v. 20: “How can I have a boy as I have not been unchaste?” (annā yakūnu lī ġulāmun wa- lam yamsasnī bašarun wa-lam aku baġiyyā). The parallels continue as both receive the same response from God: “It is easy for me” (vv. 9 and 21). The sign that Zachariah receives is the inability to speak for three days (v. 10), while Mary later in the surah refrains from speaking as a fast after giving birth to Jesus (v. 26), who is said to be her own sign (v. 21). The two narratives end with Zachariah and Mary’s reemergence into their communities, with which they must communicate by sign. Finally, Zachariah’s son John receives the scriptures as a child as does Jesus. Below a chart identifies the parallel verses.10
TABLE 1: The Parallels of the Annunciations to Zachariah and Mary
Zachariah / John Mary / Jesus Theme
2 Recall the mercy of your Lord 16a Recall Mary in the book, Introductory toward his servant Zachariah, Statement
10 A prominent difference between the two stories is the fact that Mary is greeted by an angel while it is not clarified that it is an angel or God himself speaking to Zachariah. This detail does not seem to distinguish the theological messages between the stories. 10
3 When he called upon his Lord 16b When she withdrew from her Secrecy and secretly family to a secluded place. exclusivity of the proclamation
17a She took a veil [to screen herself] (Perhaps a detail from them. assumed from the Protoevangelium of James 10:1–2)
4 He said: “My Lord, my bones have The prayer for a grown weak and the hairs on my head child have become white, and I have not been unblessed by you in prayer. 5 I fear my successors after me because my wife is barren. Thus, give me an heir from yourself 6 who will inherit from me and will inherit from the family of Jacob and make him, my Lord, pleasing [to you].”
17b Then we sent to her our spirit. He Description of the made himself in the likeness of a angel well-proportioned man.
18 She said: “I take refuge in the Reaction to the merciful from you if you are God- presence of the fearing.” spiritual being
7 “O Zachariah, we bring you glad 19 He said: “Indeed, I am only the Proclamation of tidings of a son. His name is John. messenger of your Lord so that I may the angel / of God We have not given anyone this name bestow upon you a perfect child.” before.”
8 He said: “My Lord, how can I have 20 She said: “How will I have a child Zachariah / Mary a son as my wife is barren, and I have as a man has not touched me, and I voice doubt reached extreme old age?” am not unchaste?” 11
9 He said: “So it will be. Your Lord God’s response, 21a He said: “So it will be. Your Lord said: ‘It is easy for me. I have made emphasizing his said: ‘It is easy for me.’” you before when you were nothing.’” power
21b And we will make him a sign to Request for / the people and a mercy from us for Proclamation of a them and it is a matter already sign; inability to decreed. speak. 10 He said: “My Lord, give me a sign.” He said: “Your sign will be {22 – 24 Palm tree narrative} that you will not speak to people for three nights.” 25 So, eat and drink and cool your eyes. If you meet anyone then say: I have vowed a fast to the Most Gracious and I will not speak to anyone today.
12 “O John, hold fast to the 30 He said: “Indeed, I am the servant Receiving the book Scripture!” We gave him wisdom of God. He gave me the book and and wisdom as a when he was young. made me a prophet.11 child
31 “And he made me blessed Divine Blessing 13 And he was a compassion from us wherever I am. And he has enjoyed and purity and he was devout. upon me prayer and almsgiving, as long as I live.
32 And [he made me] dutiful to my Dutiful to Parents 14 And he was dutiful to his parents. mother. And he has not made me He was not arrogant, rebellious. arrogant, unblessed.
Benediction over 15 Peace be upon him, the day he was 33 Peace be upon me the day I was days of birth, born and the day that he dies, and the born, and the day that I die, and the death, and day he will be raised alive. day I will be raised alive.” resurrection.
11 This is the only place in the Qurʾān where Jesus is “given” (ātāniya) the book – perhaps to facilitate the parallel with John. 12
These shared details set Zachariah and Mary’s Annunciation Narratives in a similar thematic light – and they present Jesus and John as comparable prophets. There is no hierarchy between these two Biblical figures in Q 19. Against the forthcoming Syriac backdrop, this egalitarianism is a great contrast.
Guillaume Dye has already noted some of the above parallels. For him also, vv. 34–40 were later inclusions. According to Dye, the Qurʾānic author(s) adopted this Christian-authored narrative, Palestinian in origin, and later inserted vv. 34–40 in order to apply a different
Christology to the story.
In arguing that the Qurʾānic passage was imported from a Christian milieu, Dye forces some narrative details to fit within the Biblical mould. He identifies the parallels between
Zachariah and Mary’s annunciation to suggest that they mirror the Lukan account. But he also reads in the Qurʾān details found only in the Bible. For instance, he states that, “Zachariah is silenced by God because he asked a question he should not have asked. Mary is commanded to silence by God, but she did nothing wrong – let’s say it is partly required by the logic of the narrative.”12 Dye presses his distinction too far.13 The Qurʾānic account of Zachariah’s silence is not pejorative, but rather satisfies his request for a sign (v. 10). Yet it is not only this detail that Dye ignores. He states that Q 19:1–63*14
can be described as almost Christian, or even as Christian: in fact, it is unclear how it
could be possible to be closer to Christianity, except by simply asserting some specific
Christian dogmas – something the text does not do, of course. All the details of the text
have their origins in written, liturgical or popular Christian traditions… and can be
12 Guillaume Dye. 2015. “The Qur’ān and its Hypertextuality in Light of Redaction Criticism”. Paper presented at Fourth Nangeroni Meeting Early Islam: The Sectarian Milieu of Late Antiquity?, Milan, 15–19 June. 32. 13 Based originally on Luke 1:20: “And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” 14 Q 19:1–63* means, for Dye, vv. 1–33 and 41–63. 13
acknowledged by Christians. It is therefore appropriate to speak here of a “text of
convergence”.15
To Dye’s point, the narrative does not contain explicit anti-Christological commentary as is found in the possible insertion of vv. 34ff. Yet, upon closer examination, the Qurʾānic passage subtly undermines the Biblical account of the same material.
The first to disagree directly with Dye’s conclusion was Nicolai Sinai:
Unlike the Christian Jesus, the Jesus of surah 19 does not play a unique soteriological role but
is demoted to one in a series of God-given prophetic descendants or relatives who, apart from
Zachariah’s son John, also include Isaac and Jacob (v. 49) and Moses’ brother Aaron (v. 53).
Whereas standard Christian typology has a miscellany of earlier Biblical figures and events
prefigure and climactically lead up to the birth and life of Christ, the narrative cycle in Q 19
conspicuously lacks such a sense of climax.16
Sinai is correct that Q 19’s prophetic sequence dissolves the traditional Christian typological schematic. But we can go further: Q 19 participates in one of the Qurʾān’s overall goals of establishing a cyclical paradigm of prophets proclaiming the same message to the peoples of the world.17 The stories of the prophets embody the dictum of Q 3:85:
15 Ibid, 4, italics are his. A similar position is reached by Stephen J. Shoemaker, “Christmas in the Qurʾān: The Qurʾānic Account of Jesus’ Nativity and Palestinian Local Tradition”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003): 11–39, though he merely states that all of the elements have their base in Christian liturgical elements, but not that they are in fact Christian nature. 16 Sinai, The Qur’an, 85–86. 17 This is not the only surah that demonstrates such a cyclical prophetic paradigm; Q 7 and Q 37, for example, do as well. Q 7 records several prophets all forewarning a coming destruction: Noah, Salih, Shuʿayb, Moses. Similarly, Q 37:37 speaks of the last prophet bringing the truth as he “confirmed those sent before him” (ṣaddaqa l-mursalīn). He names the predecessors: Noah, Abraham (and Isaac), Moses and Aaron, Elias, and Jonah. God saves each prophet from some form of destruction, repeating the refrain “Thus we reward the good” (innā ka- ḏālika naǧzī l-muḥsinīn). Likewise, Q 5:46 says, “We sent Jesus, son of Mary, in their footsteps, to confirm (muṣaddiqan) the Torah that had been sent before him.” Q 10.94 also states: “So if you are in doubt about that which we have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the book before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters.” Whereas these verses are predominantly statements, explicit about the cyclical pattern and congruity of the prophetic message, Q 21 undergoes a narrative 14
Say, we believe in God and in that which has been revealed to us, and that which was
revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Tribes, and that which
was given to Moses and Jesus and other prophets from their Lord. We make no
distinction between any of them, and to him we submit.
In levelling the hierarchy amongst the various prophets, the Qurʾān seems to tell “the word of truth about which the [Christians] are in dispute” (Q 19:34). This story, stripped of the details of John as forerunner (Luke 1:17) and Christ as “the son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32), narrativises the statement that, “It is unbefitting for God to take a son” (Q 19:35). It presents
Jesus as merely one in a series of God-given children. The very order of the narratives –
Zachariah and John, Mary and Jesus, followed by Abraham and his immediate descendants – is mysteriously anticlimactic. In all three cases, God grants one of his pious servants a child.
Jesus is simply a prophetic child amongst others, having no soteriological function. The fact that Jesus self-identifies as merely “a prophet” (v. 30) would be a curious understatement from a Christian perspective, which jars with Dye’s assumption that the original version of Q 19’s
Jesus narrative was written within the Christian tradition. Of course, the notion that Jesus was merely a prophet was a heresy since at least the time of Apollinarius and his debates with the
Cappadocian and Antiochene fathers.18 While some Biblical texts refer to Jesus as a prophet
(e.g. Luke 4:24; 7:26), it is traditionally a minor Christian reflection on Jesus. An attentive
Christian listener of Late Antiquity would then not necessarily “implicitly… assert Jesus’ divine sonship and divinity” in the passage, as Dye assumes.19
reconstruction, arguably, to paint a prophet in the pattern of the others. In this surah, Abraham is depicted as a champion of monotheism, whereas he is merely the founder of a new community according to the Biblical account. 18 See for example Benjamin Gleede and Martin Heimgartner, eds., Apollinarius und seine Folgen, trans. Silke- Petra B. Rgjan (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015) and Gregory of Nyssa, Anti-Apollinarian Writings, trans. Robin Orton (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 47, 65. 19 Dye, 3. 15
A PURPOSEFUL CHANGE?
As illuminating as his initial insight is, Sinai does not address whether we can assume the
Qurʾān to have been aware of what he describes as a Christian “sense of climax”. Walid Saleh has recently highlighted that the Qurʾān assumes a cyclical prophetic paradigm.20 He argues that the Qurʾān adopted a Deuteronomistic view of history.21 In this view, God sends prophets to Israel to repent, but the Israelites reject the prophets, often killing them. Saleh summarises his insight: “What was Israel’s history… has been reworked in the Qurʾān to become a vision of human history, a history of reoccuring series of messengers sent to different places, to peoples, qaum… to call them to guidance and God and the promise of punishment if disobeyed.”22 Saleh claims that Muhammad universalised this Jewish Deuteronomistic view of history – but whereas the prophets are usually rejected by the people in the Hebrew Bible, the
Qurʾānic prophets are not neglected but are vindicated by God. Saleh’s argument that
Muhammad subtly changed the Jewish prophetic schematic is plausible. But in appropriating the Annunciation Narrative for the prophetic figure of Christ, the author of the Qurʾān also distanced his text from the Christian typological paradigm. Modern scholarship has yet to examine the extent to which the Qurʾān purposefully flattens the hierarchy of God’s messengers. We will now turn to the subject of the subtext behind Q 19 in order to extend
Sinai’s literary-theological insight into a discussion about the Qurʾān’s focussed attempt to replace the climactic arrival of Jesus with a cyclical story of numerous prophets all endowed with the same kerygmatic function.
20 See G.G. Stroumsa, “False Prophets of Early Christianity”, in Priests and Prophets among Pagans, Jews and Christians ed. Beate Dignas et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 208–232 for a fascinating source critical exploration of this theme. 21 This view has most recently been summarised in Arland D. Jacobson, The First Gospel: An Introduction to Q (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1992), 42. 22 Waleed Saleh. 2016. “The Qurʾān’s Deuteronomic View of History”. Paper presented at The Qurʾān between Judaism and Christianity, University of Nottingham, 16 October 2016. 16
Someone familiar with Luke 1 will immediately recognise its resonances with Q 19.
Mourad provides a general outline of the two passages.23
TABLE 2: Parallels between Luke 1 –2 and Q 19
Luke Qurʾān
Annunciation of John (1:5–5) Annunciation of John (19:2–15)
Annunciation of Jesus (1:26–38) Annunciation of Jesus (19:16–21)
Hiding of Mary (1:39–56) Hiding of Mary (19:22)
Palm-tree story (19:23–26)
Presentation at the Temple (2:21–4) Questioning at the Temple[?] (19:27–33)
But how much of the Lukan text was available to the Qurʾānic author and community? It is difficult to assume that the gospel account of Luke would attain such wide readership and study; intermediary oral sources such as homilies or poetry, or lost educational milieux likely account for the transmission into the Hijaz. A subtle piece of evidence that this was indeed the case is provided by the Qurʾānic name for the figure of John the Baptist.
The name “John” in Qurʾānic Arabic, Yaḥyā, does not reflect the spelling of the Hebrew name Yōḥanan, meaning “God is merciful/gracious.” The Arabic name’s loss of the original n (which is retained in Greek Ἰωάννης, Syriac Yūḥannān, and even in English) has garnered little substantive attention. Twentieth-century archaeologists have unearthed an
Aramaic inscription from Northern Arabia mentioning “Yaḥyā the son of Adam”.24 There has been no further analysis of this inscription since Arthur Jeffrey, but there is room to clarify, add, and (slightly) correct his understanding. The first attestation of the name Yaḥyā, according
23 Mourad, “From Hellenism to Christianity and Islam”, 207. 24 Arthur Jeffrey, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1938), 291. 17
Though the inscription of this 25. יחי י to Cowley, possibly appears in Quṣ in 300 BC, in the form word is clear, the rest of the line is missing, and thus it could refer to something besides a name.
