Imran's Fatherhood - By Masud Masihiyyen

8/6/2019 Imran's Fatherhood - By Masud Masihiyyen

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Imrans Fatherhood: Part I

Mary as ³the daughter of Imran´ in Surah 3:35 and 66:12

Masud Masihiyyen

In the Islamic scripture Jesus¶ mother Mary (³Mariam´ in Arabic) is identified as Aaron¶ssister once (Surah 19:28) and Imran¶s daughter twice (Surah 66:12 and Surah 3:35). When

combined, these teachings astonishingly designate Jesus¶ mother Mary in exactly the sameway as the Old Testament prophetess Mary (Miriam in Hebrew), who is said to be Aaron¶s

sister in one verse (Exodus 15:20) and Amram¶s daughter in a few verses (Numbers 26:59, 1Chronicles 6:3). Unsurprisingly, Muslim scholars do their best to separate these two Mariams

in order to stave off the polemics targeting the historical accuracy of the Qur'an.

In the process of isolating the Mary of the Old Testament from Jesus¶ mother Mary, Muslim

scholars mostly tend to interpret the word ³sister´ in the phrase ³sister of Aaron´ in Surah

19:28 metaphorically and talk of it in terms of racial or spiritual affiliation.1 However, both of

these arguments fail to answer the simple question why the sense of the word ³sister´ must be

taken metaphorically instead of literally. The particular context of the verses below does not

make the literal sense of the word ³sister´ implausible or impossible:

Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast comewith an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy

mother a harlot. (Surah 19:27-28 Pickthall)

Evidently, in Surah 19:28 Mary is designated as Aaron¶s sister right before the reference to

her BIOLOGICAL parents. This demonstrates that Mary¶s folk made a connection between

her relation to Aaron and her relation to her parents. Metaphorical parents? No! Biological

parents! The same goes for her sisterhood. Ignoring the context of this verse, Muslim scholars

struggle to construe Mary¶s sisterhood symbolically and invent absurd theories that either go

against logic through Mary¶s designation as the sister of her forefather (!) or disregard the

fact that of all the female figures of the Qur'an specifically and only Mary is identified as

Aaron¶s sister. Thus, it remains a mystery why particularly Mary is associated particularly

with Aaron if the word ³sister´ expresses a spiritual or any kind of metaphorical resemblance

between two people. At this point, a final attempt is made to affiliate Mary crucially with

Aaron on the basis of Mary¶s dedication to the service of the Temple, but this affiliation isnot supported by the Qur'an, which by no means talks of the Levites nor draws a link between

Aaron and the Jewish Temple.

Although Islamic scholars and commentators insist on interpreting the word ³sister´ as being

metaphorical in Surah 19:28 with no good reason other than saving the Qur'an from the

critique of a major historical blunder, they in general agree that it is impossible to construe

Mary¶s identification as the daughter of Imran in Surah 66:12 metaphorically, for the

narrative of Mary¶s nativity and infancy in Surah 3:35 presents Mary¶s mother as Imran¶s



Remember when a women of Imran said, µMy Lord, I have vowed to Thee what is in mywomb to be dedicated to Thy service. So do Thou accept it of me; Verily Thou alone art All-

Hearing, All-Knowing.¶ (Sher Ali)

The question that should be posed at this point of the discussion is whether this alternative

translation is linguistically possible, having been allowed by the rules of Arabic language.

The answer to this question is NO although the Arabic word ³imraat´ generically means³woman´ and has to be translated as ³a woman´ in some cases, depending on grammatical

construction in which the word is found. The reference to the queen of Sheba in the 27th

Surah of the Qur'an (verse 23) exemplifies the use of the word ³imraat´ with the sense of ³a

woman´. In all the Qur'an translations below the Arabic word ³imraat´ in the original text is

unanimously translated as ³a woman´ into English:

Lo! I found a woman ruling over them, and she hath been given (abundance) of all things,

and hers is a mighty throne. (Pickthall)

"I found (there) a woman ruling over them and provided with every requisite; and she has a

magnificent throne. (Yusuf Ali)

"I found a woman ruling over them, and she has been given all things that could be possessed

by any ruler of the earth, and she has a great throne. (Hilali-Khan)

Surely I found a woman ruling over them, and she has been given abundance and she has a

mighty throne. (Shakir)

`I found a woman ruling over them, and she has been given every necessary thing and she

has a mighty throne. (Sher Ali)

"I found a woman ruling them, who is blessed with everything, and possesses a tremendous

palace. (Khalifa)

I found a woman ruling over them, and she has been given of everything, and she possesses a

mighty throne. (Arberry)

Verily, I found a woman ruling over them, and she was given all things, and she had a

mighty throne. (Palmer)

I found a woman reigning over them, gifted with everything, and she hath a splendid throne.(Rodwell)

I found a woman to reign over them, who is provided with every thing [requisite for a

prince], and hath a magnificent throne. (Sale)

Innee wajadtu imraatan tamlikuhum waootiyat min kulli shay-in walaha AAarshun

AAatheemun (Arabic transliteration)

Now that we know ³imraat´ in Arabic sometimes means ³a woman´, our next question must

be which Arabic word corresponds to the word ³wife´ in English. While searching the

Qur'an, we see that in many places where a man¶s wife is in view, the word ³zawja´ is used.For instance, the accounts of genesis in the Qur'an define Eve as Adam¶s ³zawja´, which is



the same word that recurs in the Islamic scripture whenever a reference is made toMuhammad¶s wives. To compare:

We said: "O Adam! dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden.... (Surah 2:35 Yusuf Ali)Waqulna

ya adamu oskun anta wazawjuka aljannata...

Then We said: "O Adam! Verily, this is an enemy to thee and thy wife... (Surah 20:117 Yusuf Ali) Faqulna ya adamu inna hatha AAaduwwun laka walizawjika...

Behold! thou didst say to one who had received the grace of God and thy favour: "Retainthou (In wedlock) thy wife, and fear God." (Surah 33:37 Yusuf Ali) Wa-ith taqoolu lillathee

anAAama Allahu AAalayhi waanAAamta AAalayhi amsik AAalayka zawjaka waittaqiAllaha...

O Prophet! why do you forbid (yourself) that which Allah has made lawful for you; you seek

to please your wives; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Surah 66:1 Shakir) Ya ayyuhaalnnabiyyu lima tuharrimu ma ahalla Allahu laka tabtaghee mardata azwajika...

Still, our further search reveals that the Qur'an does not only use the word ³zawja´ to mean

³wife´.2

Quite surprisingly, while referring to many unnamed female figures in relation to

their husbands, the Qur'an always uses the word IMRAAT instead of zawja:

The Egyptian ruler¶s (el-Aziz) wife: imraatu alAAazeezi (Surah 12:30 and 12:51)Pharaoh¶s wife: imraatu firAAawna (Surah 28:9 and 66:11)

Noah¶s wife: imraata noohin (Surah 66:10)Lot¶s wife: imraata lootin (Surah 66:10)

The most interesting thing is that the scholars who oddly translate the phrase "imraatu

AAimrana" in Surah 3:35 as ³a woman of Imran´ do not follow the same course while

translating the five verses listed above. Instead of saying ³a woman of El-Aziz´, ³a woman of Pharaoh´, ³a woman of Noah´, they confess and concede that the word "imraat" corresponds

to the English word "wife" when used in possessive form before a proper male noun:

Surah 12:30 and 12:51 imraatu alAAazeezi :

The wife of the (great) 'Aziz and the 'Aziz's wife (Yusuf Ali)The chief's wife (Shakir)

The wife of Aziz (Sher Ali)

Surah 28:9 and 66:11: imraatu firAAawna

The wife of Pharaoh (Yusuf Ali)Firon¶s wife and the wife of Firon (Shakir)

Pharaoh¶s wife and the wife of Pharaoh (Sher Ali)

Surah 66:10 imraata noohin

the wife of Noah (Yusuf Ali)

the wife of Nuh (Shakir)the wife of Noah (Sher Ali)



Surah 66:10: imraata lootin

the wife of Lut (Yusuf Ali)the wife of Lut (Shakir)

the wife of Lot (Sher Ali)

Although exactly the same structure is used in Surah 3:35 (imraatu AAimrana), we wonder why some translators (Yusuf Ali, Shakir, and Sher Ali) show aversion to the use of the

English word "wife" when Mary¶s biological mother is in view. Our analysis shows that the

translations of these particular scholars lack consistency and cause doubts since their weird

insistence on replacing the word "wife" with "a woman" only in Surah 3:35 points at their

will to tamper with the Qur'an for the sake of avoiding a theological problem.

