The Virgin Annunciate in the Meccan Qurʾan: Q. Maryam 19:19 in Context

Abstract

The intriguing textual history of Q. Maryam 19:19 remains neglected in modern scholarship. This study offers an analysis of this textual history in light of new insights from the codicology of early Qurʾan manuscripts. Further, it puts forward suggestions for how one might interpret the verse and its rival readings in light of its textual history and motifs associated with the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary in the homiletic literature of Syriac Christianity in Near Eastern Late Antiquity. In Q. Maryam 19:19, a spirit (rūḥ) sent by God announces to Mary the birth of her child Jesus by declaring, “I am but a messenger of your Lord [sent] so that I may give you a pure son” (innamā ʾana rasūlu rabbiki li-ʾahaba laki ghulāman zakiyyan). This verse boasts a fascinating textual history that has somehow hitherto largely escaped the attention of modern scholarship; however, it occupied the attention of premodern scholars considerably. The early philologist al-Farrāʾ (d. 207 ah/822 ad, Kūfah) provides one of our earliest comments on the curious wording of the verse; he observes that, at first blush, the statement, “so that I may give you (li-ʾahaba laki) a pure son,” appears to imply that the spiritual messenger impregnates Mary—i.e., that he himself gives Mary the child rather than God. But al-Farrāʾ rejects this interpretation and explains that, “the giving [of the boy] is from God, though [the spirit] Gabriel speaks to her as though he himself is the giver.” In other words, the spiritual messenger said what he said, but he did not do what he said. Noting that such ambiguous phrasing is common in the Qurʾan, al-Farrāʾ offers us a simple, if not entirely satisfying, solution to the peculiar wording of the annunciation to Mary.1 Besides this solution,