The name does not appear again in extent inscriptions until AD 307. Lidzbarski analyses the inscription Jeffrey refers to, which comes from al-ʿUlā, north of Medina by about 290
The inscription reads: “This is the tomb . איחי kilometres.26 This time the name took the form that John, son of Simon, built for his father Simon, who died in the month of June of the year two hundred and one.”27
Horovitz also refers to this inscription as well as another from Harran, just north of
Syria in Turkey, which he dates to AD 568.28 He understands the name Yaḥyā to be the
“hypokoristischen Form” – or a nickname – of the more formal Yuḥannā. From this evidence, it seems that the name may not have originally arisen in a Christian context, but it may very well have surfaced again amongst the Christians of Late Antiquity. Though there is no certain way of knowing what form of the name originally appeared in the Qurʾān as it was probably first written without tanqīt, it seems very likely that the form Yaḥyā was the original pronunciation.29
In Aramaic, Yaḥyā means, “he lives” or “he will live” as it also does in Arabic. To the point that the Qurʾān originally did intend to vocalise the name as Yaḥyā, we find God names the requested child: “Yaḥyā,” assuring that Zachariah’s heir will live (v. 7) – a fitting promise couched in the name. The same root is used again in vv. 15 and 33, asserting that both John and Jesus, respectively, will be “resurrected alive” (yubʿathu ḥayyā).
25 A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Osnabrück: Otö Zeller, 1967), 191; A. Jaussen and R. Savignac, Mission Archéologique en Arabie (Le Caire: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1997), 228. 26 Mark Lidzbarski, “Dies ist das Grabmal, das errichtet hat Jaḥjā, Sohn des Simon, für seinen Vater Simon.” Ephemeris für Semitische Epigraphik, (New York: Giessen, 1915), 296–297. 27 Ibid. 28 Josef Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen (Berlin und Leipzig: Walter de Grutyer, 1926), 151. 29 The case that the morphological transformation had already been made is supported by the fact that no early recorded manuscripts vocalise the text as Yuḥannā. Angelika Neuwirth and Michael Marx, “Variae Lectiones Coranicae”, Corpus Coranicum, 2007, February 02, 2018, http://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/19/. 18
At this point there is another etymological pun in the text. In v. 13, we find ḥanānan min lladunnā (“he is a compassion from us”), which suggests that the author may have known the meaning of John’s name in the vocalised form Yūḥannā, “he has compassion.” It may have been the case that the author of the Qurʾān knew he was making both puns and assumed others in his audience would recognise them. If not, he could have been so familiar with a Christian subtext that he unknowingly assumed this pun while providing a gloss on the text. In either case, there is a strong familiarity with former traditions, demonstrated either by a deliberate or accidental inclusion of a double wordplay.
The New Testament itself may makes the second wordplay as well. In Zachariah’s canticle, the priest sings: “[The Lord] has showed mercy (Gk: éleos / Sy: ḥenānēh) to our
Fathers / and remembered his holy covenant.”30 Unlike the Qurʾān, Luke’s Gospel does not speak of John directly in this verse. If this is a cognisant pun, then it is subtle; early Christian commentary and onomastica do not indicate a common trope on this point. Thus, we may look elsewhere than a gloss on this verse for the Qurʾān’s inspiration of this wordplay.
As John is a distinctly Christian, New Testament character, there is no reason for the
Rabbinic tradition to comment on him in Hebrew. We cannot equate this pun to that of Sarah’s laughter in Q 11. In Genesis 18 and 21, we find the pun between the name Isaac, Yiṣḥāq, and the verb “to laugh”, ṣāḥaq, as both words share the Hebrew root: ṣ-ḥ-q.31 Though the Qurʾān refers to Sarah’s laughter as the inspiration for Isaac’s name, the Arabic root ḍ-ḥ-k for laughter does not relate to the name Isaac. Gabriel Said Reynolds has pointed out that, in this situation, understanding the pun requires recourse to Hebrew as the Syriac word for laughter (root g-ḥ-
30 Luke 1:72. The y-ḥ-n root in Hebrew implies mercy, while the root in Syriac and Arabic more readily denotes compassion. The fact that Luke preserved this wordplay may suggest an earlier redaction. 31 There is also the onomatopoeia of laughter with a-a sound repeated. Thus, there is an additional wordplay here. 19 k) faces the same incongruence as the Arabic.32 It is not the same case for John/Compassion
(ḥanānan) in Q 19, as the Syriac root for both is y-ḥ-n. And as there is no Hebrew literature written about John the Baptist, we are left to infer that the subtext to Q 19 is not Hebrew but
Syriac.
EPHREM’S WORDPLAY
Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373) makes the same wordplay as the Qurʾān on the y-ḥ-n root in his
Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron.33 According to the Gospel of Luke, after John’s birth,
Zachariah’s neighbours and family “would have called him Zachariah after his father, but his mother answered, ‘No; he shall be called John.’ And they said to her, ‘None of your relatives is called by this name.’34 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he would name the child.”35 At this point Ephrem begins retelling the story:
The fingers wrote John on the writing tablet, a name which signifies the need for
compassion. For the fingers asked for compassion on the basis of grace, in place of the
lips which were closed on the basis of justice.36
In Syriac, Ephrem plays with the words Yūḥannān, “John”, and ḥnānā, “compassion”.
According to Ephrem, John is a grace not only because he was miraculously conceived and a forerunner of God, but also because he would strengthen his father’s feeble faith.
32 Gabriel Said Reynolds, “Reading the Qurʾan as Homily: The Case of Sarah’s Laughter” in The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu ed. Angelika Neuwirth, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 585–591, 590. 33 Tatian’s Diatessaron is a composite work comprising sections of Matthew, Mark, and Luke inserted into John’s framework so as to produce a single book. It was extremely influential in the Syriac tradition. Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity: The Representation of Jesus in the Qur’ān and the Classical Muslim Commentaries (London: MacMillan Press, 1991), 19 suggests that the singular nature of this text “tallies with the Qur’anic reference to ‘the Gospel’ rather than to the gospels.” 34 This Biblical verse is very reminiscent of Q 19:7, “we have not given this name before.” 35 Luke 1:59–62 36 Ephrem, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709, ed. and trans. Carmel McCarthy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 50. 20
Ephrem paints a dramatic scene in the Temple before John’s birth. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Zachariah that his prayers have been heard, that his request would be granted. He does not provide a dramatization of Zachariah’s prayers as does the Qurʾān, but he does record the internal drama of the priest:
[His prayer] was close to being realized; he was in doubt as to whether it would be.
Rightly then, when his request was close [to being realized], the word distanced itself
from him. At an earlier stage, he had been praying for this, but when his request [was
granted], he turned about and [said], How can this be?... Prayer made the petition; the
divinity granted [it], but freewill spurned [it].37
It is ultimately the power of God that marks Ephrem’s interpretation of the passage as God overcomes Zachariah’s doubt by honouring the man’s original request and overcomes his natural inability by exercising his dominion. Ephrem again mentions freewill when explicating the Marian Annunciation. Ephrem contrasts the doubt of the old priest to the faith of the young virgin. Like the Qurʾān, Ephrem closely parallels the stories of Zachariah and Mary. Ephrem, however, does so to contrast the two figures: Zachariah is the noble High Priest of Israel while
Mary is unknown;38 Zachariah is old and married, Mary is young and single; Zachariah, despite his religious prominence, doubts the very message he requested of God, while Mary, despite her obscurity, accepts the message that she had not invited.39
SOGYĀTHĀ
The Qur’ānic text does not share the form of Ephrem’s commentary. Dye states that Q 19:1–
63*: “Looks like a well-known literary genre in Syriac religious literature: the soghitha, a
37 Ibid, 45–46. 38 The idea that Zachariah is the High Priest is a factual error that Ephrem assumes in his writing on multiple occasions. 39 Ibid, 45–54. 21
dialogue poem involving Biblical or prophetic characters. It is therefore quite tempting to speak
here of a Qur’ānic soghitha.”40 As we can see below, the sequences of qāla/qāla(t) in both
Annunciation Narratives nicely match that common to Syriac dialogue poems.
TABLE 3: The Sogīthā Style of Q 19
Q 19:8–10 qāla: rabbi anna yakūnu lī ġulāmun wa-kānati mraʾatī ʿāqiran wa-qad balaġtu mina l-kibari ʿitiyyā qāla: ka-ḏālika qāla rabbuka: huwa ʿalayya hayyinun wa-qad ẖalaqtuka min qablu wa-lam taku šayʾā qāla: rabbi iǧʿal lī āyatan qāla: āyatuka allā tukallima n-nāsa ṯalāṯa layālin sawiyyā fa-ẖaraǧa ʿalā qawmihi mina l-miḥrābi fa-awḥā ilayhim an sabbiḥū bukratan wa ʿašiyyā
Q 19:18–2141 qālat ˈinnī aʿūḏu bi-r-raḥmāni minka ˈin kunta taqiyyā qāla ˈinnamā ˈana rasūlu rabbiki li-ahaba laki ġulāman zakiyyā qālat ˈannā yakūnu lī ġulāmun wa-lam yamsasnī bašarun wa- lam ˈaku baġiyyā qāla ka-ḏāliki, qāla rabbuki huwa ʿalayya hayyinun wa-li- naǧʿalahū ˈāyatan li-n-nāsi wa-raḥmatan minnā wa-kāna ˈamran maqḍiyyā
40 Dye, 4. For an introduction to the genre, see Sebastian Brock, “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East ed. G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Peeters Press, 1991), 109–120. 41 This stylistic similarity is yet another connection between the stories of Zachariah and Mary. 22
Furthermore, Near Eastern poets wrote sogyāthā in sajʿ, as is the Qurʾānic text. It is then perhaps remarkable that an anonymous sixth-century Christian wrote sogyāthā inspired by the two Annunciation Narratives in which he juxtaposed the disbelief of Zachariah against the faith of Mary.42
The first soghīthā highlights Zachariah’s doubt toward the angel’s announcement in
Luke. The angel’s repeated reproach circulates around a particular verse found in the
Annunciation to Mary: “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”43 Before eventually striking Zachariah dumb, the angel attempts to convince the priest that his wife will indeed bear a child by appealing to God’s power.
Certain lines from the soghīthā on Zachariah’s appear to have been reworded in the Q
19. The table below will demonstrate three of these lines.
TABLE 4: The Correlations of Q 19 with the Sixth-century Anonymous Sogīthā on the
Annunciation to Zachariah
Context V. Soghīthā Zachariah V. Sūrat Maryam
Gabriel’s answer 11 “It is not difficult (la ʿaṭlā) 9 “Your Lord said: ‘It is easy for
to the question before the Lord / for a barren & me.’”
posed in Q 19:8 (ʿqartā) old woman to give 21 (~Luke 1:18), birth.”
“How can I have a
son as my wife is
barren (ʿāqiran)?”
42 Sebastian P. Brock, Treasure-House of Mysteries: Explorations of the Sacred Text through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012), 126–142. For the original Syriac, see Sebastian P. Brock, Sughyotho mgabyotho (Holland: Monastery of St Ephrem Press, 1982), 18–32. 43 Luke 1:36–37. 23
Gabriel’s 13 “In the Lord’s hands it is 9 “I have made you before when
apologetic for possible / for something to be you were nothing (lam taku
God’s ability to established out of nothing (lā šayʾā).”
produce meddem).”
miraculous
children.
Gabriel’s response 15 “I have revealed to you 21 “and it is a matter already
to Zachariah in the [Zachariah] a mystery ordained ordained (maqḍiyyā).”
Syriac poem (fqad) by the Lord.”
garners a similar
response to Mary
in the Qurʾān.
There seems to be a high level of correspondence between Q 19 and this poem that reveals a familiarity with the theological themes associated with the Syriac tradition’s interpretation of this passage.
This theme, however, was particular to the Annunciation to Zachariah. Curiously, there is no mention of Mary’s pregnancy as a predetermined matter in the Syriac poem of her annunciation, as Q 19:21 states, having borrowed a line from the Syriac “Annunciation to
Zachariah”. In fact, the emphasis of this sixth-century poem is the contingency of Jesus’ incarnation on Mary’s consent. Similar to his role in the Syriac poem to Zachariah, Gabriel attempts to convince Mary of his message against her great resistance. But, according to Brock,
“Mary’s wise questioning [is] contrasted with, on the one hand, Eve’s unthinking credulity, and on the other, with Zacharias’ stubbornness.”44 Thus her hesitation does not arise out of disbelief, as does Zachariah’s in his poem, but rather out of prudential discernment.
44 Sebastian Brock, “Mary in the Syriac Tradition”, Sourozh 19 (1985): 11–23, 17. 24
To the Virgin the angel spoke as follows: “Peace be with you, O mother of my
Lord; blessed are you, child, and blessed the Fruit that is within you.”
MARY: “Who are you, sir? And what is this that you utter? What you are saying
is remote from me, and what it means I have no idea.”
ANGEL: “O blessed of women, in you it has pleased the Most High to dwell: have
no fear, for in you has Grace bent down to pour mercy upon the whole world.”
MARY: “I beg you, sir, do not upset me: you are clothed in coals of fire. Mind you
do not burn me! What you have said is alien to me, and I am quite unable to grasp
what it means.”
Challenged by the angel, Mary goes on to give her reasons for questioning him.
ANGEL “It would be amazing in you if you were to answer back, annulling the gospel
message (teshreyn sbartā) which I have brought to you concerning the conception of
the Most High whose will it is to dwell in your womb.”
MARY “I am afraid, sir, to accept you, for when Eve my mother accepted the serpent
who spoke as a friend she was snatched away from her former glory.”
ANGEL “My daughter, he certainly did use deception on your mother Eve when he
gave her the message, but just as certainly I am not deceiving you, seeing that it is the
True One by whom I have been sent.”
MARY “All this that you say is most perplexing, so do not find fault with me, for it is
not from a virgin that a son will appear, nor from that fruit, a divine being!”
ANGEL “The Father gave me this meeting with you here to bring you greeting and
announce to you that from your womb His Son will shine forth. Do not answer back,
disputing this.”…
MARY “Sir, no man has ever known me, nor any ever slept with me. How can this 25
be, what you have said, for without such a union there will never be a son.”
She finally stops debating and hesitating once the angel quotes the mysterious line from Luke’s
Gospel: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
ANGEL “From the Father I was sent to bring you this message, that His love has
compelled Him so that in your womb His Son should reside, and over you the Holy
Spirit will reside (shrā).”45
MARY “In that case, O angel, I will not answer back: if the Holy Spirit shall come to
me, I am his maidservant, and He has authority; let it be to me, sir, in accordance with
your word.”46
Throughout the dialogue the angel beckons Mary to stop disputing; however, her argument is not irreverent, but rather prudential – she must try every spirit. It is only after the angel eventually mentions the Holy Spirit that Mary accepts his message. In other words, it is only once the angel reveals that it is from beginning to end, from source to summit, a descent of
God, a divine approach, that Mary grants her consent. The poem makes the relatively simple
Biblical story more dramatic and complex, and by so doing, it teaches the necessity of humanity’s consent by emphasising certain details in the Biblical account. The conception of
Jesus is anything but pre-decreed. Rather, Mary had the power to annul the gospel message.
These details do not find their way into the Qurʾānic text.