These translators do not also know that trying to obscure or conceal the true meaning of aQur'an verse through inaccurate and misleading translation will be to no avail because even

the alleged occurrence of the phrase ³a woman of´ in Surah 3:35 would not suffice to indicateMary¶s mother¶s being a descendant of Imran. If the word "imraat" in that particular verse

meant "a woman", it would be followed by the Arabic preposition "min", which signifies

being part of a group/family/nation/race. More, the proper noun (Imran) would be followed by a word indicating race or nation. For example, the Qur'an talks of an unnamed man who

was a believer despite his being an Egyptian. To express the man¶s being a member of

Pharaoh¶s nation/people, the verse below locates the structure MIN ALI before the word

Pharaoh:

A Believer, a man from among the people of Pharaoh, who had concealed his faith, said....

(Surah 40:28 Yusuf Ali) Waqala rajulun mu/minun min ali firAAawna yaktumu

eemanahu....

If the Qur¶an had actually pertained to Mary¶s mother as a woman descending from Imran¶s

family, it would have used the same structure above and identified Mary¶s mother as a

woman (imraat) MIN ALI IMRAANA. However, the current form of the sentence in Surah

3:35 lacks both the preposition denoting source (MIN in Arabic) and the word³family/lineage´ (ALI in Arabic).3 This is rather natural because the Qur¶an talks of Mary¶s

mother as Imran¶s woman, in the sense that she was Imran¶s wife.

It should also be noted that Surah 3 first refers to Imran¶s progeny (v. 33) and then relates

Mary¶s birth from Imran¶s wife (v. 35), but this specific order does not suffice to validate the

odd translation through which Imran¶s wife is turned into a woman of his lineage. Imran¶s

identification as the father of a lineage/family in verse 33 does not mean that the woman who

gave birth to Mary was a descendant of the same lineage. Although unusual, it is not

unreasonable to talk of a man¶s progeny in the first place and then explain how that progeny

came into existence. Above all, the Quranic reference to Imran¶s lineage in the same contextas Mary¶s birth in Surah 3 is the outcome of Muhammad¶s faulty plagiarism from apocryphalChristian literature, which will be discussed in our second article on Imran¶s fatherhood with

regard to his presentation as an ancestor like and along with Abraham.

Finally, the second instance in the Qur¶an where Mary is identified as Imran¶s daughter is inSurah 66:12:



And Mary the daughter of 'Imran, who guarded her chastity; and We breathed into (her body) of Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and of His

Revelations, and was one of the devout (servants). (Yusuf Ali)

The theme and context of this chapter function as a key to the accurate interpretation of

Imran¶s fatherhood in the final verse. This is also related to the question how one can know

with certainty that Muhammad regarded Imran as Mary¶s biological father rather than anancestor even if the verse referring to Mary¶s mother as Imran¶s wife in Surah 3 were missing

from the Qur'an. Strikingly, an objective and careful reader of Surah 66 would conclude that

Mary had been born of Imran¶s wife even if the Qur'an did not talk of Mary¶s mother in

another instance. This conclusion is derived from the answer given to the question why Mary

was identified as Imran¶s daughter in Surah 66.

Although Muhammad did not talk about genealogies and ancestors in this short chapter, he

felt the necessity to refer to Mary in association with Imran. Before examining the theme and

context of Surah 66, we must remember that Muhammad did not refer to Imran in Surah 21

although he used a rather similar structure to the one in Surah 66:

And (remember) her who guarded her chastity: We breathed into her of Our Spirit, andWe made her and her son a Sign for all peoples. (Surah 21:91 Yusuf Ali)

And Mary the daughter of 'Imran, who guarded her chastity; and We breathed into (her

body) of Our spirit « (Surah 66:12 Yusuf Ali)

If we compare these two verses, we can first see that in both instances Mary is mentioned

along with a male: her son in Surah 21 and her father in Surah 66. It was rather natural for

Muhammad to talk of Mary¶s chastity and her son¶s miraculous conception in the same

context as two related incidents since he endorsed the doctrine of Jesus¶ birth from a virgin

mother although he removed its Christian theological content. While devising Surah 66 at a

later period, Muhammad replaced Jesus with Imran though. The reason for this replacement

is understandable if we check the type of relation between the male and female figures

occurring in chapter 66. The introductory verse gives the first signal that this Surah willcontain divine commandments and judgments that will solve a big problem Muhammad had

with some of his wives.

O Prophet! Why bannest thou that which Allah hath made lawful for thee, seeking to please

thy wives? And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Surah 66:1 Pickthall)

Thus, the central male character of Surah 66 is Muhammad whilst the central female

characters are two of his wives, who incurred his wrath and hostility.

When the Prophet confided a fact unto one of his wives and when she afterward divulged itand Allah apprised him thereof, he made known (to her) part thereof and passed over part.

And when he told it her she said: Who hath told thee? He said: The Knower, the Aware hath

told me. (Surah 66:3 Pickthall)

Muhammad¶s fury is instantly ascribed to Allah, who starts a heavy bombardment on those

two women by threatening to turn them into divorcees. Allah supposedly says that those two

women are dependent on Muhammad whereas Muhammad is not dependent on them since

Allah¶s omnipotence would provide new and better maids or widows for him:



If ye twain turn unto Allah repentant, (ye have cause to do so) for your hearts desired (the ban); and if ye aid one another against him (Muhammad) then lo! Allah, even He, is his

Protecting Friend, and Gabriel and the righteous among the believers; and furthermore theangels are his helpers. It may happen that his Lord, if he divorce you, will give him in your

stead wives better than you, submissive (to Allah), believing, pious, penitent, devout,

inclined to fasting, widows and maids. (Surah 66:4-5 Pickthall)

We later discover in the same Surah that Muhammad needed some historical examples to

prove his case and intimidate his wives. In verse 10 he refers to two prophets and presents

their wives as examples for the tragic end of disbelievers:

God sets forth, for an example to the Unbelievers, the wife of Noah and the wife of Lut :

they were (respectively) under two of our righteous servants, but they were false to their

(husbands), and they profited nothing before God on their account, but were told: "Enter ye

the Fire along with (others) that enter!" (Surah 66:10 Yusuf Ali)

The thematic link between this verse and Muhammad¶s problem with some of his wives

introduced in verse 1-5 is obvious and illustrates Muhammad¶s wish to draw parallelism

between two of his wives and the disobedient wives of the two former prophets. No matter what kind of theological implications this parallelism alludes to, it identifies the unnamed

female characters in verse 10 as ³wives´, affiliating them with male figures (Noah and Lot)

on the basis of a marital union.

Two more men (Pharaoh and Imran) and two more women (Pharaoh¶s wife and Mary) are

referred to in the two final verses of Surah 66. Pharaoh¶s wife is introduced as the first

example of obedient and believing (married) women:

And God sets forth, as an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she

said: "O my Lord! Build for me, in nearness to Thee, a mansion in the Garden, and save me

from Pharaoh and his doings, and save me from those that do wrong" (Surah 66:11 Yusuf

Ali)

Like Pharaoh¶s wife, Mary displays a sharp contrast with Noah and Lot¶s wife in terms of

faith and obedience. The interesting point is that of all the female characters referred to in

Surah 66, only Mary is designated as a man¶s daughter rather than as wife. This, of course, is

a result of Muhammad¶s wish to stress Mary¶s virginity and include her into the category of

the faithful virgins that his Allah would give him in case he divorced his naughty wives.4

Mary¶s relation to her father, unlike the other female figures who are related to their husbands

in Surah 66, indicates that Muhammad regarded Imran as Mary¶s immediate father rather

than her forefather. A married woman would naturally be affiliated with her husband instead

of her father since marital union would form a new family for her, the head of which would

be the husband. Unmarried women (virgins), on the other hand, would be linked to their biological fathers. Mary belonged to the latter group and was naturally mentioned along withher father.

SUMMARY

Even though the Arabic word IMRAAT primarily means WOMAN in English, its particular

use in possessive form with a male name corresponds to the English word WIFE. Since

Mary¶s mother is identified as Imran¶s IMRAAT in Surah 3:35, it is impossible for Muslim



scholars to deny the fact that the Qur'an regarded Jesus¶ mother Mary literally as Imran¶sdaughter. The analysis of the context of Surah 66 makes it clearer that Muhammad never

thought of a metaphorical or symbolic relation when he presented Mary as Imran¶s daughter.Muslim commentators who think otherwise and try to support their interpretation with the

help of their odd translation distort the Qur'an and disregard what their scripture actually

teaches so that they can defend it against the charge of a major historical error.

