Maryam · Makki · ayah 21 of 98

Maryam 19:21

قَالَ كَذَٰلِكِ قَالَ رَبُّكِ هُوَ عَلَىَّ هَيِّنٌ ۖ وَلِنَجْعَلَهُۥٓ ءَايَةً لِّلنَّاسِ وَرَحْمَةً مِّنَّا ۚ وَكَانَ أَمْرًا مَّقْضِيًّا

“He said, "Thus [it will be]; your Lord says, 'It is easy for Me, and We will make him a sign to the people and a mercy from Us. And it is a matter [already] decreed.'"”

Saheeh International

Essence

Maryam receives Zakariya's answer almost word for word, with a different ending: her child will be a sign for people and a mercy, already decreed.

A reflection

Four ways to make a human

Most of us carry a quiet assumption so obvious that we never examine it. Human beings come from a father and a mother. That is how it works. Anything else is not merely rare; it is unthinkable.

One classical commentator, explaining why ʿĪsā is called a sign for people, lays out a pattern that undoes that assumption completely. Allah made Ādam from neither male nor female. He made Ḥawwāʾ from a male without a female. He makes the rest of humanity from male and female together. And He made ʿĪsā from a female without a male. With that, the commentator says, the fourfold division was complete. It shows the perfection of His power and the greatness of His sovereignty. There is no god but Him, and no lord besides Him.

That pattern deflates a particular kind of pride. Not the vanity of the boastful. The intellectual pride of someone who has decided how the world must work. He then treats his decision as a law that binds the Maker of the world.

Every human being alive today belongs to one quarter of those four ways. Our ordinary is real, and it is a gift, but it is one option among the options He has used. It is not a boundary He must stay inside.

The ayah puts it in a phrase: it is easy for Me. And then it gives the reason for this particular exception. So that We make him a sign for people. The exception is not for Allah's benefit. He needs no proof of His own power. It is for ours, so that people who assume the ordinary is the only possible way might be humbled into seeing more.

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.