The Syriac poet juxtaposes these stories to emphasise a theological and devotional distinction between the two boys and their parents. In the poems we find a bifurcation between
45 SP Brock, “The Lost Old Syriac at Luke 1:35 and the Earliest Syriac Term for the Incarnation,” in Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Origins, Recensions, Text, and Transmission, ed. W.L. Petersen (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1989), 117–131, 122, notes that shrā can, and often does, replace or is used in conjunction with aggen. See below for more on this term. 46 “Dialogue Poem 41” in Bride of Light: Hymns on Mary From the Syriac Churches, trans. Sebastian Brock (Kerala: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1994), 111–113. In the original Syriac, SP Brock, Soghyatha Mgabbyatha (St Ephrem’s Monastery, Glane 1982), 595 and 599. 26 the roles of John and Jesus and a difference in Mary and Zachariah’s responses to the divine approaches.
TABLE 5: The Response to the Divine Approach: Syriac Sogyāthā
Zachariah’s Annunciation Mary’s Annunciation
8. He shall clear a way before the 13. O blessed of women, in you John vs. Jesus’ Lord / leaping before him as His it has pleased / the Most High Purpose messenger. to dwell: have no fear. 34. Who am I in this world / to father 36. In that case, O angel, I will Zachariah the fruit he promised? / However not answer back: / if the Holy vs. Mary’s much you tell it me, I will not believe Spirit shall come to me, / I am Response it / because I know that it will not His maidservant, and He has happen. authority; / let it be to me, sir, in accordance with your word.
There are crucial distinctions between the theological emphases in the poems that the Qurʾān conflates. In the poems we find a bifurcation between the roles of John and Jesus and a difference in Mary and Zachariah’s responses to the divine approaches. By applying certain lines from Zachariah’s narrative to Mary’s, the Qurʾān produces a theological conflation of the two stories.
We now must consider how purposeful this conflation was. Though the Qurʾān seems to have real familiarity with the concepts in the Johannine annunciation, we cannot necessarily assume that the Marian annunciation was equally known. Thus, we shall turn to other corners of the Syriac literature in order to discern how widespread the Marian narrative was and how uniformly it was celebrated.
THE SYRIAC CELEBRATION OF MARY
The current section will characterise the celebration of Mary in the Syriac milieu. After 27 discovering precedents for the rather minor recollection of Zachariah and John, we will discover that there are no direct connections between the widespread Syriac exegesis of Mary and her presentation in Q 19.
Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) delivered several sung homilies on the Annunciation to Mary in which he re-told the Biblical story. “Do not be afraid, O full of mercy,” Gabriel says to Mary,
“the Lord has chosen you that in your virginity you might be his mother.”47 We note here the indefinite modality of the imperfect d-tehwēn, “might be”; nothing is determined and the drama builds as “Mary was standing conversing in argument (b-hepkoyo) with Gabriel.”48 Jacob offers a taste of this argument in another homily as he has Mary ask: “How will what you say come to pass, as you say it? Either explain it to me or it will not be easy for me to consent (la- mqabolū).”49 To prove the necessity of her consent, Jacob has Mary, “alone, with no assistance, encouragement, or guidance from others.” Harvey says: “Mary had made her decision, and made it well.”50 It seems clear that for Jacob, Mary’s voice in the Bible was proof that humanity had not lost its free will. One of the few explicit pedagogical statements in Jacob’s “Homily 1” on the Annunciation states: “However great be the beauty of something from God, / it is not acclaimed if freedom is not present.”51
One begins to notice that it is Mary’s free will that lays the foundation for her participation in the divine as she cooperates with God in bringing about the salvation of the world. Jacob helps his faithful understand the Christian doctrine of theosis by stating Mary and
Gabriel “made an agreement (tanway) for the reconciliation of the whole world.”52 The
47 Jacob of Serugh, On the Mother of God trans. Mary Hansbury (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), “Homily 1”, 28. In the original Syriac, Jacob of Serugh, S. Martyrii, qui et Sahdona quae supersunt omnia trans. Paul Bedjan (Paris: Leipzig, 1902), II.B.626. 48 Ibid, 29. 49 Jacob of Serugh, “Homily 2,” 45. S. Martyrii, II.B.642. 50 Susan Ashbrook Harvey “On Mary’s Voice: Gendered Words in Syriac Marian Tradition” in The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography ed. Dale B. Martin and Patricia Cox Miller (London, Duke University Press, 2005), 63–86, 79. 51 Jacob of Serugh, “Homily 1,” 25. S. Martyrii, II.B.622 52 Jacob of Serugh, “Homily 1,” 29. S. Martyrii, II.B.626. 28 agreement, however, only came for Mary in the exegetical material after a dramatic period of her reluctance.
Throughout all of the Syriac literature I have read, there is always one line that convinces Mary to consent: “over you the Holy Spirit will reside (naggen ʿelaykey),” quoting
Luke 1:35. Hidden in the Syriac is the word aggen, from the root g-n-n, a fair translation of the
Arabic anzala, and a term to which Sebastian Brock has dedicated three important articles.53
Turning to the targumim, particularly to the Palestinian targum where the Peshitta Pentateuch has its roots,54 we find aggen to be a technical term used for divine interventions and theophanies. Syriac Christian theologians used this word to speak of God’s power in their translations of the New Testament and in their liturgies to reference the presence of God.
The antiphon for the Annunciation, for example, uses the word synonymously with indwelling. We discover this synonym as the text repeats one refrain:
“What kind of greeting is this? And what a strange message: that Mary, the virgin, shall
have a son.” The angel answered: “He Spirit of holiness will overshadow you, alleluia,
and you will bear a wonder.”
…
She said to him: “But I am a virgin, and unacquainted with marriage. How can what
you say happen?” But he answered her: “The Spirit of holiness will come and dwell in
your womb, alleluia, and the One you bear will save the nations.55
The tradition took physical presence to represent the famous Pauline nuptial analogy for Christ
53 Sebastian Brock, “Passover, Annunciation, and Epiclesis: Some Remarks on the Term Aggen in the Syriac Version of Luke 1:35”, NT 24.3 (1982) 222–33; “Magganuta: A Technical Term in East Syrian Spirituality and its Background”, COr 20 (1988): 121–129; “The Lost Old Syriac at Luke 1:35”. 54 Sebastian Brock, “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources”, The Journal of Jewish Studies 20 (1979), 212–218. 55 Joseph P. Amar, “Syriac Strophic Poetry”, in To Train his Soul: Syriac Asceticism in Eastern Christianity, ed. Robin Darling Young and Monica J. Blanchard (Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 2011), 3–22, 15. Emphasis, mine. 29 and the Church. The theologians also played off of the phonetic resonances between aggen and gnona, bridal chamber. The third-century Gospel of Philip is the first to identify Mary as the
“bridal chamber.” Most famously the word is prominent on the feast day of the Theotokos:
Blessed and glorious is the Mother of God, the pure Virgin who received the Most
High, the glorious tabernacle of the divinity, the radiant place of the Shekhina of the
Maker of All, the pure temple of the Word of God, the bridal chamber (beth gnona) of
the heavenly Bride.56
Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh likewise sing of Mary as the Bride.57 For example, the latter calls
Mary the “Bride who conceived although the bridegroom had never been seen by her.”58
Similarly, Ephrem proclaims: “Blessed is the Child, whose mother is the bride of the Holy
One.”59 Ephrem further places such words in Mary’s own mouth, as she asks in her perplexity:
“Should I call you ‘Son,’ or should I call you ‘Brother,’ or should it be “Betrothed,” or ‘Lord’?
You yourself give your own mother second birth from the baptismal water.”60
Ephrem’s connection with baptismal waters is no light allusion. Ephrem, Jacob of
Serugh, Sugitha, Hymns on Fasting, the hymns in Acts of Thomas, as well as the liturgy poetry for Epiphany in both East and West Syrian traditions, identify baptism as the wedding of heaven and earth.61 As the presence of Christ in Mary’s own womb serves as her baptism, so explicitly taught by Ephrem, she becomes the Bride of Light.
The word aggen garnered widespread significance for the average lay Christian as it was incorporated into the East Syrian anaphora attributed to Theodore Mopsuestia as well as
56 Found in Brock, “Passover, Annunciation and Epiclesis”, 228. 57 Jacob of Serugh, “Tamar and Judah, Genesis 38” in Treasure-House of Mysteries, 103. 58 Jacob of Serugh, “Homily 1”, 20; S. Martyrii, I.B.617. 59 Brock, Bride of Light, 23. 60 Brock, “Passover, Annunciation, and Epiclesis”, 230. 61 Ibid, fn.28. 30 the epiclesis, the part of the Anaphora in which the priest invokes the Holy Spirit upon the
Eucharistic bread and wine, of “the most widely circulated Eastern anaphora in the whole history of Christianity”, that attributed to St. James.62 The prevailing understanding was that the priest acted as Gabriel to the host as Mary: the proclamation allows for a piece of the material world to become God. Upon reception of the sacred elements, the faithful would themselves become, in a mysterious way, the Bride of Light herself as they, too, bore Christ.
At this point, the word is not a technical term only known to the academic elite but also to common people.
The understanding of this concept spread not only from Ephrem in the fourth-century to Jacob of Serugh in the sixth, but through to the early eighth-century. The conception of this word was widespread geographically and chronologically. Isaac of Ninevah (d. 700), writing three hundred years after Ephrem, gives a lengthy exposition of the term, which can serve as our summary:
Maggnanuta63 is a term designating help and protection (nuttara), and also the
receiving of a heavenly gift. [Luke 1:35, Psalm 138:7 and 2 Kings 19:34 are then
quoted]. Thus, we understand two kinds of action in the maggnanuta over mankind
which comes from God: one is symbolic and spiritual, the other practical. The former
consists of the sanctification which is received through divine grace; in other words
when, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, someone is sanctified in his body and
in his soul, as was the case with Elisha, John the Baptist and the holy Mary, blessed
among women-although in her case it was unique, going beyond the case of other
created beings. But turning to the partial maggnanuta which occurs with other holy
62 Baby Varghese, The Syriac Version of the Liturgy of St James (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2001), 5. Brock, “The Lost Old Syriac at Luke 1:35”, 127. In total there are 18 West Syrian anaphoras that used this term – and thus disseminate its meaning to a lay audience. 63 This is the derivative noun of the verb aggen. Syriac theologians incorporated the word into various biblical passages such as the Baptism of Christ, the Transfiguration, and the Pentecost narrative as well as the Annunciation. 31
men and women – like limbs in the body, the symbolic variety of maggnanuta, such as
takes place with any holy person, is an active force (hayla) which overshadows
(maggen Cal) the mind, and when someone is held worthy of this gnanuta the mind is
seized and dilated with a sense of wonder, in a sort of divine revelation. As long as this
divine activity overshadows the mind, that person is raised above the emotions brought
about by the thoughts in his soul, thanks to the participation of the Holy Spirit ... The
other maggnanuta, whose working is experienced in practical terms, is a spiritual
power which protects and hovers over (da-msattar wa-mrahhep ʿal) someone
continuously, driving from him anything harmful which may happen to approach his
body or his soul. This is something which is not perceived by the mind in any visible
way, but it is manifestly evident to the eye of faith, and it has been experienced often
by the saints.64
Brock summarises his own findings by stating that the Aramaic Jewish community and the Eastern and Western Syriac traditions understood aggen to be a technical term that was,
“concerned with the dynamic interaction between the spiritual and the material world, in each case resulting in some dramatic form of transformation, what happens when (to use the imagery beloved by nearly all early Syriac writers) spirit clothes itself in body and what is created puts on the spirit.”65
The Syriac community understood an implied sense of nuptial intimacy embedded in the Biblical Gabriel’s response. In contrast, the Qurʾānic Gabriel’s answer of “It is easy for me” invites a starkly different theological interpretation. The excision of nuptial language strips the text of the same intimacy conveyed in the Bible’s divine approach.
Elsewhere, the Qurʾān records that God “blows” into Mary so as to fill her with Jesus:
“we blew into her through our spirit” (Q 21:91 and 66:12). One might suggest that this act
64 Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetical Homilies, ed. Bedjan (Wiesbaden: Martin Sändig oHG, 1969), 390–2. 65 Brock, “Passover, Annunciation, Epiclesis,” 232. 32 demonstrates a level of nuptial familiarity. Rūḥunā, our spirit, refers to the angel Gabriel, not
God, who blew, as Q 19:17 explicitly identifies Gabriel as the spirit. Amongst the twenty-one uses of rūḥ in the Qurʾān, not one occurrence represents God.66 Q 4:17 clearly uses rūḥ to refer to Jesus but every other account either references Gabriel or Adam’s spirit (i.e. Q 15:29; 32:9;
38:72) For instance, Q 16:102 states: “The Pure Spirit has brought it down from your Lord in truth to make firm those who believe and as guidance and good tidings to the Muslims.” If it is the case that it is not God, but an angel who blows into Mary, then there is no hint of a nuptial intimacy with the Divine.67
The Qurʾānic community could not have missed such a widespread and celebrated view of Mary amongst the Syriac neighbours – especially having demonstrated intimate knowledge of the material regarding John the Baptist, an almost negligible story next to the Marian literature. The fact that Q 19 – and Q 3 as we shall see in the next chapter – fails to include her fiat, “let it be done unto me according to thy will,” which marks the climax of the Biblical story, as well as the hymns, poems, and homilies of our Syriac theologians, cannot be a mere oversight – nor can the line simply be taken for granted. “Theological eschewal,” as Sinai labels the Qurʾān’s process of excising certain aspects of Christian theology from Judaeo-Christian stories, is a strategy for which we can adduce more examples.68
66 One might adduce that Q 15:29 does represent God: “And when I have proportioned him and breathed into him min rūḥī, then fall down to him in prostration.” But this construction is probably best rendered as “belonging to” rather than representing God. 67 Q 21:91 varies slightly with fīhi instead of fīhā as in Q 66:12. This is could be understood as her body or even gonads though all exegetes I have found state that the pronoun refers to her garments. The point here is clearly to parallel the creation of Jesus with that of Adam (cf. Q 38:72), with whom the Qurʾān explicitly links Jesus in Q 3:59: “the example of Jesus to God is like that of Adam. He created him from dust; then he said to him, ‘Be,’ and he was.” 68 Sinai, The Qur’an, 147. For instance, the Qurʾān does not define Adam as created in the image of God. The corporeality of God is too much for the Qurʾānic project to bear. Additionally, we find that God only delivers one and the same covenant to the various prophets, lest he seem inconsistent and mutable. 33
THE QUESTIONS RAISED
We are left then with three questions: first, why does the Qurʾān excise the nuptial imagery when its narrative sources provide it? Second, why does it omit Mary’s famous fiat? Third, how does this intertextual study shed light on the pericope in the surah’s larger context?