Further reading

y Sura 3:33 and Mary, the daughter of Imran

Continue with Imran's Fatherhood: Part II.

APPENDIXZawja versus imraat

An Islamic article discussing the different words employed in the Qur¶an with similar and

related meanings provides further evidence that the word IMRAAT in Arabic does not onlymean a woman, but also wife:

In the Qur¶an we find, amongst others, two usages of the word ³wife´ in Arabic ± zawjah and

imraa. Although they seem completely synonymous at face value, there is one subtle

difference that shows the extreme importance of word choice in the Qur¶an.

The aim of the author is to show that these two words in Arabic are not synonymous eventhough they both mean ³wife´. The distinction is based on the notion of mutual compatibility.

If both the spouses are perfectly compatible in regard to their characteristics in the sense thatthey are exact matches, the word ³zawja´ is used. If one of the spouses fails to fulfill this

criterion, the word ³zawja´ is replaced with ³imraat´. To our surprise, the article does notexplain why the Qur¶an has the word ³imraat´ instead of ³zawja´ in Surah 3:35 although

nothing implicit or explicit is stated about Imran¶s or his wife¶s failing the criterion of compatibility.

Further, this linguistic analysis disregards the occurrence of another Arabic word for wife in

the Islamic scripture. In a few verses the original language of the Qur¶an employs the word

³sahibat´, which is translated as spouse/consort/wife:

Wonderful Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could He have a son when He hasno consort, and He (Himself) created everything, and He is the Knower of all things. (Surah

6:101 Shakir) (BadeeAAu alssamawati waal-ardi anna yakoonu lahu waladun walam takunlahu sahibatun wakhalaqa kulla shay-in wahuwa bikulli shay-in AAaleemun)

And exalted is the Majesty of our Lord: He has taken neither a wife nor a son. (Surah 72:3

Yusuf Ali) Waannahu taAAala jaddu rabbina ma ittakhatha sahibatan wala waladan



And his spouse and his son² (Surah 80:36 Shakir) Wasahibatihi wabaneehi

Meaning of the word Zawja

It is noteworthy that the word ZAWJA, like the word IMRAAT, does not always correspondto the English word ³wife´. This is because ZAWJA primarily means ³pair´ and signifies a

wife only when it is used in association with a man and in a possessive form. For instance, itis impossible and unreasonable to interpret the Arabic word ZAWJA in the following verses

as WIFE since these verses refer to two sexes or genders instead of particularly female

spouses or mates:

Glory be to Him Who created pairs of all things, of what the earth grows, and of their kindand of what they do not know. (Surah 36:36 Shakir) Subhana allathee khalaqa al- azwaja

kullaha mimma tunbitu al-ardu wamin anfusihim wamimma la yaAAlamoona

In both of them are two pairs of every fruit. (Surah 55:52 Shakir) Feehima min kullifakihatin zawjani.

Until when Our command came and water came forth from the valley, We said: Carry in it

two of all things, a pair, and your own family-- except those against whom the word has

already gone forth, and those who believe. And there believed not with him but a few. (Surah

11:40 Shakir) Hatta itha jaa amruna wafara alttannooru qulna ihmil feeha min kullin

zawjayni ithnayni waahlaka illa man sabaqa AAalayhi alqawlu waman amana wama amana

maAAahu illa qaleelun

The use of the word ³imraat´ with a possessive pronoun:

As we have seen in the main section of our article, the word IMRAAT means wife instead of

woman when used in possessive form before a proper male noun. The same rule is valid also

for the cases where a proper noun is replaced with a pronoun in possessive form. For example, when the Qur'an refers to Abraham¶s wife Sara ± although it never names her ±, it

uses the word IMRAAT:

Then his wife came up in great grief, and she struck her face and said: An old barren woman!

(Surah 51:29 Shakir) Faaqbalati imraatuhu fee sarratin fasakkat wajhaha waqalat

AAajoozun AAaqeemun.

And his wife was standing (by), so she laughed, then We gave her the good news of Ishaqand after Ishaq of (a son¶s son) Yaqoub. (Surah 11:71 Shakir) Waimraatuhu qa-imatun

fadahikat fabashsharnaha bi-ishaqa wamin wara-i ishaqa yaAAqooba.

Islamic tradition depicting Mary as Muhammad¶s virgin wife in paradise:

After I had written this paper, it was pointed out to me, that Muhammad apparently took the11th and 12th verse of Surah 66 not only as hypothetical examples and illustrations (after all,

being long dead, these women could not replace his wives on earth in case he were to divorce

them), but he fell in love with the idea of equating Pharaoh¶s wife with the widows and Jesus¶mother with the virgins promised in Surah 66:5 and then claimed that Allah would actually

marry him to these two exceptional women in the next life, in Paradise. This shocking claim



is discussed in detail in Sam Shamoun¶s article Mary the Mother of Jesus: A Houri in

Paradise?

Footnotes1

Ibn Kathir follows this strategy in his authoritative commentary on Surah 19 (*).2

More information on the sense of the words ³imraat´ and ³zawja´ can be found in the

appendix.3 In the Qur'an another word used to express affiliation with a forefather is THURRIYYAT,

which is translated into English as progeny/generation/descendant/seed (Surah 6:84, 6:87,

7:172). Surah 3:35 has neither the word ALI nor the word THURRIYYAT.4

The specific hadith which states that Muhammad would get the wife of Pharaoh and Jesus'

mother Mary as his wives in Paradise confirms the veracity of this interpretation. See the

appendix.

Imran's Fatherhood: Part II

Evolution in the Qur¶an: The Patriarchs

Masud Masihiyyen

INTRODUCTION

In our first article on the theme of Imran¶s fatherhood in the Qur¶an, we examined the verses

affiliating Jesus¶ mother Mary with Imran as his biological daughter (Surah 3:35 and 66:12).

While analyzing the first verse, we demonstrated how some English translators of the Qur¶anmade vain efforts to interpret Mary¶s relation to Imran metaphorically and suggested

inaccurate and misleading translations to support their arguments. With the help of the

context of Surah 66 we also showed that Mary¶s identification as Imran¶s daughter in verse

12 was meant to be literal rather than metaphorical. In addition to these two verses, Imran¶s

name occurs in the entire Qur¶an for the third and last time in Surah 3:33, where he is

introduced as an important patriarch along with Adam, Noah, and Abraham. In this second

article we shall focus on Imran¶s presentation in the Qur¶an as the father of a progeny and tryto explain how his being the father of a progeny is associated with his being the husband of

Mary¶s biological mother. The mystery of Imran¶s two-folded fatherhood cannot be analyzedand understood independent of the concept of evolution in the Qur¶an though.

Despite having a simple creed that is equal to insipid theology, Islam cannot be asserted tolack the notion of mystery. Although Muhammad never intended to make his statements

puzzling or mysterious, he most of the time achieved to leave his followers in suspense who

were later saved from the pit of suspense and bewilderment with the help of br ooding

commentators. The scrutiny of some vague and difficult verses of the Qur'an strikingly

proves that Muhammad kept faithful neither to the Biblical accounts he copied nor to his own

statements that he had devised earlier through plagiarism. In some cases Muhammad turnsout to be a writer that first confirmed a doctrine he heard from the People of the Book, but

later modified it in accordance with the new material he drew from some other sources.



Muhammad¶s reliance on this method was to such a degree that he made the notion of abrogation an official dogma of his religion and scripture. Unlike the cases of abrogation, the

evolution of certain teachings and narratives in Muhammad¶s mental world was hidden andthus difficult to detect, but they still illustrate his ignorance and hesitance in addition to his

efforts to combine and reconcile differing materials.

What actually caused the evolution of certain Islamic doctrines was mostly Muhammad¶sfamiliarity with the basic tenets of Judaism and Christianity, which he endorsed in a rush to

win the favor of the Jews and Christians and build up his new religion on the same ground as

that of the former monotheistic faiths. The elements that played a significant role in the

evolution of some of those teachings were not limited to the innovations Muhammad made in

the days following his migration to Medina so that he could forcefully attach himself to the

lineage of the former prophets. Since his sources were mostly apocryphal writings, he felt

obliged to adapt his previous teachings to what those examples of apocryphal literature

suggested. These adaptations for the sake of reconciliation resulted in awkward formulations

that made little sense due to odd replacements and modifications.

