Maryam · Makki · ayah 22 of 98

Maryam 19:22

۞ فَحَمَلَتْهُ فَٱنتَبَذَتْ بِهِۦ مَكَانًا قَصِيًّا

“So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place.”

Saheeh International

Essence

In five words the surah passes over months: she conceived him, and carried him to a far place where no one would see her.

A reflection

A miraculous conception, an ordinary pregnancy

Many readers picture Maryam's pregnancy as a kind of suspended miracle. The angel speaks, and moments later there is a child. The ayah's speed seems to support that: she conceived him, then withdrew, then labour came.

One report does say that. A Companion is quoted as saying she conceived and gave birth at once. One classical commentator calls the report strange, and explains why the wording does not require it. The connecting word so marks sequence, he says, but each sequence moves at its own pace. The Qur'an uses the same word when it describes the stages of a child forming in the womb. And Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim both preserve the hadith that each of those stages takes forty days.

The better-known view, he concludes, is that she carried him as women carry their children. Another commentator records a report from the same Companion that she carried him nine months, like other women. He gives an elegant reason. This passage lists her honours. If her pregnancy had been unlike other women's, that would have been worth mentioning too.

One early historian adds the ordinary details: the tiredness, the discomfort, the change in her colour that every pregnant woman knows.

So the miracle was in the conception. The months that followed were human. She lived an ordinary pregnancy, week after week, under an extraordinary secret that she could not explain to anyone.

That is harder, in a way, than an instant miracle. Wonder is quick. Waiting is slow. Maryam had to carry her honour and her secret, both growing, every day.

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.