The answer to the first question, I believe, is the following: the nuptial language would conjure an image of God that the Qurʾān does not purport. The Qurʾān interests itself in revealing God’s sovereign power and the assurance of a final punishment to wrongdoers. The
Biblical nuptial imagery describing God and men is not shared by and valued in the Qurʾān.
Second: We must ask the theological question of what doctrine is altered here. The
Christian fathers understood consent to act as a means of the divinisation of man. For the Syriac fathers, participation with God is not merely for the self; it is also a contribution to God’s plan to save all men, as we have seen from Jacob of Serugh’s aforementioned comments. This is not a sham participation, rather, it is an essential one. The Islamic narrative sets the limits of divine participation as obedience to God’s laws. The Qurʾān eschews all discussions of theosis as it also explicitly condemns the mušrikūn, those who attribute partners to God, in forty-four verses. We may follow Crone in thinking that mušrikūn could very well have referred to
“monotheists who worshipped the same God as the Messenger, but who also venerated lesser divine beings indiscriminately called gods and angels.”69 Mary in the Qurʾān is a model of holiness, as she is in the Christian tradition. But instead of a model for divine participation and nuptial intimacy, she is the model of human submission. Whereas Mary in the Biblical tradition is praised for her consent, it seems very fair to say the Qurʾān celebrates Mary’s silence, particularly as it emphasises it through her fast (v. 26).
69 P. Crone, “The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities” in Arabica 57 (2010): 151–200, 177. This understanding would pair well with Reynolds’s argument that “the Qurʾān is a creative work, a work which purposefully exaggerates and satirizes the views of its opponents in order to refute them more effectively.” Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Presentation of Christianity in the Qurʾan and the Many Aspects of Qurʾanic Rhetoric,” al-Bayān 12 (2014): 42–54, 47. 34
The Biblical presentation, which may well have been known to the Qurʾānic community, could have been felt to be theologically inappropriate insofar as it had Mary rather than God, as it were, initiate the creation of Jesus. The Qurʾān attempts to render back to God what is rightfully his, and this story is a clear example of this phenomenon.
The Qurʾān excludes the fiat in this pericope for not only this negative reason. There is also a positive justification, in which the passage emphasises God’s unfailing power. Now we must return to our third query: how does this intertextual study positively shed light on the pericope in the surah’s larger context?
Zachariah’s story displays God’s power. Abraham’s narrative does something similar while emphasising that whoever is loyal and submissive to God, God is loyal to them. Mary’s narrative weds the two together. By comparing her narrative with its possible Syriac subtexts, we find several stark differences: the removal of nuptial language and a missing fiat. These variances are not accidental, I have tried to argue; rather, they were purposeful attempts to provide a new theological backbone to the Christian narrative. Instead of communicating God’s intimacy with humanity and humanity’s participation with the Divine, this surah accentuates both God’s power and Mary’s obedience – the former as the topic of Zachariah’s pericope, and the latter as the theme of Abraham’s.
Chapter 2 Mary, the Source of the Leader: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān
INTRODUCTION
The Gospel of Matthew begins with “the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”70 The genealogy is tripartite, each section with fourteen names, fourteen being the number that corresponds with David’s name in Hebrew. Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father, is hailed by the angel as “Son of David.” Luke’s genealogy also has Jesus born into the tribe of
Judah, particularly the line of David. The epithet “Son of David” is used for Jesus fifteen times throughout the gospels.71 It is thus quite amazing to find Jesus born, not into the tribe of Judah, but that of Levi, according to Q 3.
As in the last chapter, I shall begin by briefly outlining the surah. Traditionally thought to be Medinan, Sūrat Āl ʿImrān differs slightly from the Meccan Sūrat Maryam. The possibility of regional or chronological separation between these two literary forms will not occupy us here. While it is still impossible to reconstruct the proper channel(s) of influence on the Qurʾān,
I shall here contribute new notable Judaeo-Christian parallels from the same late antique milieu.
The current chapter attempts two things. First: Although the Christian tradition by and large celebrates Jesus and Mary’s Davidic lineage, I shall demonstrate a possible precedent for the Qurʾānic Mary’s Levitical lineage in the Syriac exegetical tradition. Second: I will attempt to uncover the Qurʾānic epithets “sister of Aaron” (Q 19:28) and “daughter of ʿImrān” (Q
66:12) from Rabbinic sources. I conclude that the most viable possibility for the Qurʾānic
70 Matthew 1:1 71 Matthew 1:1; 9:27; 15:22; 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15; 22:42; Mark 10:47, 48; 12:35; Luke 3:31; 18:38, 39. 36 revision of Mary’s genealogical affiliation is that the Qurʾān utilises a literary device I label
“Narrative Conflation”, amalgamating two characters, the mother of Jesus and the sister of
Aaron, in order to merge the Jewish and the Christian traditions.
SURAH SUMMARY
The surah opens confirming that which God revealed (anzala) in the Torah and the Gospel (v.
3). He revealed (anzala) thereafter the furqān (v. 4). This hotly debated word could either refer to “the Qurʾān” or “a clarification.” For our purposes, determining which meaning is superfluous, though a clarification seems fitting as v. 5 states that nothing is hidden to God.
Verse 6, “he shapes you in the womb however he wills,” alludes to the ensuing stories on John and Jesus. The natal language continues into a maternal metaphor. The text describes the clear verses of the revelation as “the mother of the scriptures,” ummu l-kitāb (v. 7), subtly intimating Mary as v. 45 suggests that she is the mother of the word. In contrast to the clear verses, there are symbolic verses (mutašābihātun; v. 7).72 We are thus to understand that people deviate from proper worship of God because they malign the symbolic passages of the Qurʾān.
This is a fitting warning before the text conflates a figure from the Torah (Miriam) with one from the Gospel (Mary) in vv. 35 and 36. Verse 8 provides a prayer for those beseeching God for a proper hermeneutic: “Our Lord, let not our hearts deviate (tuziġ qulūbanā) from you; guide us,” which is reminiscent of those whose hearts deviate, as mentioned in v. 7: fī qulūbihim zayġun fa-yattabiʿūna mā tašābaha minhu btiġāʾa l-fitnati wa-btiġāʾa taʾwīlihī.
Following a series of verses warning the sinner (vv. 10–13) and enticing the obedient
(vv. 14–18), we return to those who received the previous revelation in vv. 19 and 20, with the repeated phrase ūtū l-kitāb, and those who disbelieved (yakfurūna), recalling vv. 3 and 4. This
72 This word literally means “resembling one another”. Thus, we could either gloss the word as “ambiguous” or “symbolic”. Given the context, I believe the latter translation is clearly superior. For an alternative readings, see Sinai, The Qurʾān, 52. 37 transition is important as the following verses begin to allude to the upcoming stories that were first revealed in the previous scriptures. “You cause the night to enter the day, and you cause the day to enter the night; and you bring the living out of the dead, and you bring the dead out of the living. And you give provision (tarzuqu) to whom you will without account” (v. 27). In v. 49 Jesus speaks of giving “life to the dead – by the permission of God” and v. 37 tells of
Jesus’ mother Mary receiving provisions (rizq) from God whilst in the prayer chamber. It is with these prefatory remarks that the surah transitions to the narratives proper.
Verses 33–35 act as a formal transition to a new story. The four figures mentioned are all patriarchs of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: Adam, the father of humanity, Noah, the father of post-diluvian humanity, the prophetic family of Abraham, and the priestly family of ʿImrān.
With this familial preface, the narrative turns to the wife of ʿImrān who gives birth to Mary, the mother of Jesus (v. 35). Three times the Qurʾān links Mary with this family: Q 66:12
(maryama bnata ʿimrān), 19:28 (uẖta hārūn), and 3:35–6. The story of the Annunciation to
Mary begins with the annunciation of Mary to her mother.
Mary’s mother dedicated her daughter to God (v. 35), presumably to temple service given her surprise upon the child’s birth: “My Lord, I have delivered a female” (v. 36).
Nonetheless, Mary entered the temple and was entrusted to the care of Zachariah. It is the Lord, however, and not Zachariah who feeds Mary as she is often granted miraculous provisions
(rizqan). These provisions illustrate v. 27 in the preface: “You give provision (tarzuqu) to whom you will without account,” thus demonstrating Mary’s favour before God.
Ostensibly, it is this manifested favour toward Mary that encourages Zachariah to make a request: “My Lord, grant me from yourself a good offspring” (rabbi hab lī min ladunka
ḏurriyyatan ṭayyibatan; v. 38). The angel appears before Zachariah and announces the birth of
John. In v. 40, Zachariah asks how this might be as his old age (kibar) has caught up with him, and his wife is barren (ʿāqirah). The angel responds: “So it will be. God does what he wills” 38
(ka-ḏālika llāhu yafʿalu mā yašāʾ; v. 40). Zachariah asks for a sign and he receives the response: “Your sign is that you will not speak to the people for three days except by gesture”
(v. 41).
The surah then transitions back to Mary: “And [recall] when the angels said, ‘O Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified you and selected you above the women of the worlds”
(v. 42). Mary is commanded to be obedient before there is an interruption in the story: “That is from the news of the unseen which we reveal to you. And you were not with them when they cast their rods73 as to which of them should be responsible for Mary. Nor were you with them when they disputed” (v. 44). This detail does not surface again in the Qurʾān. I will return to it below. Then the angel appears to Mary and proclaims: “O Mary, indeed God greets you with a word, one whose name will be Christ Jesus” (v. 45). Mary asks: “How will I have a child when no man has touched me?” She receives the same response as did Zachariah, though extended: “So it will be, for God creates what he wills. When he has decreed something, he says to it only: ‘Be!’ and it is” (ka-ḏāliki llāhu yaẖluqu mā yašāʾu iḏā qaḍā amran fa-innamā yaqūlu lahu kun fa-yakūn; v. 47). In fulfilling the angelic prophecy, Jesus begins to deliver the divine message to the people (vv. 49–52). The discourse on Jesus continues, but the pericope concerning Mary and the Annunciation ends at v. 54.
CORRELATION TO SŪRAT MARYAM
How does this telling of the Annunciation Narrative relate to that in Sūrat Maryam? The chart below will help us identify the similarities and differences.
73 See the explanation for this translation of aqlām below. 39
TABLE 1: The Correlation between the two Qurʾānic Annunciation Narratives
Sūrat Āl ʿImrān Sūrat Maryam 33 – 34 [Introduction] 1 – 3 [Introduction]
35 – 37 [Annunciation and dedication of Mary] --
38b You are the hearer of the prayers (duʿā) 4a He called his Lord, a secret call (duʿā) 38a At that, Zachariah called upon his Lord, 5 “I fear the successors after me, and my wife has saying, “My Lord, grant me, from yourself, been barren, so give me an heir from yourself (hab lī min ladunka) a pure (ṭayyibatan) (hab lī min ladunka). offspring.” 6 Let him be my heir and the heir of Jacob’s clan, and make him acceptable (raḍiyyā), my Lord.” 39 The angels called him when he was praying 7 “O Zachariah, we give you good news in the sanctuary: “God gives you good news (nubašširuka); a boy whose name shall be (yubašširuka) of John (Yaḥyā); a believer in John (Yaḥyā). We have not given anyone this the word of God, honourable, moral, and a name before.” righteous prophet.” 40a He said, “How can I have a boy, when I am 8 He said, “My Lord, will I have a son despite so old, and my wife is sterile?” (annā yakūnu my wife’s sterility, and despite my old age?” lī ġulāmun wa-qad balaġaniya l-kibaru wa- (annā yakūnu lī ġulāmun wa-kānati mraʾatī mraʾatī ʿāqirun) ʿāqiran wa-qad balaġtu mina l-kibari ʿitiyyā) 40b He said, “God does whatever he wills.” 9 He said, “Thus said your Lord: ‘It is easy for me to do. I created you before when you were nothing.’” 41a He said, “My Lord, give me a sign.” (qāla 10a He said, “My Lord, give me a sign.” (qāla rabbi ǧʿal lī āyatan) rabbi ǧʿal lī āyatan)
41b He said, “Your sign is that you will not 10b He said, “Your sign is that you will not speak speak to the people for three days, except to the people for three nights.” (qāla āyatuka through signals (qāla āyatuka allā tukallima allā tukallima n-nāsa ṯalāṯa layālin sawiyya) n-nāsa ṯalāṯata ayyāmin illā ramzan)
11 41c Commemorate your Lord frequently; and He came out from the sanctuary to his family, and he signalled to them: “glorify him glorify (sabbiḥ) him night and day.” (sabbiḥū) day and night.”
12 – 15 -- [Benediction over John]
16 42 And [mention] when the angels said, “O And mention in the scripture [the story of] Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified place toward the east. you (ṭahharaki) and chosen you above the 17 [Mary takes a screen with her]; women of the worlds. 18 [Mary’s fright at the angelical sighting] 40
19 He said: “I am only a messenger of your Lord (sent) to grant you a pure boy (zakiyyā).”
43 O Mary, be devoutly obedient to your Lord -- and prostrate and bow with those who bow [in prayer].”
44 That is from the news of the unseen that we -- reveal to you, [O Muhammad]. And you were not with them when they cast their rods as to which of them should be responsible for Mary. Nor were you with them when they disputed.
45 When the angels said: “O Mary, surely God gives you good news of a word from him: his name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, eminent in this world and the hereafter, and one of those near (to God).
24 – 26; 29 – 33 46 He will speak to the people (while he is still) [Jesus speaks as an infant] in the cradle and in adulthood, and (he will be) one of the righteous.”
20 47a She said: “My Lord, how can I have a child, She said: “How can I have a boy, when no when no man has touched me (lam yamsasnī man has touched me (lam yamsasnī bašarun), bašarun)?” nor am I a prostitute?”
47b He said: “So it will be! God creates 21a He said: “So it will be! The Lord says: ‘it is whatever he pleases. easy for me,’ and we do it so as to make him a sign to the people and a mercy from us.
47c When he decrees something, he simply says 21b It is a thing decreed.” to it: ‘Be!’, and it is.”
24–26 [Palm Tree Narrative]
27–29 [Re-entrance into the community]
48 – 52 [Jesus’ self-declaration] 30 – 33 [Jesus’ self-declaration]
53 – 54 [Response of the people] -- 41
As indicated in bold, certain sections of these narratives are very similar to those in Q 19.