A brilliant example of that sort of a modification and Muhammad¶s evolving teachings is

found in Surah 3, which is named Âl-i `Imran (The Family of Imran). As we stated in our firstarticle on Imran¶s fatherhood, the Qur¶an contends in Surah 3:35 that Jesus¶ mother Mary

was born of Imran¶s wife. In verse 33 of the same chapter Mary¶s father Imran is claimed to be the father of a family in the same way as Abraham:

God did choose Adam and Noah, the family of Abraham, and the family of 'Imrn above

all people. (Surah 3:33 Yusuf Ali)

The formula in this particular verse naturally begins with Adam; the first man created by God

and made the father of the human race, and continues with Noah, who is remarkable in

human history as the person that became the father of mankind after the flood. The third

person is Abraham, who is the father of Isaac, and through him, of Jacob, the father of Israel.Things seem normal until the verse names the fourth and last person: Imran. This name is the

Arabic version of the Hebrew name Amram, who was the father of Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam (Mary in English) according to the Biblical accounts. In the Bible, and thus in

Judaism and Christianity, Imran is a figure whose name appears exclusively in genealogiesand who is known only because of his famous children. Apart from his age and the name of

his wife no details are given.1

This is why the occurrence of his name along with father Abraham in a verse reckoning the major patriarchs sounds quite weird.

The Qur¶an baffles us all the more when it equates this patriarch Imran in verse 33 with

Mary¶s father and Jesus¶ grandfather in verse 35! From this mysterious identification we

understand that while referring to the selection/preference of certain patriarchs and their

progenies, Muhammad jumped from Abraham to Jesus¶ supposed grandfather Imran,skipping and disregarding many generations although most of the prophets descended fromAbraham¶s son Jacob, whose name we would expect to see between Ibrahim and Imran. The

awkward transition in Surah 3:33 from Abraham to Virgin Mary¶s father supposedly namedImran is the basic problem posed by this verse, for Imran in Judaism and Christianity, unlike

in Islam, is nothing more than the father of Moses and his siblings and is not considered asignificant patriarch similar to Abraham. Our analysis of the names of patriarchs and their

particular order in Surah 3:35 will illustrate why Muhammad needed an evolution in one of

his basic teachings about the patriarchs and how he accomplished the modification. The



answer to this question will also solve the mysterious reference to Imran in Surah 3:33 and35.

Evolution from Joachim to Imran and the problem posed by it

One of the prominent historical mistakes of the Islamic scripture is certainly related to the

name it ascribes to Mary's father. Although Christian Churches tend to name Mary's father ³Joachim´ in accordance with traditional teachings mostly drawn from non-canonical

literature, Mohammad argued that Mary's father had the name Imran. The reason for the

modification of the name Joachim to Imran in Islam was dependent on Muhammad's weird

and faulty conclusion that Jesus' mother Mary was the same person as the woman named

Mary in the Old Testament, who was said to be the daughter of Amram and sister of Aaron.

At first it seems uncanny and contradictory that Muhammad modified the name Joachim toImran although he used the apocryphal Gospels of Infancy as his primary source while trying

to provide historical information on Jesus and His mother. This is an issue that cannot bedismissed with the help of the supposition that Muhammad was a careless or blind borrower.

It is true that he did not necessarily keep faithful to the original version of the narratives he

copied, but the particular alteration applied to Mary's father's name in the Qur'an is sounusual that it points at a deliberate act of replacement. The denial of the Christian tradition

that ascribed the name Joachim to the virgin's father would give birth to a gross mistake in

Muhammad's scripture when combined with the chain of a few hasty conclusions he drew

from the similarities between Mary's story in the apocryphal Gospels and the 20th verse of

Exodus 15.2

The first question that needs to be answered is why Muhammad reacted and objected to the

name Joachim, which occurred without any exception as Mary's father's name in all of the

non-canonical texts of Christ's birth and infancy. Muhammad¶s desire to avoid the name

Joachim was relevant to the teachings given in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which he

consulted while forming the first Islamic narrative about Christianity: Surah 19 of the Qur'an.It is not difficult to identify the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew as the source and framework of

the story about Mary in the 19th Surah since only in that chapter is it related that Marymiraculously ate fresh fruit of a palm tree (date) and drank from the rivulet created for her

(vv. 23-26), and this miraculous incident appears only in Pseudo-Matthew's narrative (chapter 20), missing from all the other non-canonical accounts of Jesus' infancy.

The priority given by Muhammad or his mentor to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew for

plagiarism from Christian sources tells us what a hapless person Muhammad was. He washapless because the particular infancy Gospel that he chose did not make a single reference to

John the Baptist. This omission bothered Muhammad a lot as he had heard from Christians

about Zechariah and his son John, whose miraculous birth was recounted in association with

Jesus. The solution he wrought to this problem necessitated the replacement of the nameJoachim with Zechariah in accordance with the substitution of Zechariah's son for Joachim'sdaughter (Mary). Consequently, in the 19th chapter of the Qur¶an:

Joachim¶s daughter Mary¶s miraculous birth (Pseudo-Matthew)

was changed to

Zechariah¶s son John¶s miraculous birth (Surah 19)



Muhammad¶s faulty conclusion was that Joachim could not have been the name of Mary¶sfather since that male name was a fabrication by Pseudo-Matthew, who avoided the names

Zechariah and John. It is baffling that Muhammad became so sure of his fallaciousconclusion that he ascribed the major components of Joachim¶s story to Zechariah and

produced new contradictions with the Biblical accounts about Zechariah¶s lineage. The fact

that Pseudo-Matthew identified Mary¶s father Joachim as a man descending from the tribe of

Judah and that Joachim¶s story had a few thematic parallelisms with the story of Joseph(Jacob¶s son) in the Old Testament prompted Muhammad to designate Zechariah and his son

John in Surah 19 as descendants of the house of Jacob (v. 6) instead of Aaron (Luke 1:5).

This dependence of the Quranic story of the birth of John (Yahya in Islam) on the story of the

miraculous birth of Mary in Pseudo-Matthew is argued at length in my article Surah

Mariam: The Curse of the Apocrypha (see there the narrative about Zechariah and

Appendix I and II).

Interestingly, we see that Muhammad narrated and confirmed the story of Mary¶s nativity in

Surah 3, which he devised in the post-migration period although he had completely ignored

the same account while writing the 19th Surah. What drove Muhammad to change his mindand thus evolve his teachings in Surah 3, which belonged to a later period than Surah 19?

This curious inconsistency finds an explanation when we remember that Muhammad drewheavily from another apocryphal Gospel of infancy for his teachings in the 3rd chapter: The

Gospel of James. The account of Mary¶s nativity in this famous non-canonical Gospel wasendorsed and incorporated into the 3rd chapter of the Qur'an quite smoothly since

Muhammad considered it a reliable story thanks to a reference in it to John¶s father Zechariahas the priest organizing the divinely guided selection of Mary¶s guardian (chapter 8). Further,

unlike the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Gospel of James was in line with the things stated

in Luke¶s canonical Gospel with regard to the relation between Zechariah¶s wife and Mary

(compare the 12th chapter of the Gospel of James with Luke 1:39-45). These significant

points may well have convinced Muhammad that there would be nothing wrong with

including the account of Mary¶s nativity into the list of the things to be plagiarized from the

Gospel of James.

Nonetheless, Muhammad noticed that his previous nightmare concerning the name of Mary¶s

father in Pseudo-Matthew repeated itself in the Gospel of James, for the appearance of

Zechariah¶s name in this particular text had by no means changed the name of Mary¶s father.

In other words, James surprisingly agreed with Pseudo-Matthew that Mary¶s father¶s name

was Joachim. This agreement was not appealing to Muhammad though. Coupling his

ignorance with arrogance, he contended that Mary¶s father was not called Joachim, most

likely interpreting the presence of the name Joachim in all Gospels of infancy as the impact

of Pseudo-Matthew¶s allegedly misleading information. As a result, in the Islamic version of

the account of Mary¶s nativity, he had to change the original name Joachim into Imran, the

alternate name he came up with through his misunderstandings.

