Surah Maryam, Mary

Surah 19 · 98 verses · revealed at Mecca

Maryam is named after the mother of Jesus, who is the only woman named outright anywhere in the Qur'an. Every other woman in the book is identified by her relationship to someone — the wife of Pharaoh, the queen who came to Solomon — but Maryam is named, and a surah is named after her.

It opens with five letters standing alone, Kaf Ha Ya 'Ayn Sad, and then with Zakariya, an old man praying quietly for a son, and being given one. The surah moves from him to Maryam: her withdrawal from her people, the announcement, the birth alone under a palm tree, and her return carrying an infant to a community certain of what it was looking at. She is told not to speak, and the child speaks instead.

From there the surah moves through Ibrahim's gentle and unsuccessful argument with his father, and then quickly through a series of prophets before turning to those who came after them and let the prayer go.

There is an account in the traditional biographies that when the first Muslims fled to Abyssinia and were pursued by a delegation from Mecca asking for their return, their spokesman recited the opening of this surah to the Christian king, and the king wept and refused to hand them over. The account comes from the biographical literature rather than the hadith collections, but it has shaped how the surah has been read ever since, and it is easy to see why this surah was the one chosen.

The Arabic is heavily rhymed and unusually musical even by the standards of the Meccan revelations. Much of it ends on the same long syllable, verse after verse, which is one reason it is a favourite of reciters.

Surah Maryam on this site

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Surah Maryam, Mary

Surah Maryam on this site

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