Where minor differences occur in shared material, we must conclude that the variants are not stark enough to suggest that they were derived from different subtexts. But there are separate elements unshared between the two surahs, such as Mary’s infancy narrative and the palm tree scene, about which we must conclude that they derived material independently from a common source or developed from independent traditions. How then are the differences to be understood? I contend that each account fits both the form content of late antique Christian reflection on the Annunciation. This conclusion I shall argue for below. Nonetheless, the shared stories and their high degree of detailed correspondence demonstrate that these surahs have at least some degree of theological coherence.
THE SUBTEXT
The Protoevangelium of James (PEJ) reveals a striking similarity to the unique material in Q
3. Recent publications by Mourad, Horn, and Reck demonstrate the similarities between these texts at length.74 They all conclude that the text served as a clear subtext for Q 3. Briefly we will note that in both the PEJ and the Qurʾānic Mary’s mother commits her then unborn child to temple service (PEJ 4.1; Q 3:35). The child (Mary) is later presented in the Temple (PEJ
7.1–3; Q 3:37). The priest Zachariah is mentioned as the caretaker of Mary (PEJ 8.3; Q 3:37) as is the sustenance given to Mary in the temple from a divine source (PEJ 8.1; Q 3:37).75 Both texts also reference the elders who cast their rods to discern who would become Mary’s
74 Suleiman Mourad, “On the Qurʾanic Stories about Mary and Jesus”, Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter- Faith Studies 1:2 (1999): 13–24; Cornelia Horn, “Mary between Bible and Qur’an: Soundings into the Transmission and Reception History of the Protoevangelium of James on the Basis of Selected Literary Sources in Coptic and Copto-Arabic and of Art-Historical Evidence Pertaining to Egypt”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 18:4 (2007), 509–538; Cornelia Horn, “Intersections: The Reception History of the Protoevangelium of James in Sources from the Christian East and in the Qur’an”, Apocrypha 17 (2006): 113–150; Jonathan M. Reck, “The Annunciation to Mary: A Christian Echo in the Qurʾān”, Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014), 355–383. Others before these scholars have also identified this source but in keeping with modern arguments, we will deal with the living, who have noted and surpassed the details their admirable predecessors discovered prior. 75 The PEJ also explains that Mary weaves the curtain of the temple (10:1–2), which may explain the screen mentioned in Q 19:17. 42 guardian (PEJ 9.1–6; Q 3:44).76 These details are all extra-Biblical traditions shared by the
Qurʾānic text. Additionally, the outlines of PEJ 11.2–3 and Q 3:45–7 are close parallels, as the table below indicates:
TABLE 2: The Dialogues of Mary and Gabriel
PROTOEVANGELIUM OF JAMES SŪRAT ĀL ʿIMRĀN 11.2 And behold an angel of the Lord (suddenly) 3:45. When the angels said: “Mary! Surely God stood before her and said: “Do not fear, Mary; for gives you good news of a word from Him: his you have found grace before the Lord of all things name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, and shall conceive of his Word.” eminent in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near. 3:46. He will speak to the people (while he is still) in the cradle and in adulthood, and (he will be) one of the righteous.”
When she heard this, she doubted in herself and 3:47. She said: “My Lord, how can I have a said: “Shall I conceive of the Lord, the living child, when no man has touched me?” God, [and bear] as every woman bears?”
11.3 And the angel of the Lord came and said to He said: “So it will be! God creates whatever he her: “Not so, Mary; for a power of the Lord shall pleases. overshadow you; wherefore also that holy thing which is born of you shall be called the Son of the Highest. And you shall call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.”
And Mary said: “Behold, (I am) the handmaid of When he decrees something, he simply says to the Lord before him: be it to me according to your it: ‘Be!’, and it is.” 77 word.”
76 Reynolds, The Qurʾān and its Biblical Subtext (New York: Routledge, 2010), 143, “‘You were not there when they cast their aqlām to see which of them would become the guardian of Mary’ Thus it emerges that with the term aqlām (sg. qalam) the Qurʾān does not intend pens, but rather ‘rods.’ This, in fact, matches the primary meaning of qalam, a word derived from Greek κάλαµος (‘reed’).” There is a debate currently about whether this Arabic word derives from Ethiopic qalam (Jeffrey, Foreign Vocabulary, 243) or from Syriac qalmā (cf. Reynolds, Biblical Subtext, n477). 77 “The Protoevangelium of James” in New Testament Apocrypha ed. Wilhem Schneemelcher (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), 429–431. 43
Like Q 19, we see that Q 3 excises any Marian response to the angelic proclamation. In the last chapter we saw that late antique Syriac sources claimed that Mary’s consent was integral to the divine economy and human free will, and that the Qurʾān may be presumed to perform an intentional theological inversion of this material. Here, our author in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān reaches a new climax of handling Biblical material when he places Mary’s fiat in God’s own mouth.
Whereas the New Testament Mary says, “let it be,” the angel of the Qurʾān explains: “[God] only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” God’s imperative kun, “Be,” is juxtaposed against the Biblical
Mary’s optative génoitο, “let it be,” or nehwe in the Peshitta. We must acknowledge that Sūrat
Taḥrīm says that Mary “believed in the words of her Lord and his scriptures and was of the devoutly obedient” (Q 66:12). This verse, however, says nothing about her consent, only that she found satisfaction in God’s good and inscrutable decree. Q 3, like Q 19 before it, emphasises God’s will to send his prophet beyond the will of Mary.
Perhaps as importantly, the Christian tradition reasonably interpreted the Biblical
Mary’s question – “How will this be done?” – to be inquiring about modality. The PEJ extends
Mary’s question to: “If I conceive from the Lord God who lives, will I also conceive as all women conceive?”78 The response that we have seen from the Bible, the Syriac tradition, and from the PEJ itself, answers the question in terms of how: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” The Qurʾān, on the other hand, interprets Mary’s question in reference to possibility: “It is easy for me.”79 While this difference renders the Qurʾānic Mary in the same structural tradition as both the Biblical and Qurʾānic Zachariah, who reasonably doubts the proclamation, on the other hand the Qurʾānic text distances its Mary from that of the New Testament. In the former, her stalwart faith is grounds for God to answer her question without intimate language.
78 PEJ 11.6. 79 Mary’s question in Q 19 gains a similar interpretation and response: “He said: “So it will be. Your Lord said: ‘It is easy for me.’” 44
It is, however, a common Qurʾānic trope for a person to question God and for God to respond with a declaration of his superiority. For instance, when in Q 2:29 the angels ask God:
“Will you place upon [the earth] one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare your praise and sanctify you?” God’s reply refers to his superior knowledge: “Indeed,
I know that which you do not know” (Q 2:30).80 Despite this common motif, the PEJ and the
Qurʾān retell the Biblical tale with important differences. And Q 3 distances itself from the PEJ in a similar way as does Q 19 from its Syriac subtext, as we saw in the last chapter.
The Qurʾān tells the story of Mary in tight conformity to the PEJ. It is then very important that we recognise where the text blatantly alters a detail from it. Specifically, we shall examine Mary’s genealogy. The PEJ records that Mary was from the “tribe[!] of David” in an attempt to demonstrate Jesus’ regal lineage (PEJ 10.4). But the Qurʾān relates to us that
Mary was born unto ʿImrān / Amram, who, Biblically speaking, is considered to hail from the tribe of Levi and not of Judah (or David). The problem is compounded by Q 19:28’s reference to Mary as the sister of Aaron (uẖt hārūn). Though Aaron did have a sister named Miriam, this was a woman who supposedly lived twelve-hundred years before the Virgin Mary.
An alteration in a genealogy does not immediately present itself as an important detail to the modern audience, but this would not be the case in the late antique Near East. Fred
Donner has commented on the significance of one’s genealogy:
Ties of kinship (real or assumed) have formed one of the basic determinants of an
individual’s social standing; in many cases, being of the ‘right’ family or ethnic group
has counted for more than anything else in evaluating one’s claim to privilege. We
may call this procedure GENEALOGICAL LEGITIMATION; it rests on the
80 In addition to this example, see Q 7:143, 5:112, and 2.260. 45
assumption that the mere fact of membership in a particular kinship or ethnic group
accords legitimate claim to special status.81
Because of the importance of kinship ties in the ancient and medieval worlds, we can reasonably dismiss the notion, suggested by Jeffrey amongst others, that the Qurʾān merely made a casual mistake regarding Mary’s genealogical descent.82 Various scholars have argued that the difference could be a typological manoeuvre, that Mary corresponded to the Prophet
Muhammad or Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Others have claimed it was merely allegorical.83 None of these solutions as of yet is satisfying.
Although we cannot yet reconstruct the proper channel(s) of influence on the Qurʾān, I shall now contribute notable Judaeo-Christian parallels of a Marian Levitical lineage from the same late antique milieu. As I shall argue, these Syriac writers were construing her lineage not merely based upon exegetical insights, but also for an apologetic impetus as they attempted to incorporate Jews into their Christian fold.
MARY’S LEVITICAL LINEAGE
We begin with Jewish expectations of the Messianic arrival. According to the Community Rule, a document found amongst the Dead Sea scrolls, three figures will appear at the end of times:
The Prophet (mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:18), and the two Messiahs of Aaron and Israel – the first a priestly messiah, the second a royal, Davidic messiah who will be subservient to the
81 Fred Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writings (Princeton: Darwin, 1998), 104. Capitals are in the original. 82 Jeffrey, Foreign Vocabulary, 217. 83 Suleiman Mourad, “Mary in the Qurʾān”, 163–174 and Michael Marx, “Glimpses of a Mariology in the Qurʾan: From Hagiography to Theology via Religious-Political Debate” in The Qurʾān in Context, 533–563 both adduce an “allegorical” interpretation of the passage. However, their use of the term “allegory” raises questions, as they appear to use it in the sense of a mere allusion. See, Dye, 9, for an authoritative rebuttal of Mourad and, by extension, Marx. 46 priest.84 The Damascus Document records a single messiah of both Aaron and Israel.85 There is a third eschatological document concerning Melchizedek, who would come to “judge the holy ones of God,” and to “save them from the hand of Belial.”86 The earliest Christian attempts at seeing Jesus as the summation and conclusion of the Jewish tradition dismiss the notion of an Aaronite messiah. The Epistle of the Hebrews witnesses this tradition: “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.”87 The New Testament’s justification for preferring this regal lineage bespeaks a clear preference for demarcating Christ as a priest according to the precedent of Melchizedek and not of Levi: “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood – for the people received the law under this priesthood – what further need would there have been to speak of another priest arising according to the order of Melchizedek, rather than one according to the order of Aaron?”88
Thus, the early Church was intent on emphasising Jesus’ Davidic descent, and not his
Levitical one. As Ephrem’s commentary on the Diatessaron I.24–25 clearly demonstrates, there was a determination to fulfil both the angelic announcement at Luke 1:32, “The Lord will give him the throne of his father David,” as well as the prophecy of Jacob in Genesis 49:10,
“The sceptre will not depart from the house of Judah until he to whom it belongs comes.” It is thus understandable that scholars such as John Collins and James Charlesworth claim that the early Church only focused on Christ as a Davidic Messiah.89 However, a close examination of
84 “The Messianic Rule” in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls trans. by Geza Vermes (London: Penguin, 2011), 161–2. 85 “The Damascus Document” in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 136. 86 “The Heavenly Prince Melchizedek” in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 533–534. 87 Hebrews 7:14. 88 Hebrews 7:11. The author refers to Psalms 110:4, a coronation psalm, which explains the link between Melchizedek and David. 89 James H. Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus”, in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls ed. James H. Charlesworth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). 47 the Syriac tradition reveals a particularly nuanced focus in identifying Jesus of Nazareth as a
Levitical priest, much like the Jewish interest in aligning a messianic figure with Aaron.
Intricately linked to the question of Mary’s lineage is the matter of the genealogies attributed to Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke. Mary does not feature in the genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3, which leaves a crucial gap permitting for later Syriac writers to induct Christ into a Levitical heritage through his mother. As far as I have found, there has not been a publication that lists or explicates the debate around various Eastern genealogies of Mary and Jesus.90 Thus we shall briefly do so here.
An important text for Mary’s genealogy in Syriac is Ephrem’s commentary on Tatian’s
Diatessaron. Ephrem considers the consequences of Mary as the kinswoman of Elisabeth
(Luke 1:36). Evidently, at an early date in the Syriac tradition some wanted to see Christ’s
Levitical priesthood transmitted directly through the genealogy of Mary, and this is explicitly stated in the earliest known manuscript of the commentary in an Armenian translation (I.25):
“Because Christ was about to make silent kingship and priesthood, the scripture teaches about the genealogy of both of them at once, about Judah through Joseph, and about Levi through
Mary.” In contrast, however, stands the Syriac version which seems to systematically preserve an emphasis on the regal, Davidic lineage of Jesus:
If scripture was accustomed to indicating the lineage of women, it was appropriate to
study the lineage of Mary. Moreover, if you assume that because of the fact that the
evangelist says: “Mary, the kinswoman” [Luke 1:36], as if to make clear that Mary was
also from the tribe of Levi, then, look, he has said at another place concerning [the
90 Four publications have touched on small aspects of the issue: C. Lange, “The descent of Mary and the Syriac Commentary on the Diatessaron” The Harp 15 (2002): 107–116; Sebastian Brock, “The Genealogy of the Virgin Mary in Sinai Syr. 16” Scrinium 2.1 (2006): 20–33; Christine Shepherdson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-century Syria (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 100–105 touch on aspects of it, as did David G.K. Taylor from a talk: “The Jewish Priesthood of Christ in the Syriac” Brigham Young University, 11 April 2007. 48
lineage] with respect to Joseph and Mary, that ‘both were from the house of David”
[Luke 2:4]. It could be supposed that Mary was from the house of Levi; nevertheless,
up to this, the prophecy was established within the framework of the husbands. The
family of David continued as far as Joseph who had espoused her, and [the birth of]
her child was [reckoned] through the framework of the men, for the sake of the family
of David … Scripture is silent [about Mary’s genealogy] since it is the generations of
men that it numbers and reckons.91
Despite this incongruous clarification, later in the text, Ephrem makes a case for a Marian
Levitical lineage, stating: “However, we find the tribes of Judah and Levi mixed up together through Aaron, who married the sister of Nahshon, prince of the house of Judah, and through the priest Johoiada who married the daughter of King Jehoram of the house of David.”92 From the existence of both statements, we can deduce that the author or editor made a deliberate choice not to expunge Christ of a Levitical lineage. Rather, he sees Christ emerge from a kingly lineage. Lange deduces from these two versions, the Armenian and the Syriac, that an earlier
Syriac text underlies both of these recensions. What the Armenian and the extant Syriac version manifest is merely a debate amongst the later editors and redactors over Jesus’ lineage.93
Descent, however, is not Ephrem’s only technique for affirming Jesus’ Levitical nature.