Muhammad¶s misunderstandings and hasty conclusions regarding the name of Mary¶s father

dated back to the days when he devised Surah 19 and had to refer in that chapter to the

identity of Mary¶s parents while copying from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew the account of

Mary¶s interrogation by her folk with the charges of an illegitimate affair (chapter 12). As we

said before, Muhammad¶s giving priority to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and his relevant

objection to the name Joachim in that text marked the beginning of his misfortune. Having

ignored the order of the narrative in that non-canonical Gospel, Muhammad decided to start

the story about Mary with the angelic visit and annunciation, which impelled him to consider



the account of Mary¶s accusation as the only and perfect occasion of a reference to her family. To compare:

Then was assembled a multitude of people which could not be numbered, and Mary was

brought to the temple. And the priests, and her relatives, and her parents wept, and said to

Mary: Confess to the priests your sin, you that wast like a dove in the temple of God, and

received food from the hands of an angel. (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew chapter 12 )

Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come

with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy

mother a harlot. (Surah 19:27-28).

The particular section that narrated Mary¶s accusation by her people and referred to her

family in Pseudo-Matthew described Mary as a revered female figure that had thecharacteristics of a prophetess. Thanks to his vague remembrance of an Old Testament verse

describing Aaron¶s Sister Mary as a prophetess (Exodus 15:20), Muhammad thought that theHebrew woman named Mary was no one else than Jesus¶ mother. This is why he identified

Mary as the sister of Aaron in Surah 19 and then as the daughter of Imran (Aaron¶s father had

the name Imran) in two verses of the Medina period (Surah 66:12 and 3:35). Thus, thereplacement of the name Joachim with Imran in Surah 3 was a confirmation and continuation

of Muhammad¶s teaching in Surah 19 that Jesus¶ mother Mary was the sister of Aaron.

Now that we know how and why Muhammad changed the original name of Mary¶s father

(Joachim) into Imran, we can get back to the analysis of Imran¶s mysterious insertion into a

verse talking about forefathers and their selected progenies. With the help of our comparative

study, it does not take us a long time to find out that the number and order of the figures in

Surah 3:33 is actually a modified form of another verse belonging to the earlier period of the

Qur'an. Thus, Muhammad¶s teaching about certain ancestors is proven to have undergone

evolution before taking its final form in the third chapter.

To our surprise, we find the original version of Surah 3:33 in the 19th Surah of the Qur'an,

which is remarkable because both Surah 19 and 3 contain narratives about Mary and Jesusthat are obviously plagiarized from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and that of James,

respectively. The awkward verse having Imran¶s name next to father Abraham is located just before the account of Mary¶s nativity in Surah 3 whereas its original version appears at the

end of the narratives beginning with Zechariah and Mary¶s story and having the recurrentformula ³Mention in the book....´ in Surah 19. The traditional and widely accepted

chronological order of the Qur¶an chapters makes it clear that Muhammad first devised thefollowing verse in the Meccan period:

These are they unto whom Allah showed favour from among the prophets, of the seed of

Adam and of those whom We carried (in the ship) with Noah, and of the seed of Abrahamand Israel, and from among those whom We guided and chose. (Surah 19:58 Pickthall)

and placed it after modification at the introduction to the story of Mary¶s nativity, which hecopied from the Gospel of James:

Lo! Allah preferred Adam and Noah and the Family of Abraham and the Family of 'Imran

above (all His) creatures. (Surah 3:33 Pickthall)



These two verses are amazingly similar because

1. They both refer to the notion of selection with regard to certain ancestors and their progenies

2. They both give four names in total.

Apart from the slight differences stemming from different word choice, the only major discrepancy between Surah 19:58 and Surah 3:33 is the name of the fourth ancestor

mentioned after Abraham. Muhammad turns out to have replaced Israel (Jacob) with Imran

(Mary¶s father Joachim) while devising Surah 3. Needless to say, the teaching given in Surah

19:58 about forefathers and their generations is more plausible and biblically accurate,

reflecting Muhammad¶s faithfulness to the things he heard from Jews and Christians until he

came across the apocryphal Gospel of James and altered Israel to Imran thanks to his

misinterpretation.

Before solving the mystery of Israel¶s (Surah 19:58) evolution to Imran (Surah 3:33), it iscrucial to highlight Muhammad¶s endorsement of the Judaic and Christian doctrines

regarding the patriarchs, Israel¶s relation to them, and Israel¶s being the elected people of

God. The sequence presented in the 58th verse of Surah 19 is perfectly compatible with biblical teachings as it begins with Adam, the father of the human race, and ends in Jacob

(later named Israel), father of the nation called Israel. Even this chronological order reflects

the influence and guidance of the Bible in the production of this verse since Muhammad

mostly disregarded the significance of chronology and thus deviated from the Bible while

recounting the stories of the prophets.

Further, the order of the four people confirmed by Muhammad (Adam-Noah-Abraham-Israel)

reiterated the Biblical teaching that God first created mankind, but then raised up a nation for

Himself. Thus, the act of creation narrowed down and turned into the act of election.

Although all of the four figures were patriarchs (ancestors), two of them (Adam and Noah)

were considered universal patriarchs because they had become the fathers of the human race.Abraham and Jacob, on the other hand, became fathers of the tribes descending from them.

The peculiar formulation in Surah 3:33 illustrates the distinction of the fatherhood of Adamand Noah from that of the other pair.

Judaism and Christianity did not deny Adam and Noah as universal patriarchs, but laid stress

on Jacob¶s (and the 12 tribes descending from him) selection in accordance with the promisemade in Isaac, one of Abraham¶s two sons. In other words, the Bible taught a transition from

universal patriarchs to tribal ones, mentioning first the fathers of the human race and then thefathers of the nation of Israel. This teaching is brilliantly displayed in Jesus¶ two genealogies

recorded by Matthew and Luke (chapter 1 in the former and chapter 3 in the latter). Since

Evangelist Matthew essentially addressed the Hebrews and underlined the link between

God¶s promises made to Abraham and Jesus¶ miraculous birth, he did not need to include thefigures preceding Abraham into Jesus¶ genealogy. Evangelist Luke, on the other hand,addressed the Gentiles and underlined the universality of Jesus¶ mission along with His

human nature. Therefore, he deemed it necessary to bind Jesus to Adam, the first man andforefather of mankind. We are surprised to see that in Surah 19:58 and partly in Surah 3:33

Muhammad adhered to the same teaching and referred both to the universal and tribalforefathers of the Holy Bible.



From Adam to Noah

The fact that Muhammad highlighted Adam and Noah as two patriarchs was a naturaloutcome of his belief that human race descended from these two men at different times:

Adam before the flood whilst Noah after the flood. This was, of course, a basic biblical

doctrine stipulating faith in a global flood at Noah¶s time. Thus, Muhammad embraced this

tenet and considered Noah as the second father of the human race after Adam, which sufficesto rebut the speculative argument of some modern Islamic scholars that Noah had been sent

to his folk and the flood was therefore local.3 In contrast to the efforts of some Muslim

commentators who try to confine the flood to a specific region on earth, Muhammad made it

clear by formulating the verses below that the human race was regenerated through Noah¶s

offspring after the flood:4

And Noah verily prayed unto Us, and gracious was the Hearer of his prayer. And We saved

him and his household from the great distress, and made his seed the survivors. (Surah

37:75-77 Pickthall)

Muhammad even drew an implicit parallelism between Adam and Noah by recounting the

beginning of Adam¶s life on earth after his banishment from Heaven and the beginning of lifeon earth after the flood in similar terms:

He said: Go down (from hence), one of you a foe unto the other. There will be for you on

earth a habitation and provision for a while . He said: There shall ye live, and there shall ye

die, and thence shall ye be brought forth. (Surah 7:23-25 Pickthall)

It was said (unto him): O Noah! Go thou down (from the mountain) with peace from Us and

blessings upon thee and some nations (that will spring) from those with thee . (There will

be other) nations unto whom We shall give enjoyment a long while and then a painful doom

from Us will overtake them. (Surah 11:48 Pickthall)

Likewise, as seen in the following verses, Muhammad associated the generations descending

from Noah with the flood and the people carried in the ark:

These are they unto whom Allah showed favour from among the prophets, of the seed of

Adam and of those whom We carried (in the ship) with Noah.... (Surah 19:58 Pickthall)

We gave unto Moses the Scripture, and We appointed it a guidance for the children of

Israel, saying: Choose no guardian beside Me. (They were) the seed of those whom We

carried (in the ship) along with Noah. Lo! he was a grateful slave. (Surah 17:2-3 Pickthall)

Abraham and Israel (Jacob)

Jacob¶s presentation with the name Israel in Surah 19:58 as the last link of the chain of

ancestors once more labels Muhammad a man who acknowledged what he heard from the

Jews and Christians about the prophetic lineage and the related election of Israel. For the

people who know the traditional Islamic arguments about Abraham¶s chosen son it is

shocking indeed to see Mohammad testify to the basic Biblical doctrine that God promised to

make His covenant with Isaac instead of Abraham¶s first-born son Ishmael (Genesis 17:19,

21:12).5



Quite interestingly, the impact of the Judaic and Christian doctrines concerning Abraham¶s progeny and Israel¶s election was so strong on Muhammad that in five of the six chapters

belonging to the Meccan period he skipped Ishmael and designated Jacob as the second songiven to Abraham. For instance:

When he had turned away From them and from those Whom they worshipped besides God,

We bestowed on him Isaac and Jacob, and each one Of them We made a prophet. (Surah19:49 Yusuf Ali)

And his wife was standing (There), and she laughed: But We gave her glad tidings of Isaac,

and after him, of Jacob. (Surah 11:71 Yusuf Ali)

And We gave (Abraham) Isaac and Jacob, and ordained Among his progeny prophethood

And Revelation, and We granted him his reward In this life; and he was in the Hereafter (of the company) of the Righteous. (Surah 29:27 Yusuf Ali)

We gave him Isaac and Jacob: all (three) We guided « (Surah 6:84 Yusuf Ali)

And we gave him Isaac and Jacob as a farther gift, and we made all of them righteous.

