Maryam · Makki · ayah 18 of 98

Maryam 19:18

قَالَتْ إِنِّىٓ أَعُوذُ بِٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ مِنكَ إِن كُنتَ تَقِيًّا

“She said, "Indeed, I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, [so leave me], if you should be fearing of Allāh."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Alone with a stranger, Maryam's first words reach for the Most Merciful and appeal to the stranger's own conscience: if you fear Allah, keep away.

A reflection

Not a pious formula: the right sentence at the worst moment

It is easy to read Maryam's first words as a devotional phrase, the kind of thing a pious person says. The commentaries read them as something sharper: the right sentence, chosen in a moment of real fear.

She is alone, behind a screen, and a man she does not know is suddenly there. The commentaries say plainly what she feared. She thought he meant to force himself on her.

What she says has three parts, and each one is doing work.

I seek refuge. Her first move is not to argue or run. It is to run to Someone stronger. The root's image, in the lexicons, is a newborn pressed into its mother's side: holding on while the danger passes.

With the Most Merciful. One commentary asks why she chose this name of Allah. Its answer: to remind the one she saw of mercy. Then he might have mercy on her weakness and her inability to drive him off. And to call down the particular mercy that protects.

If you are mindful of Allah. Another commentator calls this the height of good sense. Seeking refuge with Allah only restrains someone who fears Him. So she speaks directly to whatever conscience the stranger has.

One commentary adds that this follows the right order of self-defence: the gentlest effective means first. Before anything else, she reminded him of Allah.

So this is not a frightened girl murmuring a formula. It is a young woman, at the worst moment of her life so far, saying the one sentence most likely to protect her. It names her Protector, appeals to the intruder's best self, and holds her ground.

When fear comes, most of us lose our words. Maryam found exactly the right ones.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.