In his Hymns on the Lord, Ephrem teaches that Jesus was ordained a Levitical priest by the old man Simeon in the presentation narrative:
Prophecy and priesthood, which had been given through Moses, were both passed
down and came to rest on Simeon ... Simeon presented our Lord, and in him he
presented the two gifts he had so that what had been given to Moses in the desert was
91 Ephrem, Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron, I.25. 92 Ibid, I.26. 93 A tradition shared by Ephrem is found in Cave of Treasures XLIV.45–46, which states Mary is a Levite through her father grandfather Eleazar, the third son of Aaron. 49
passed on by Simeon in the Temple. Because our Lord is the vessel in which all fullness
dwells, when Simeon presented him to God, he poured out both of these upon him: the
priesthood from his hands, and prophecy from his lips ... When both of these saw the
Lord of both of these, both of them were combined and were poured into the vessel that
could accommodate them both, in order to contain priesthood, kingship, and prophecy
… As [Simeon] returned him to his mother, he returned the priesthood with him.94
This is an important quotation for us: because Ephrem did not base Jesus’ priesthood on Mary’s
Levitical heritage, we can discern that there is something other than an exegetical impetus that leads him to decide that Jesus is a Levite. Later in the same text, Ephrem reiterates Jesus
Levitical lineage by having John the Baptist re-ordain him.95 Thus, whatever the incentive for this emphatic affirmation of Jesus’ Levitical nature may be, Ephrem found it compelling.
Ephrem shared an exegetical and theological milieu with both Greek and Syriac
Christian authors. Other examples of late antique theologians attempting to emphasise Jesus as priest through Mary’s lineage include the Syriac Life of Mary, Aphrahat (d. 345), and
Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 439).96 The latter states:
Mary was related to Elizabeth in two ways, and James was distinguished by priesthood,
since only the two tribes intermarried, the kingly with the priest and the priestly with the
kingly. Thus long ago the head the tribe of Judah, Nason, took the ancient Elizabeth,
Aaron’s daughter, to wife during the exodus. Hence many sects are unaware of the
94 Ephrem, St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works, trans. Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar, ed. Kathleen E. McVey (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 328–9. 95 “When our Lord plunged down into baptism, he clothed himself with baptism and drew it out with him, just as he had put on prophecy and priesthood when he was presented in the Temple, and he left bearing the purity of the priesthood on his pure limbs, and the words of prophecy in his innocent ears,” Ibid, 332–3. 96 “Syriac Life of the Virgin” in The History of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the History of the Likeness of Christ edited by E.A.W. Budge, (London: W. Griggs, 1899), 5; Aphrahat, “On the Grapecluster” in Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth Century Iran, trans. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 116–8; Epiphanius, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, trans by Frank Williams (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 33, 626. 50
Savior’s earthly genealogy, and because of their puzzlement disbelieve, and suppose that
they can contradict the truth by saying “How could Mary, of the tribe of David and Judah,
be related to Elizabeth, of the tribe of Levi?”
In contrast to the aforementioned authors, Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) specifically condemns any notion of Mary’s priestly heritage:
How could the wife of the high priest be a kinswoman of Mary, / being herself a Levite,
and Mary is of the house of David? / The tribe of Levi consisted of priests and not of
kings; / that of Judah put forth kings, behold, out of David… That angel is not of human
nature, / but is of spiritual origin, a sublime nature. / The case of the two women fell
together as far as the angel / was concerned / so he called them kinswomen.97
From this passage, it is clear that there was variation in the exegetical traditions concerning this Biblical problem.
These scruples continue through the time of the Qurʾān’s compilation.98 According to
Jacob of Edessa (d. 709):
It is by means of such a compelling and true syllogism that we should show to any
Christian or Muslim who inquires that Mary the holy Virgin and begetter of God is of
the race of David, although this is not illustrated by the scriptures.99
97 Jacob of Serugh, “Homily 1,” 54–55. 98 In addition to Jacob, we can add the eighth-century manuscript Syriac Sinai 16, which also instructs its readers of a Levitical lineage for Mary. See Brock, “The Genealogy of the Virgin”. 99 Jacob of Edessa, Letter to John the Stylite, trans Karl-Erik Rignell (Lund: Gleerup, 1979), 519–20. 51
According to J.J. van Ginkel, “the topic of the letter … is not specifically aimed at the Muslims, but against all who deny that Mary is from the House of David.”100 This is particularly interesting given that Jacob misattributes the conviction to Muslims that they hold the Virgin to be from the “race of David.” He is thus mistaken, has been misinformed, or is merely using the new Islamic “heretics” as a means of persuading neighbouring Christians to rectify their view of the messianic lineage. Interestingly, another letter of Jacob adduces his opponents’ position:
There are some narratives written by certain zealous people on their own authority,
without having any testimony from Scripture, which show that Mary, the holy Virgin,
the mother of Christ, was the daughter of Hanna and of the upright Ioakin, concerning
whom those who authored the narratives say that he was the son of Panther, and Panther
was the brother of Melki, the son of Yani [Luke 3:24] who descends from the lineage
of Levi in the genealogy.101
We can clearly see that much was at stake in Mary’s genealogy for our late antique
Syriac authors. It may be the case that the reason why the Eastern Christian fathers insisted on
Mary’s Levitical descent was the same or similar to that of the author of the Qurʾān. Two scholars have thus far submitted theories as to why Syriac theologians construe a Levitical descent for Mary. Christine Shephardson has suggested that Ephrem, for his part, was participating in “a turbulent beginning to Christianity’s imperial struggle for self-definition.”102
Citing Western fathers who engaged in anti-Jewish “polemic”, Shephardson compiles a list of
100 J.J. van Ginkel, “Jacob of Edessa and the West Syrian Identity” in Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam ed. JJ. van Ginkel, et alii (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 67–90, 68–9. 101 F. Nau, “The Letter of Jacob of Edessa on the Genealogy of the Holy Virgin” in Revue de l'Orient chrétien 6 (1901): 512–31, 519. 102 Shephardson, Anti-Jewish Polemics, 3. 52 parallel statements that Ephrem levels against Jews to demonstrate his antipathy for the people.
As it pertains to the Levitical priesthood of Jesus, she states Ephrem insists that “Jesus was legitimate even by the Jews’ own ‘rules,’ thereby heightening their culpability and blindness in their rejection of Jesus.”103 While Shephardson’s work usefully collects Ephrem’s arguments against Jewish positions, her use of the term “polemical” obscures how the figure of Jesus as a descendent of David functioned as a theological reprimand against those who claimed their ancestor was Aaron.104 Ephrem’s account of the genealogy was an apologetic technique, attempting to convert Jews to the Christian faith. Far from a polemical strategy, it was an evangelistic one.
David G.K. Taylor has suggested that amongst the very earliest converts to Syriac speaking Christianity, there were some of Jewish origin who held similar beliefs to those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and thus expected not only a king messiah, but also a priest messiah.
This hypothesis is corroborated by Aphrahat (d. 345) who places Jesus and Mary in a Levitical line – and he does so in his Demonstrations to the Jews.105 For Aphrahat, he specifically utilises their Levitical pedigree as a way of winning over a Jewish audience. Yet, again we must ask, how does this appeal to Jews?
A host of scholars have emerged examining the Jewish priesthood in Late Antiquity.
Despite popular opinion, the priesthood did not dissipate after the destruction of the Jewish
Temple in AD 70. Fraade, Levine, Mortensen, Elior, Fine – amongst others – have recorded the Jewish contemplation on the priesthood in and around Palestine. They all agree that an interest in the Levitical – particularly Aaronite – priesthood re-emerges in Late Antiquity.106
103 Ibid, 102. 104 Shephardson may have been helped if she had considered Ephrem’s commentary on the Diatessaron as she only examined the ordination narratives of Jesus by John and Simeon. 105 Aphrahat, Aphrahat and Judaism, 118. 106 Matthew J. Grey, “Jewish Priests and Social History of Post-70 Palestine,” (PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2011) argues that the priesthood never died out. 53
What they disagree over is whether or not the rising interest in the priesthood corresponded to an increase in the number of priests. But such a consideration does not concern us.
Amongst the Jewish communities of Palestine and Syria, synagogues became increasingly conceived of as miqdash me’at.107 These “small temples,” were understood, by the Targum of Jonathan, at least, as “second to the temple of Jerusalem.” The scholarly elite were not alone in using temple imagery to describe the synagogues and the liturgies sung within them. By the end the sixth-century, Yosse ben Yosse’s poetry, which lionises the priesthood, particularly the high priesthood of Aaron, and sets his service at the very centre of creation, became incorporated in the liturgies of Palestine.108 Furthermore, in this same period, the
Aaronite priesthood was paramount in Samaritan culture.109
If it is the case that Jews served as the audience of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, then it seems plausible that they, too, may have had an interest in the Levitical priesthood, as did their fellow
Jews in the North. We have compelling reason to believe that Jews were in Medina. For instance, the Constitution of Medina features Jews prominently (whilst Christians are absent).
Medinan surahs, according to Sinai, include “a dozen direct addresses of the Scripturalists in general (e.g., Q.3:64.65.70 etc., and Q.5:15.19 etc.)[ and] some verses contain vocatives specifically addressed to the Jews (Q. 62:6) and Israelites (Q. 2:40.47.122, 20:80).”110 There are no vocatives addressing only the Christians. The introduction of Q 3 states the intention of the surah is to provide an accurate interpretation of the revelation that came before. If this is the case, then the genealogy of Mary allows for the New Testament to be made more palatable for a Jewish audience (vv. 3–4). The Qurʾān eliminates Jesus’ divine status, whilst retaining
107 BM 29a 108 Yosse ben Yosse, “Azkir Gevurot Elohah” and “Atah Konanta ‘Olam be-Rov Hesed” in Avodah: Ancient Poems for Yom Kippur ed. and trans. Swartz and Yahalom (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2005), 221–290, 291–343. 109 For an overview of the Samaritan people, see Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans (Leiden: Brill, 1987). 110 Nicolai Sinai, “The Unknown Known: Some Groundwork for Interpreting the Medinan Qur’an”, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 66 (2015–16): 47–96, 58. 54 his influential miracles and authoritative status as messiah. But instead of the Davidic messiah, he comes as the son of Levi, as does his mother Mary.
Neuwirth, Reck, and Marx adduce an alternative account of Mary’s genealogy, suggesting that it has political implications. They propose that the Qurʾān sets the matriarchal lineage of Amram in opposition to the patriarchal lineage of Abraham, countering Jewish superiority. Their thesis is incorrect. First, Amram belongs to the family of Abraham. The progression of v. 33 from Adam to Noah to the family of Abraham to the family of Amram is following the covenantal lineage of a single family. Clearly there is no antagonism within the narrative itself – the polemics are levelled in the surah’s preface, as noted above. This lends credence to the assumption that the narrative is presumed to be palatable to a Jewish audience.
Second, Aaron and Amram were celebrated figures in Jewish communities at this time. Third, the story begins by referencing the Jewish hero Miriam, who was celebrated for her attempts to preserve the integrity of the religious family and the continuity of Israel’s leadership, as I shall demonstrate below. This Levitical genealogy allows for the Christian narrative to be made more palatable for, not polemical toward, a late antique Jewish community. Neuwirth, Reck, and Marx are correct that the text is political, but it is not polemical. Instead it attempts to incorporate rather than subdue the Jewish communities of Medina.
SOLVING THE ANACHRONISM: TYPOLOGY OR CONFLATION111
In the last section we considered an impetus for placing Mary in a Levitical lineage. What still remains to be resolved, however, is the anachronism of rendering her a daughter of Amram and sister of Aaron (Q 66:12; 3:35–6; 19:28). Resolving this predicament as a typological
111 There are two publications on Qurʾān typology: Devin Stewart, “Understanding the Koran in English: Notes on Translation, Form, and Prophetic Typology” in Diversity in Language: Contrastive Studies in English and Arabic Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, ed. Zeinab Ibrahim, et al. (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000), 31–48; and Todd Lawson, “Duality, Opposition and Typology in the Qurʾān: The Apocalyptic Substrate,” Journal of Qur'anic Studies 10.2 (2008): 23–49. Both articles adduce a critical version of asbāb an- nuzūl, attempting to find parallels between Qurʾānic narratives and the life of Muhammad. 55 construction is the most popular solution in scholarship today. Typology, according to the great literary critic Northrop Frye, is “a figure of speech that moves in time: the type exists in the past and the antitype in the present, or the type exists in the present and the antitype in the future.”112 Every typology, still according to Frye, makes the assumption that there is “some meaning and point to history.”113 The author of a typology is clearly intent on demonstrating the telos of the antitype through a clarifying event before it. Causation works in a very similar way, as it, too, is a form of rhetoric that moves through time, but, unlike causality, typology focusses not on systematics, but on faith, hope, and spiritual clarity. It does not attempt to teach dogmas so much as to prove or illustrate them. Typology thus easily misleads the modern mind.
A proper typology depends upon diachronic movements; the events, objects, or people the author discusses both represent the thing itself and the corresponding event or person that occurs or lives at a different time. When one event, object, or person closely conforms to another, then the author is tempted by metaphor, says Frye, equating the one thing with the other, overlooking all the real differences between them.114 In this case, the type must be known lest the power of the literary device be lost.
Several scholars believe that Q 3 makes a typological link between Mary and Miriam.115
For example, Reynolds endorses a typological connection between these two figures by demonstrating intricate parallels between the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible, presuming that the Qurʾānic author had similar insights. Abboud proposes that the typological connection between Mary and Miriam is not only in their shared name but also their shared prophethood, as Exodus 15:20 calls Miriam a prophetess. There is no mention of Mary’s prophethood in the
112 Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (London: Routledge, 1981), 80. 113 Ibid, 83. 114 Ibid, 85. 115 Witztum, The Syriac Milieu of the Qurʾān, 46; Reynolds, Biblical Subtext, 142–146; Samir “The Theological Christian influences on the Qur’an”, 141–162; Abboud, Mary in the Qurʾān, 59. Additionally, Reck, “The Annunciation to Mary” and Angelika Neuwirth, “The House of Abraham and the House of Amram: Genealogy, Patriarchal Authority, and exegetical Professionalism” in The Qurʾān in Context, 499–531 seem to concur with the thesis, but it is not their focus. 56
Qurʾān. Dubious as their methodology is, there is yet a greater problem with their thesis: the
Qurʾān does not juxtapose two periods, which is the basic structural semiotic of typology.
Instead of connecting two disparate peoples, the Qurʾān conflates them into a single moment.