(Surah 21:72 Rodwell)

Still, it must be made clear that in the period prior to his migration Muhammad reckoned

Ishmael as one of the former prophets and made short and simple references to his missionalthough he did not affiliate him with Abraham as his son except for in Surah 14. One of such

few references can be seen in Surah 19, where Ishmael is taught to be a messenger observingIslamic rituals:

And make mention in the Scripture of Ishmael. Lo! he was a keeper of his promise, and he

was a messenger (of Allah), a prophet. He enjoined upon his people worship and

almsgiving, and was acceptable in the sight of his Lord. (Surah 19:54-55 Pickthall)

In Surah 19 God had supposedly asked Muhammad to make mention of Abraham (verse 41)

and introduced the narrative that contained the story of Abraham¶s objection to his father and

folk¶s idolatry, his withdrawal from his people, and his fathering Isaac and Jacob. Not only

did this narrative lack Ishmael¶s name, but was also dissociated from the particular reference

to Ishmael in the same chapter through the interpolation of a reference to Moses and Aaron in

verses 51-53. Below are the names of the people who are mentioned in Surah 19 until the

58th verse, which talks of four patriarchs:

Zechariah (v. 2-15)Mary (v. 16-38)

Abraham (v. 41-50)Moses and Aaron (v. 51-53)

Ishmael (v. 54-55)

Idris (v. 56-57)

Islamic comments making Idris in verse 56 the equivalent of Biblical Enoch6

surprisingly

strengthens the possibility that Muhammad intended a latent connection between four of the

six names listed above and the four names given in Surah 19:58. In that case, the account

about Abraham would correspond to the seed of Abraham whilst the account about Moses



and Aaron to the seed of Israel. As for the remaining two patriarchs, Ishmael would be linkedto Noah¶s progeny whilst Idris (who is considered the same person as Enoch) to Adam. This

sort of a parallelism gives us the clue that Muhammad bafflingly tended to present Ishmael asa messenger descending from Noah rather than as Abraham¶s son while devising Surah 19.

The amazing matching of the persons who are referred to in Surah 19:41-57 with the four

patriarchs named in verse 58 does not necessarily leave Zechariah and Mary out of this parallelism, for the references to Abraham, Moses and Aaron, Ishmael, and Idris along the

formula ³Mention in the book «.´ seem to be attached to the primary narratives about

Zechariah and Mary in verses 2-38, which are obviously plagiarized from the non-canonical

Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew through significant modifications. In other words, Muhammad

first related Zechariah and Mary¶s story and then added the other accounts up to verse 58,

using the first two narratives as the framework for others. Surprisingly, Zechariah¶s story is

directly related to the seed of Israel mentioned in verse 58 since Zechariah associates himself

and his son with the seed of Israel when he utters the phrase ³house of Jacob´ in his prayer in

verse 6. Although the narrative about Jesus¶ mother Mary does not make any explicit

associations between her and patriarch Jacob, Moses and Aaron¶s matching with the seed of Israel indirectly links Mary to the same progeny because she is called the ³sister of Aaron´ in

verse 28.

The question why Muhammad did not adapt the erroneous and innovated teachings heinvented about Ishmael and Mecca to the names and order of the patriarchs in Surah 3:33 gets

us one step closer to the solution of the mysterious inclusion of Mary¶s father into the samelist. Ironically, Muhammad does not affiliate Ishmael with Abraham when he gives the names

of the figures and families chosen by God in Surah 3:33 even though he follows a differentcourse and contradicts the Bible when he awkwardly places Ishmael¶s name between

Abraham and Isaac in the Medina verses that point at the chain of divine revelation. For

instance:

Say (O Muhammad): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that whichwas revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes , and that

which was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord. We make nodistinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered. (Surah 3:84)

People who naturally wonder why Muhammad skipped Ishmael and jumped to Mary¶s father

(another Israelite) from Abraham and thus endorsed the Biblical teaching that, of Abraham¶stwo sons, the line descending from Isaac was preferred should refresh their memories with

regard to Muhammad¶s plagiarism from non-canonical Christian writings. As we said before,

Muhammad abused the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew while devising certain verses of Surah 19

and did the same thing with the Gospel of James while relating the story of Mary and Jesus¶

nativity in Surah 3.

Despite its being an apocryphal text, the Gospel of James (like the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew) confirmed the basic Biblical doctrine concerning Isaac¶s election and the

fulfillment of the divine promises in his seed. More to the point, canonical and non-canonicalGospels of Infancy were about Jesus, an Israelite, and naturally stressed the election of the

seed of Israel for the fulfillment of divine promises through the descent of the predictedMessiah from David¶s lineage. (David also descended from Israel, Isaac¶s son, not from

Ishmael). In short, the Gospels of Infancy were unaware of Muhammad¶s new allegations

about Ishmael that deviated from the teachings of the Bible. While copying from the Gospel



of James, Muhammad could not insert Ishmael into Abraham¶s lineage either because of hisshort memory or because he did not have courage to apply such a drastic change to the

original form of the story. Consequently, he altered only the name of Mary¶s father fromJoachim to Imran, keeping faithful to the other elements of the apocryphal Gospel of Infancy

he borrowed from while creating Surah 3.

Mystery solved: Patriarch Israel¶s replacement with Patriarch Imran

The narrative of Mary and Jesus¶ nativity in Surah 3:35-47 was borrowed by Muhammad

from the non-canonical Gospel of James (aka the Protoevangelium of James) and adapted to

Islamic creed with the help of a few textual alterations. The comparison of the account in the

Qur¶an with its original version does not only verify the charges of plagiarism, but also

displays the superiority of the original source to its copy in terms of integrity and clarity:

(Remember) when the wife of 'Imran said: My Lord! I have vowed unto Thee that which is in

my belly as a consecrated (offering). Accept it from me. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer,the Knower! And when she was delivered she said: My Lord! Lo! I am delivered of a female

- Allah knew best of what she was delivered - the male is not as the female; and lo! I have

named her Mary, and lo! I crave Thy protection for her and for her offspring from Satan theoutcast. (Surah 3:35-36 Pickthall)

And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: Anna, Anna, the Lord has heard your

prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all

the world. And Anna said: As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I

will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all

the days of its life. And, behold, two angels came, saying to her: Behold, Joachim your

husband is coming with his flocks. For an angel of the Lord went down to him, saying:

Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God has heard your prayer. Go down hence; for, behold your

wife Anna shall conceive. And Joachim went down and called his shepherds, saying: Bring

me hither ten she-lambs without spot or blemish, and they shall be for the Lord my God; and bring me twelve tender calves, and they shall be for the priests and the elders; and a hundred

goats for all the people. And, behold, Joachim came with his flocks; and Anna stood by thegate, and saw Joachim coming, and she ran and hung upon his neck, saying: Now I know that

the Lord God has blessed me exceedingly; for, behold the widow no longer a widow, and Ithe childless shall conceive. And Joachim rested the first day in his house. And on the

following day he brought his offerings, saying in himself: If the Lord God has been renderedgracious to me, the plate on the priest's forehead will make it manifest to me. And Joachim

brought his offerings, and observed attentively the priest's plate when he went up to the altar

of the Lord, and he saw no sin in himself. And Joachim said: Now I know that the Lord has

been gracious unto me, and has remitted all my sins. And he went down from the temple of

the Lord justified, and departed to his own house. And her months were fulfilled, and in the

ninth month Anna brought forth. And she said to the midwife: What have I broughtforth? And she said: A girl. And said Anna: My soul has been magnified this day. And

she laid her down. And the days having been fulfilled, Anna was purified, and gave the

breast to the child, and called her name Mary. (Gospel of James chapters 4-5)