Typology is not a viable term for the Qurʾān’s literary theology in this instance. Instead, I propose the phrase “narrative conflation.” Before explaining that device, I must first examine the exegesis of Miriam in the Christian and Jewish traditions throughout Late Antiquity to discover the assumptions about this character floating around the Qurʾānic milieu.
THE EXEGESIS OF MIRIAM
Western Scholars generally recognise the Qurʾān relies heavily upon Rabbinic sources.116 Late antique Christians give scant consideration to the character of Miriam, and the majority of extent Syriac references to her are predominately negative.117 It would seem unreasonable for the Qurʾān to allude to a negative image for Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as it is invested in a very positive portrayal of her. Rather, we ought to look to the Rabbinic sources to see if and how the Qurʾān weds together the two traditions on Mary/Miriam into one masterful narrative.
The Qurʾān is not bound by a particular exegetical tradition, so we should not artificially restrict our exploration of Mary’s presentation in the Islamic scripture to a Christian framework, as scholars have thus far done. The Qurʾān has the ideological room to draw upon both Jewish and Christian subtexts, as it does so for other narratives.118 We, too, will look elsewhere and find a more satisfactory solution than the sparse suggestions thus far published. In what follows, we shall first look to the Hebrew Bible, before turning to the Christian, and then
116 For recent examples of this argument, Patricia Crone, “The Qurʾānic Mushrikūn and the Resurrection”, BSOAS 75.3 (2005): 445–472; Sinai, The Qurʾan, 139–140, 148–150; famously A. Geiger, Judaism and Islam (Veprey: Madras, 1898) popularised this idea of rabbinic influence. 117 Cf. Ephrem, “Hymn 28, Hymns on the Faith” in Ephrem the Syrian, 183; Gregory the Great, “Letter to Felix, Bishop of Messana”, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1887), 262; Aphrahat, “On Monks”, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 618; even in Tatian’s Diatessaron, XVI.13 in the Syriac version. 118 For example, see Witztum, The Syriac Milieu of the Qurʾān, 111–53. 57
Rabbinic, sources in order to understand the discussions of Mary and Miriam in the late antique
Near East.
The Hebrew Bible’s Presentation of Miriam
Miriam first appears in Biblical narrative as the unnamed sister of Moses who ensures that the daughter of Pharaoh chooses the child’s mother as his nursemaid (Exodus 2:4–9). Miriam first appears by name in Exodus 15:20, when she is introduced as “the prophet Miriam, the sister of
Aaron.” In this passage, both Moses and Miriam sing songs of praise after crossing the Red
Sea on dry land, with the Egyptian soldiers having drowned behind them. According to a seventh-century Syriac lectionary, this passage found a prominent place on the feast of the
Epiphany, commemorating the wise men’s veneration of the infant Jesus.119
Miriam does not appear again until Numbers 12:1–15 when she and Aaron complain about Moses’s Cushite wife and jealously grumble, “Has the LORD spoken only through
Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (Numbers 12:2). God calls the three siblings to the Tent of Meeting where he assures them of Moses’ special leadership role and rebukes Aaron and Miriam, striking Miriam leprous. Though Moses pleads for the healing of his sister, God demands that he expel Miriam from the camp for seven days, in accordance with the regulation of Leviticus 17:4. Deuteronomy 24:9 briefly recalls this incident. A single clause in Numbers
20:1 states that Miriam eventually died in Kadesh. Two passages discuss Miriam’s lineage and specify her family: her brothers were Moses and Aaron, her father Amram (Numbers 26:59; 1
Chronicles. 6:3). The former speaks of her as the daughter of Jochebed, the wife of Amram
(which is reminiscent of Q 3:35.36), while the latter speaks of her as the daughter of Amram
(similar to Q 66:12). The last mention of Miriam comes in the book of Micah, which acclaims her as a leader of the Exodus: “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied
119 Francis Crawford Burkitt, The Early Syriac Lectionary System (London: The British Academy, 1923), 25. 58 you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:3–4).
Eastern Christian Portrayals of Miriam
The early Christian tradition says astonishingly little about Miriam. Though her song features prominently on the great feast of Epiphany, it is usually her jealousy towards Moses and her punishment with leprosy that are mentioned. Thus, the Syriac fathers do not hold a predominately positive picture of the sister of Aaron. An exception to this generalisation comes in Aphrahat’s “On Persecution” in which he states: “Miriam stood on the edge of the river when Moses was floating in the water; and Mary bore Jesus, after the Angel Gabriel had made the annunciation to her.”120 In Aphrahat’s larger typological portrayal of Moses and Jesus, he also typologically parallels the sister of Aaron with the mother of Jesus. This rather obscure line mentions Moses in the river with Miriam as his watchful protector, and Jesus in the watery womb with his mother serving as guardian. Though Greek and Latin fathers such as Ambrose
(d. 397), Gregory of Nyssa (d. 394), and Peter Chrysologus (d. 450) also discover this typological dynamism between the two characters, it is a relatively uncommon motif in the east.121
The PEJ, for its part, makes a correlation between Mary and Miriam. In the seventeenth chapter, we find Mary upon the donkey and Joseph walking beside her journeying to
Bethlehem.
And when they had come within three miles, Joseph turned and saw her sorrowful;
and he said to himself: “What is distressing her?” Then again Joseph turned, and this
120 Aphrahat, “On Persecutions” in Aphrahat and Judaism, 104. 121 Joseph T. Lienhard and Ronnie J. Rombs, eds., Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 82. 59
time saw her laughing. And he said to her: “Miriam, how is it that at one point I see
laughter in your face and at another sorrow? And Miriam said to Joseph: “Because I
see two peoples with my eyes; the one weeping and lamenting, and the other rejoicing
and exulting.” And they came into the middle of the road, and Miriam said to him:
“Take me down from off the ass, for that which is in me presses to come forth.”
This passage records Mary’s “only demonstration of prophetic vision and speech” in the PEJ, observes Mary F. Foskett. It is also the only section which forgoes calling the Virgin “Μαρία” and instead refers to her as “Μαρριάµη”. Also within this section, Mary uses classic prophetic vocabulary in Greek (i.e. ὁτι δύο λαοὺς βλέπω ἐν τοῖς ὀφθαλµοίς µου). The author of this Greek text undoubtedly attempts to link the Virgin with the sister of Aaron, who is deemed a prophetess in Exodus 15:20. But this is not, of course, a typological connection; rather, it is an allusion. Though scholars offer a near-consensus view that the PEJ is the subtext of the
Annunciation in Q 3, it is doubtful that such a subtle wordplay was preserved for, let alone perceived by, the Qurʾānic author.122
There is another Eastern connection between Mary and Miriam found in the Jerusalem
Georgian Lectionary, which, according to Boldovan, was in use from 450–750.123 The Feast of the Memory of Mary, celebrated each year on 13 August, recalled Mary’s role in the nativity.
The liturgy relies heavily on the Life of Jeremiah, a narrative within the Vitae Prophetarum, a third-century AD Rabbinic text. The Christians of Jerusalem adopted this Jewish liturgy for their own, changing and adding details within it, because they either found it compelling on its
122 In Syriac, the names Mary and Miriam are the same (maryam). Christian Palestinian Aramaic uses marya for Mary in the Dormition texts, and presumably Miriam would be different, maryam. This is, of course, highly speculative but perhaps an opening for future research. 123 The complete text only exists in Georgian and Latin, in Michel Van Esbroeck, “Nouveaux Apocryphes de la Dormition Conservés en Géorgien” in Aux Origines De La Dormition De La Vierge: Etudes Historiques Sur Les Traditions Orientales (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995), 363–9. It is from the latter tongue that I have relied upon for my translations, with reference to the Georgian. For the dating see, John F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy, (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 72–3. 60 own merit alone or because they hoped to see Jews convert by enticing them with worshipping through their own liturgical texts.
Though the Feast of the Memory of Mary celebrates her role in the nativity of Jesus, portions of the liturgy concentrate on Mary’s Dormition and Assumption into heaven. Van
Esbroeck and Shoemaker have argued that “this lection has cleverly reworked material from the older celebration of the Memory of Mary, articulating it in the new liturgical context of her
Dormition and Assumption.”124
The text begins by discussing a sign delivered to the priests of Egypt: a boy born unto a virgin and the king Ptolemy enquires how this could happen. The text continues: “This prophet Jeremiah, before the exile and destruction of the temple, took the ark of the law and its contents and hid them in a rock.” (Clearly the author does not mind the anachronisms he is introducing.) “The Lord emerged from Sinai and established the law in Zion, by virtue of the new grace that men bequeathed to their forefathers and established the new grace through the new boy who, without a father, was born unto a virgin.”125 Though the text may seem disorganised in terms of chronology and character development, thematically the details all tend toward a hieratic direction. In the below passage from the lectionary, I will represent the quotations from the Life of Jeremiah with italics as did van Esbroeck before me.
And the prophet [Jeremiah] said: “His coming will be a sign for you and for other
children at the end of the world. And nobody will bring forth this hidden Ark from the
rock, except Aaron, the priest, the brother of Mary. And nobody will unveil the tablets
therein, nor be able to read them, except the lawgiver Moses, the chosen of the Lord.
And at the resurrection of the dead, the Ark will be the first to rise from the rock and
to be placed on Mount Sinai, so that the word of the prophet David will be fulfilled, in
124 Ibid, 127; van Esbroeck, 364–5. 125 Van Esbroeck, 368. 61
which he said: ‘Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the Ark of your holiness,’
which is the Holy Virgin Mary who passes from this world to the presence of God, she
to whom the apostles proclaimed in Zion the praise of Myrrh saying: ‘Today the Virgin
is being guided from Bethlehem to Zion, and today from earth to heaven,’ and all the
saints are gathered together around her and wait for the Lord, putting to flight the
enemy who aims to destroy them.”126
Dye was the first to propose this text as a source for Q 19:28, which calls Mary the “sister of
Aaron.” Like others, he suggests that the Qurʾān adduces a typological connection between
Mary and Miriam.127 The text quotes the Life of Jeremiah at length, interrupting the quotation to include two epithets for Aaron, “the priest, the brother of Miriam.” Something that Dye does not mention, which could help his case, is that in Georgian, the names Mary and Miriam are not the same, but in this lectionary, both the Virgin and the sister of Moses and Aaron receive the same name “Mariam” (!"#$"!). Thus, the author, whoever he may have been, certainly tried to trace a link between the two Marys.
It is the connection with Aaron, the high priest, which proves the impetus for this correlation.128 Mary is a sacred object in close relation with priests, as only sacred hands can approach her. The connection between Mary and Miriam is a passing reference, the decoding of which the author relies upon the reader – or in this case, the hearer – to discern for himself or herself. The epithets allude to the intimacy of a brother towards his sister in a discussion
126 Ibid, 369. Translation from Stephen J. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 126, with my heavy editing. 127 Dye, in his own right, implies that Muslims, after adopting this Christian-authored text, either did not realise the typological link embedded within the text or included it in order to preserve the same typology. He never asks why such a typological manoeuvre might be helpful for the overall theological agenda of the nascent Islamic community. Dye also insinuates that the line “brother of Mary,” is the direct source of the Qurʾānic line, “sister of Aaron.” As the contexts of the two epithets are so vastly different, we may instead assume that this was either reliant on intermediary steps or that the liturgy and the Qurʾān descended from the same tradition or, of course, that it is altogether unconnected. 128 The context continues to explicate a sacerdotal theme: “Jeremiah participates with Moses and Aaron in so far as he was also amongst the first priests.” 62 about the exclusivity of the high priest’s handling the ark of the covenant. The text does not, however, construct a typological correspondence between the two women; there is no theology of history at stake. Nonetheless, the mutually supporting allusions illustrate precedence for the
Qurʾānic tradition.
Rabbinic Perspectives on Miriam
Miriam became a disproportionately important figure in Rabbinic exegesis. Exodus Rabbah identifies the sister of the infant Moses mentioned in Exodus 1 with Miriam. These same rabbis go a step further, actually identifying Miriam with the midwife named Puah in Exodus 1:15, feeling at liberty to take this exegetical leap because “she used to coo” or “because she used to declaim with divine inspiration and say: In the future my mother will give birth to a son who will redeem Israel” (perhaps an artificial etymology).129 She assists her mother because she has recognised the potential of the child to become a saviour of Israel.
There is, however, a backstory to Moses’ birth. After hearing Pharaoh’s new decree to kill the new-born Israelite sons, Amram, the father of Aaron and Miriam, divorces his wife
Jochebed.
“And a man went from the house of Levi” [Exodus 2:1]. Where did he go? Rabbi
Yehudah son of Zevinah said: “He followed the advice of his daughter. A tannaitic
source states: Amram was the greatest man of his generation. When evil Pharaoh
decreed: “Every son that is born shall be thrown into the river” [Exodus 1:22], he said:
We are toiling in vain. He got up and divorced his wife. They all got up and divorced
their wives. His daughter said to him: “Father, your decree is harsher than Pharaoh’s
for Pharaoh decreed only concerning the males, and you have decreed concerning the
males and the females; Pharaoh decreed only in this world, and you, in this world and
129 BS 12b. See also, SN, 78; ER 7:3; MS 23:5; MLTN 1:15. 63
for the world to come; evil Pharaoh perhaps his decree shall be fulfilled, perhaps it shall
not be fulfilled, but you are righteous certainly your decree shall be fulfilled ... He got
up and brought back his wife. They all got up and brought back their wives.130
With Miriam as the instigator of the story, the first two chapters of Exodus become more symmetrical; Miriam saves Moses from not being conceived before saving him from infanticide. It is her concern for the future of Israel that motivates her actions.
Coming to Exodus 15:20, the rabbis ask why Miriam is called the “sister of Aaron”
(HB: āḥôt āharon / Arm.: ḥoto āḥeron)? This line is repeated often and by many and probably came to the Qurʾān from one of these Jewish channels rather than a Christian one, which, with the exception of the reading on Epiphany and the Georgian lectionary for 13 August, show little interest in the subject. The most common solution to the predicament is representable by
Megillah 14a, which reads:
And not the sister of Moses? Rav Nahman said in the name of Rav: Because she
prophesied as the sister of Aaron saying, “In the future my mother will give birth to a
son who will save Israel.” And in the hour in which [Moses] was born, the entire house
was filled with light. Her father stood up and kissed her on her head. He said to her,
“My daughter, your prophecy has been fulfilled.” And when they threw him into the
river, her father stood up and slapped her upon her head and he said to her, “My
daughter, where is your prophecy?” Thus, it is written “His sister stationed herself at a
distance to know ...” [Exodus 2:4] To know what would happen with the end of her
prophecy.131
130 BS 12b. See also, MS 10; MdR, 6; PR 44:4. 131 See also, VB 2; S 10; MdR; BM 14a; MP 14:1; MLTN 15:20; BS 12b–13a. 64
The rabbis brilliantly link this passage back to Exodus 1, in which the Rabbinical Miriam prophesied a child who would be a leader of Israel. Now in Exodus 15, Moses has successfully led Israel out of Egypt. The Rabbinic exegesis demonstrates that Miriam has foreseen Moses’ future and has participated in making the future events realised.