Evidently, Muhammad shortened the original and detailed account by selecting a few versesfrom it and skipping many others. This, of course, made the narrative in Surah 3 vague and

even incomplete. In order to overcome this difficulty and help Muslims get a clearer picture

of the story, Islamic scholars raced to plagiarize further from the same source, testifying to



the fact that most of the stories about Christianity in their scripture had been created thanks totheir prophet who borrowed from apocryphal writings. For example, Ibn Kathir added the

following part while commenting on the Qur¶an verses relating Mary¶s mother¶s pregnancy:

The wife of `Imran mentioned here is the mother of Maryam, and her name is Hannah bint

Faqudh. Muhammad bin Ishaq mentioned that Hannah could not have children and that

one day, she saw a bird feeding its chick. She wished she could have children andsupplicated to Allah to grant her offspring. Allah accepted her supplication, and when her

husband slept with her, she became pregnant. She vowed to make her child concentrate on

worship and serving Bayt Al-Maqdis (the Masjid in Jerusalem), when she became aware that

she was pregnant. She said, (O my Lord! I have vowed to You what is in my womb to be

dedicated for Your services, so accept this from me. Verily, You are the All-Hearer, the All-

Knowing.) meaning, You hear my supplication and You know my intention. She did not

know then what she would give birth to, a male or a female. (Source)

This clarifying commentary was definitely taken from the Gospel of James:

And his wife Anna mourned in two mournings, and lamented in two lamentations, saying: I

shall bewail my widowhood; I shall bewail my childlessness. « And Anna was grievedexceedingly, and put off her garments of mourning, and cleaned her head, and put on her

wedding garments, and about the ninth hour went down to the garden to walk. And she saw a

laurel, and sat under it, and prayed to the Lord, saying: O God of our fathers, bless me

and hear my prayer, as You blessed the womb of Sarah, and gave her a son Isaac. And gazing

towards the heaven, she saw a sparrow's nest in the laurel, and made a lamentation inherself, saying: Alas! Who begot me? And what womb produced me? Because I have

become a curse in the presence of the sons of Israel, and I have been reproached, and they

have driven me in derision out of the temple of the Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened?

I am not like the fowls of the heaven, because even the fowls of the heaven areproductive before You, O Lord. (Gospel of James chapters 2-3)

More interestingly, Muhammad seems to have deliberately focused on Mary¶s mother and

ignored all the references to her father (Joachim) while copying the account of her nativityfrom the Gospel of James. Accordingly, the borrowed story in Surah 3 begins with the

supplication and vow uttered by Mary¶s mother in verse 35. In contrast, the Gospel of Jamesfirst talks about Mary¶s father (Joachim) before proceeding to the narrative about his wife and

her supplications:

In the records of the twelve tribes of Israel was Joachim, a man rich exceedingly; and he brought his offerings double, saying: There shall be of my superabundance to all the people,

and there shall be the offering for my forgiveness to the Lord for a propitiation for me. For

the great day of the Lord was at hand, and the sons of Israel were bringing their offerings.

And there stood over against him Rubim, saying: It is not meet for you first to bring yourofferings, because you have not made seed in Israel. And Joachim was exceedinglygrieved, and went away to the registers of the twelve tribes of the people, saying: I shall see

the registers of the twelve tribes of Israel, as to whether I alone have not made seed in

Israel. And he searched, and found that all the righteous had raised up seed in Israel. And he

called to mind the patriarch Abraham, that in the last day God gave him a son Isaac.And Joachim was exceedingly grieved, and did not come into the presence of his wife; but he

retired to the desert, and there pitched his tent, and fasted forty days and forty nights, saying



in himself: I will not go down either for food or for drink until the Lord my God shall look upon me, and prayer shall be my food and drink. (Gospel of James chapter 1)

If we focus on the bolded statements in the narrative above, we can figure out the source of

the mysterious sequence of the patriarchs in Surah 3:33. Muhammad was aware of this

section on the theme of fatherhood in the Gospel of James, and incorporated it into Surah 3 in

the shortest form possible and not without his mistaken conclusions. First, in the originalaccount Mary¶s father was depicted as a man having no seed in Israel in contrast to all other

righteous people and thus emphatically singled out from the twelve tribes of Israel (Jacob)

because of his childlessness. Second, he was said to liken himself to patriarch Abraham with

regard to the notion of miraculous fatherhood in expectation for a child despite his

barrenness. These motifs sufficed to convince Muhammad that Mary¶s father signified a

unique case in the seed/family of patriarch Israel in terms of fatherhood and that he was made

similar to patriarch Abraham. Consequently, he replaced Israel with Mary¶s father (whose

name he had changed into Imran) while transferring the names of the four forefathers from

Surah 19:58 to Surah 3:33 and inserted him right after Abraham as the fourth patriarch. To

put it another way, Muhammad thought that Mary¶s father¶s highlighted affiliation with thetwelve tribes of Israel would allow him to take Israel¶s place in the sequence of the

patriarchs. The analogy drawn in the Gospel of James between Abraham and Mary¶s father further encouraged Muhammad to place Imran¶s name right after Abraham¶s and designate

him as the father of a race (patriarch).

The discovery of the ties between the Gospel of James and Surah 3:33 also clarifies the vaguelink between the references to Imran¶s fatherhood in verse 33 and to his wife¶s motherhood in

verse 35. Thus, it becomes easy to see that in Muhammad¶s scripture Surah 3:33-34 weremeant to be the equivalent of the teachings about Mary¶s father and his relation to the

patriarchs in the first chapter of the same Gospel. After all, Surah 3:34 functions to strengthen

the significance of lineage and common patriarchs:

They were descendants one of another. Allah is Hearer, Knower. (Pickthall)

The emphasis laid in this verse on Allah¶s hearing and knowing is most likely derived fromthe last sentence in the first chapter of the Gospel of James, where Mary¶s father asks God to

look upon him and hear his prayers.

Evolution in Surah 3:33 after Mohammad¶s death

The lack of a reference to Ishmael or to Muhammad in Surah 3:33 causes much trouble for

Islamic scholars as Christian apologists and critics of the Qur¶an use this particular verse to

prove Jesus¶ superiority to Muhammad. For example, in his article entitled Jesus Superior

Still According to the Qur¶an! Sam Shamoun rebuts the objections of the Islamic scholars

who strive to add Muhammad into the list of the chosen and preferred families by expandingthe definition of the phrase ³family of Abraham´ to include Ishmael. As stated in Shamoun¶sarticle, the linguistic structure of the verse will not allow Muhammad¶s addition into

Abraham¶s family with the help of his unsubstantiated affiliation with Ishmael,7

for Mary¶sfather is linked in Surah 3 to Abraham through his son Isaac, proving that the ³final´ family

chosen by God was by no means related to Ishmael and his lineage.

As we discussed above, Muhammad could never have pointed at Ishmael¶s line whilereferring to Abraham¶s family in Surah 3:33 since he copied the names and order of the two



In this process, two things made the evolution of some tenets crucial: Muhammad¶s inabilityto understand the original statements of the Bible and his struggle to reconcile the things he

derived from the Bible with the new material he derived from some non-canonical writings.These evolutions did not only expose Muhammad¶s ignorance and confusion, but also created

some Qur¶an verses that were harmonious neither with the Bible nor with the apocryphal

texts. Finally, evolving ideas gave birth to some variations even within the Qur¶an and turned

into mysterious references that can be understood only if the Qur¶an is compared first withthe Bible and then with the non-canonical literature Muhammad heard and abused while

forging his scripture.

APPENDIX

The comparison of all the Qur¶an verses referring to Abraham¶s sons reveals the difficulties

Muhammad went through while talking of Abraham¶s descendants.8 His vague knowledge on

the issue was at first limited to the number of the sons that Abraham had fathered prior to his

wife¶s death. Muhammad repeated without getting into details about Abraham¶s wife what

the Bible said: Abraham had two sons. However, he could not give accurate and consistent

information on the names of these sons. As evident in five of the six Meccan chapters, his

observations gave him the wrong idea that of Abraham¶s two sons, Isaac was the firstborn

whilst Jacob the second. As a result of Ishmael¶s uncanny replacement with Isaac, most of the

chapters of the Meccan period did not relate Ishmael to Abraham although the Jews and

Christians did not deny or alter the biblical doctrine that Abraham had fathered Ishmael before Isaac.

In all the following verses of the Meccan period Muhammad mentioned Ishmael, but never

affiliated him with Abraham or with Abraham¶s other son Isaac:

And Ishmael and Elisha and Jonah and Lot. Each one (of them) did We prefer above (Our)creatures. (Surah 6:86 Pickthall)

And make mention in the Scripture of Ishmael. Lo! he was a keeper of his promise, and he

was a messenger (of Allah), a prophet. (Surah 19:54 Pickthall)

And (mention) Ishmael, and Idris, and Dhu'l-Kifl. All were of the steadfast. (Surah 21:85

Pickthall)

And make mention of Ishmael and Elisha and Dhu'l-Kifl. All are of the chosen. (Surah 38:48

Pickthall)

More to the point, in all of the four Meccan chapters that mention Ishmael (Surah 6, 19, 21,and 38) a reference is made to Abraham as a father, but these verses contain the names Isaac

and Jacob, and Ishmael is by no means connected to them. In Surah 6:84, Surah 19:49, Surah

21:72, and Surah 38:45 Abraham¶s name always appears along with Isaac and Jacob and

forms a triplet. Ishmael, on the other hand, is always kept out of this triplet and awkwardly

inserted into the group of some other prophetic figures.

Evidently, having a vague and faltering knowledge of Ishmael¶s relation to Abraham,

Muhammad kept repeating Isaac and Jacob¶s name along with Abraham and did not mention



than two, he applied the modification only to the names, maintaining the number of Abraham¶s sons before and after Surah 14. This modification introduced the new pair of

Ishmael and Isaac into the Qur¶an, which was accurate and compatible with the biblicalteaching designating Ishmael as the first of Abraham¶s two sons.

However, this correction in the names of Abraham¶s two sons would not last long as

Muhammad would abruptly switch back to the old pair of Isaac and Jacob and forget aboutIshmael¶s relation to Abraham in two more Meccan chapters following Surah 14. Strikingly,

in Surah 21 and 29 Muhammad bafflingly dissociated Ishmael from Abraham again and

formed verses that ignored the names "Ishmael and Isaac" given in Surah 14:

And we bestowed on him Isaac, and Jacob, as an additional gift. And we made all (of them)

righteous persons. (Surah 21:72 Sale)

And We bestowed on him Isaac and Jacob, and we established the prophethood and the

Scripture among his seed ... (Surah 29:27 Pickthall)

Obviously, Muhammad returned to his mistaken formulation because while writing Surah 21

and 29, he simply and carelessly copied the information he gave about Abraham¶s sons in allthe chapters preceding Surah 14. As there would be no reference to Mecca in these new

chapters coming after Surah 14, there would also be no need to desginate Ishmael in them as

Abraham¶s first son. Thus, in Muhammad¶s flawed reasoning the names of Abraham¶s two

sons were not stable. The addition of the invented connection between Abraham and Mecca

into a chapter would inevitably change the name of the first son into Ishmael. The lack of this

connection would bring Jacob¶s name back at the expense of Ishmael¶s. As Surah 21 and 29

did not repeat the false and non-biblical teaching that Abraham went to Mecca with Ishmael,

Abraham mistakenly appeared as the father of both Isaac and Jacob.

It is not difficult to guess what compelled Muhammad to identify Jacob as Abraham¶s second

son in the Meccan chapters preceding and following Surah 14. First, he was aware of the

biblical doctrine that God Almighty had blessed and chosen the nation of Israel (Jacob¶s

offspring), and wrote a few verses to display his agreement with this teaching:

O Children of Israel! Remember My favour wherewith I favoured you and how I preferred

you to (all) creatures. (Surah 2:47 Pickthall)

And certainly We gave the Book and the wisdom and the prophecy to the children of Israel,

and We gave them of the goodly things, and We made them excel the nations. (Surah 45:16

Pickthall)

In addition, Muhammad became familiar with the biblical sequence of the three ancestors

³Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob´ and incorporated this triplet into his scripture:

And remember Our servants Ibrahim and Ishaq and Yaqoub, men of power and insight.

(Surah 38:45 Shakir)

And thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the interpretation of sayings and make His

favor complete to you and to the children of Yaqoub, as He made it complete before to your

fathers, Ibrahim and Ishaq; surely your Lord is Knowing, Wise. (Surah 12:6 Shakir)



And I follow the religion of my fathers, Ibrahim and Ishaq and Yaqoub ; it beseems us notthat we should associate aught with Allah; this is by Allah¶s grace upon us and on mankind,

but most people do not give thanks. (Surah 12:38 Shakir)

At this point, Muhammad misunderstood the cause of this particular sequence of the three

patriarchs and jumped into the conclusion that this triplet consisted of Abraham and his two

sons. The natural outcome of this fallacious reasoning was the indirect denial of the tie between Abraham and Ishmael, which again contradicted the biblical account that designated

Ishmael as Abraham¶s son through his concubine named Hagar. Ishmael¶s separation from

Abraham before his death and Isaac and Jacob¶s burial in the same place as Abraham in the

biblical accounts (Genesis 49:29-32) were probably some of the other factors prompting

Muhammad to dissociate Ishmael from Abraham in all the Meccan chapters, except for in

Surah 14.

Unsurprisingly, Muhammad did not give Ishmael¶s name when he related the story of

Abraham¶s sacrifice (Surah 37:102-107) even though most Muslim scholars tend to identify

the child whom God asked Abraham to offer as Ishmael rather than Isaac.9 Traditional

Islamic commentaries on this issue are far from accuracy, for Muhammad would have placed

Ishmael in the verse below between Abraham and Isaac if he had agreed with the Islamicscholars in regard to the identity of the child mentioned in verses 102-103:

And We blessed him and Isaac. And of their seed are some who do good, and some who

plainly wrong themselves. (Surah 37:113 Pickthall)

The interesting point is that Surah 37 lacks a reference to Jacob. This does not raise a

problem though since this Surah is one of the few Meccan chapters of the Qur¶an where Isaac

is singled out as Abraham¶s only son born through a miracle, which is a biblical teaching too.

For instance, in Surah 51 the biblical account of Abraham¶s visitation by the angels is partly

followed; therefore, no reference is made to Jacob:

Then he conceived a fear of them. They said: Fear not! and gave him tidings of (the birth of)

a wise son. (Surah 51:28 Pickthall)

However, this account occurs with slight variations in Surah 11, but this time Jacob¶s name is

added even into the angelic annunciation delivered to Abraham¶s wife. To compare and

contrast:

And his wife, standing by laughed when We gave her good tidings (of the birth) of Isaac,

and, after Isaac, of Jacob. (Surah 11:71 Pickthall)

This verse clearly reflects Muhammad¶s faulty presumption that Jacob was Abraham¶s

second son.

After his migration to Medina, Muhammad attempted to reconcile all his inconsistent

teachings concerning the identity of Abraham¶s first and second son. The solution he found to

this problem produced another gross mistake though. The reason for this misfortune was

Muhammad¶s decision to combine all the names of Abraham¶s progeny in a single sentence,

disregarding the biblical teaching that did not add Ishmael¶s name into Abraham¶s selected

progeny that would inherit the divine blessings.



3Further on this issue can be read in Sam Shamoun¶s article Does the Quran teach a local

flood? 4

However, this verse overtly contradicts Surah 11:36, 40, which stunningly teach that some people from Noah¶s folk believed his message and were saved with him. This article

highlights the contradictory teachings in the Qur¶an regarding Noah¶s flood.5

How Mohammad made a gross mistake with regard to Abraham¶s sons in both Mecca and

Medina periods is explained at length in the appendix.6

Read this commentary.7 See the article Ishmael is not the father of Muhammad .8

It is obvious that there are incoherent, perhaps even contradictory statements about the sons

of Abraham in the Qur¶an. There was some kind of confusion in the mind of Muhammad

about this matter, and a change of knowledge and thus an adaptation of how the Qur¶an

teaches on this issue.9

However, there are several early Muslim commentators who were convinced it was Isaac.

For a detailed discussion, see the article Abraham and the Child of Sacrifice - Isaac or

Ishmael?

© Answering Islam, 1999 - 2011. All rights reserved.

Imran's Fatherhood - By Masud Masihiyyen

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