The rabbis adduce a consistent picture of Miriam even through Numbers 12. Whereas
Christian exegetes condemn Miriam for her gossip and complaint of her brother in this passage, the midrash interprets Miriam’s gossip as a near-virtuous act.
When the elders were appointed, all of Israel lit candles and rejoiced because the
seventy elders had risen to office. And when Miriam saw the candles she said: “Happy
are these and happy are their wives!” Zipporah said to her: “Do not say, ‘Happy are
their wives,’ but rather ‘Woe to their wives,’ for from the day that God spoke with your
brother Moses, he has not had relations with me.” Immediately Miriam went out to
Aaron and they deliberated the matter, as it says, “And Miriam and Aaron spoke about
Moses concerning the woman” [Numbers 12:1] about his separation from the
woman.132
Once again Miriam is attempting to reunite husband and wife. This story is couched within a larger section about Moses’ failure to have sons and the need for the next leader. While
Miriam’s gossip is punished by God with leprosy, her actions derive from the same concern that compelled her to stand watch over her infant brother in the Nile and that drove her to chide her father into remarrying her mother Jochebed and begetting a son. She acted, albeit inappropriately, for the sake of familial preservation and continuity of leadership. By synthesising all of the stories about Miriam, the midrash relieves her of the negative portrayal found in Numbers 12 and the Christian exegetical tradition. Unlike the Biblical Miriam, the
132 SZ 12:1. See also, SN 99; MT 24:9; TT 13; M 2; TBM 6; ADN 9. 65
Miriam of midrashic literature “claims no share of leadership for herself but strives to ensure that there is a male heir to carry on leadership of the developing nation of Israel.”133 It is only appropriate then for the rabbis to reward her with a powerful lineage: “it is written: ‘David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah’ [1 Samuel 17:12]. Therefore, he was a descendant of Miriam,” (B Sotah 11:22). From Miriam comes the ruler of her religious community.
Devora Steinmetz has aptly summarised the midrashic vision of Miriam, stating the
“continuity of the people and of leadership is, for the authors of these midrashim, always the uppermost concern in the mind of Miriam.”134 It is clearly true that Miriam acts rebelliously, but, Steinmetz continues, “her rebellion is only against tyrannical or irresponsible authority.”135
The Mary of the Qurʾān is also the source for the next leader of God’s chosen people. The
Qurʾānic Jesus even insists that he is not “a wretched tyrant,” (ǧabbāran šaqiyya; Q 19:32).
Like the midrashic Miriam, Q 3 is indeed focussed upon the leadership of the religious community.
We have seen that the Christian exegetical and polemical traditions on Miriam do not sufficiently explain the theology of Mary’s leadership espoused by the Qurʾān. The extensive
Rabbinic reflection on Miriam provides the likely subtext for the Qurʾānic epithets “sister of
Aaron” and “daughter of Amram” whilst also emphasising themes shared by Q 3. The evidence suggests that there was a plenitude of information about the well-celebrated Christian Mary and Rabbinic Miriam available to the author of the Qurʾān for him to exercise his own genius in strategically conflating these two characters.
133 Devora Steinmetz, “A Portrait of Miriam in Rabbinic Midrash”, Prooftexts 8.1 (1988): 35–65, 58. 134 Ibid, 43–44. 135 Ibid. 66
NARRATIVE CONFLATION
The reference to Miriam in the Qurʾān, like those in the Georgian lectionary and the PEJ, does not aptly fulfil the definition of typology as they do not identify and clarify any type-antitype correspondence. But unlike the Georgian lectionary and PEJ, the Qurʾān does not allude to
Miriam: it rather conflates Mary with Miriam – and this seems to be no accident. Here I would like to propose “narrative conflation” as a viable literary device.
Narrative conflation can be defined as a rhetorical synthesis of events, peoples, or ideas for a strategic or profound purpose. In 1991 Sebastian Brock brought an example of conflation to the attention of scholars of Late Antiquity. He noticed that the Syriac tradition often discussed Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion as a singular event that, according to the Syriac sequencing, took place in the same instant. Brock answers this dilemma by arguing that liturgical time does not operate as does chronological time. Liturgical time, insofar as it seeks to reach the divine truth, feels no qualms in being anachronistic. In a very real sense it seeks to transcend time. Other such examples of this phenomenon exist in the Christian concept of the
Eucharist, which represents the same sacrificial act of Jesus upon Calvary at each Divine
Liturgy. Mishnah Pesachim 10.5 records another such occurrence as Rabbi Gamiel says: “In every generation a person must regard himself as though he personally had gone out of Egypt, as it is said: ‘And you shall tell your son in that day, saying: ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.’’” In this liturgical setting, the Jewish father was supposed to claim his own personal exit out of Egypt. This is not merely a theatrical performance in the midst of the liturgy (though a liturgy is indeed dramatic). Rather, liturgical reality supplants itself in a historical line. Probably these liturgical examples reveal an inclination of the author that the meaning behind the narrative is so true spiritually that it must manifest itself actually. If Neuwirth’s argument is correct that the Qurʾān was originally a liturgical text, then we have even more reason to understand the impetus toward this 67 conflation.136 But even outside of a liturgical context, a narrative could operate with a similar purpose.137
If narrative conflation is the operative literary device, then the Qurʾān has conflated the historical and liturgical narrative of the Jews into the Christian extension, preserving the
Rabbinic Miriam’s concern for the preservation of Abraham’s religious lineage through the birth of the next leader. The Annunciation of Mary, in light of the Rabbinic tradition on Miriam, becomes an important preface for the Annunciation of Jesus. By conflating the two Marys at the beginning of the pericope, the Qurʾān ushers to the minds of the (presumably) Jewish audience the person of Miriam who is intent to ensure that the Israelites have a leader. Even beyond this connection, as the Jewish priests of Late Antiquity had lost their sacrificial function, Mary in Q 3, a woman unable to operate as a priest, is found in the temple once again, exemplifying for Zachariah the priest the right adoration of God.138
Though this passage awaits further research, I have dispelled the notion that the passage is a typological connection between Mary and Miriam. By observing the Syriac debates over
Mary’s genealogy, I have uncovered an evangelistic impetus in their texts, which is possibly shared by the Qurʾānic author. There is another literary device at play: narrative conflation.
The Qurʾān synthesises the Jewish and Christian traditions. Q 3 appeals to both peoples and thereby extends the traditions into a third, now Islamic, narrative. The beautiful conflation of
136 Cf, Angelika Neuwirth, Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 141–274. 137 Narrative conflation is an extremely common feature in classical and late antique art, as noted by Maria Ladova “God’s in Combination” in Imagining the divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions, ed. Jaś Elsner, et al. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2017), 46–48 and Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell, Pictorial Narrative in Ancient Greek Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 87–91. 138 As previously discussed, there are undoubtedly temple allusions in Q 3. Conceived the daughter of Amram, the father of the priesthood, Mary is committed to the service of the Lord by her mother, (naḏartu laka mā fī baṭnī muḥarraran, v. 35). She is eventually given to the care of the priest Zachariah (v. 37) who often finds her in the prayer chamber (miḥrāb). See, Reynolds, Biblical Subtext, 129–145 for a full discussion. 68 these two heroes embodies one of the overall projects of the Qurʾān: bridging Jew and Christian by bringing them into a third tradition.
Conclusion A Similar Beginning as Genesis? Textual Appropriation in the Qurʾān
In the present work, we have identified that the Qurʾānic Annunciation Narratives share traditions with the late antique Syriac-Aramaic Biblical-exegetical milieu. Scholars have well documented the Qurʾān’s intimate familiarity with other late antique traditions – both Jewish139 and Christian.140 Many have helped to dispel the notions that the Qurʾān has confused the
Jewish and Christian stories – as well as the doctrines. The next logical step along the scholarly path has been to argue that where the Qurʾān has altered the details from its subtext, it has done so purposefully.141 My thesis has sought to contribute to this nascent project.
In the first chapter, I proposed a particular Syriac source for Q 19’s rendition of the
Annunciation Narrative, a sixth-century soghītha on the Annunciation of John. By adopting particular lines from this Syriac poem espousing the interaction between Zachariah and Gabriel and applying them to Mary’s conversation with the angel, the Qurʾānic rendition emphasises
God’s power rather than his intimacy. All of the nuptial language is excised from the Qurʾān for a more transcendent view of God. Through interlinguistic wordplays, the Qurʾān demonstrates an impressive familiarity with the Syriac exegetical tradition, and, as a result, this theological adjustment would appear to have been conscientiously undertaken.
139 A. Geiger, Judaism and Islam; W. St. Clair Tisdall, The Original Sources of the Qur’ān (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1905); C. C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam (New York: Bloch, 1933); A. I. Katsh, Judaism in Islām, Biblical and Talmudic Backgrounds of the Koran and its Commentaries: Suras II and III (New York: New York University Press, 1954); Witztum, “Syriac Milieu”. 140 R. Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment (London: Macmillan, 1926); A. Mingana, “Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur’ān”, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 11 (1927): 77–98; Günter Lüling, A Challenge to Islam for Reformation: The Rediscovery and Reliable Reconstruction of a Comprehensive Pre- Islamic Christian Hymnal Hidden in the Koran under Earliest Islamic Reinterpretations (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003); Reynolds, Biblical Subtext. 141 For example, see Sinai, The Qur’an, 143–48; Witztum, Syriac Milieau, 178–185; Holger Zellentin, The Qurʾān’s Reformation of Judaism and Christianity (New York: Routledge, forthcoming). 70
Similarly, Q 3 not only fails to give room for Mary to consent to the divine approach, but the famous Biblical fiat, “let it be,” becomes an imperative “be!” from the divine voice. I explored this surah in Chapter 2. Furthermore, Q 3 conflates the Miriam of the Torah with the
Mary of the Gospel. Though the academy has in the past considered this conflation to be a factual error, recent scholars have proposed alternative theories, but they are unsatisfactory given a wider contextualisation of the Qurʾān in the Christian and Jewish milieu. I have demonstrated a Near Eastern phenomenon that I have labelled “narrative conflation” in which a text rhetorically synthesises events, peoples, or ideas for a strategic or profound purpose. The
Qurʾān incorporated an authoritative Jewish narrative about Miriam into an authoritative
Christian narrative about Mary – and by doing so developed a distinctive story so as to buttress the nascent Islamic movement. Thus, I have argued that the Qurʾān goes beyond a mere assimilation of traditions – it enculturates influential narratives for its own purposes.
The Qurʾān strategically retells the Judaeo-Christian stories and the celebrated figures within, for the tales evoke something of the late antique history and heritage. Yet, as it does so, the Qurʾān undermines the theology that is implicit in the predecessor versions of these narratives. The first audience was thus able to identify with the stories and to claim them as their own whilst being led toward a different conception of the divine. The aim of the Qurʾān’s technique of appropriation was an active and intelligent participation by the local community in the new religious rite – or, in other words, conversion to a new tradition. The Qurʾān has adopted a known story, infused with theological details and then changed said details in order to apply a new theological backbone to the tale. If this is indeed the Qurʾān’s technique, then the exegete must not only look for the surplus meaning of the shared stories but perhaps also, the purposive and subtle changes in meaning. We must examine Qurʾānic intertextuality to produce a proper exposition of the text and its cultural effect. 71
This would not be the first field tasked with this exegetical methodology. The most famous example of appropriation is the creation narrative in Genesis adapting Near Eastern cosmogonies to emphasise the one God’s overarching sovereignty.142 Other notable examples include the kadoš kadoš kadoš in the Jewish liturgy, a superlative acclamation of God’s sanctity, becoming sanctus sanctus sanctus in the middle of the Christian Mass as an affirmation of the Trinity.143 This Jewish and Christian interaction, so argues Münz-Manor, continued throughout the sixth-century as he has tracked the formal, stylistic, even thematic similarities of poetry, which he attributes to direct borrowing and altering between both groups.
Hasan-Rokem has suggested that Jewish communities of the late antique Near East incorporated the folk narratives of their neighbours into their own liturgical tales.144 We find this phenomenon with Marian devotions as well. Shoemaker, amongst others, has demonstrated that in the third and fourth centuries “the Virgin ha[d] already begun to fill a role as protectress of the earth and the harvest that she inherited from the various Mediterranean goddesses.”145
We caught another glimpse of liturgical inculturation in Chapter 2 as the Jerusalem Georgian
Lectionary was retelling the Jewish text Life of Jeremiah and infusing it with stories about and allusions to the Virgin Mary. This is also a method that the Islamic community used after the
Qurʾān as ʿAbd al-Malik’s architects clearly adapted the layout of the Kathisma Church – the octagonal sides, domed roof, and space for circumambulation around a sacred rock in the centre
– for that of the Dome of the Rock six kilometres away.146 The list could continue for quite
142 Cf, W.G. Lambert, “Creation in the Bible and the Ancient Near East” in Creation and Chaos: A Reconsideration of Hermann Gunkel’s Chaoskampf Hypothesis, ed. J.A. Scurlock and R. Beal (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 44–47; David J.A. Clines, “The Significance of the ‘Sons of God’ Episode (Genesis 6:1-4) in the Context of the ‘Primeval History’ (Genesis 1-11)” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 13 (1979): 33–46. 143 Entrico Mazza, The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and Development of its Interpretation (Liturgical Press, 1999), 285. 144 Galit Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity (Berkley: University of California Press, 2003), 145 Stephen J. Shoemaker, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 142. 146 Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 104–5. 72 some time. When one tradition adopts a feature from another, it is either an exercise in acculturation or inculturation.147 Many Biblical stories retold in the Qurʾān await an analysis of their theological reorientation. In this thesis I have only considered one.
From the vantage point of these considerations we can conclude that the Qurʾān actively shifts the archetype with which the hearer enters the sacred narrative in order to provide a novel theological foundation to the story. As a form of revelation, the Qurʾān is itself a deus ex machina, a divine provision for a new paradigm, used to look back in sacred history and to look forward toward the eschaton. The text is a novel, independent revelation ready to guide the obedient to a new vision of God.
147 A.D. Nock, “Ruler-Worship and Syncretism” in Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, ed. Zeph Stewart (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 551 – 558, notes that the Romans incorporating Greek gods into their public rituals “was largely a matter of propaganda” (558).
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