Mary, Sister of Aaron

Qur'an

Mary, the mother of Jesus is called sister of Aaron in sura 19:

The Qur'an also says the wife of Imran gave birth to the virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus.

The Quran mentions prominent families:

Miriam, Aaron and Moses were the children of Amram (Imran in Arabic):

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the daughter of Joachim and she was from the family of David (not Aaron):

Ibn Kathir gave the following explanation in his tafsir:

That he mentioned two alternative explanations suggests he was unsure regarding the certainty of either of them

"Sister of Aaron means a descendant of Aaron"

The Qur'an says "sister (أُخْتَ) of Aaron" and people understood the verse to literally mean "sister of Aaron". Only when Muhammad came to know that it was wrong, the meaning changed into "a descendant of Aaron". In the Christian sources she is said to be from the family of David, so many wondered why the Qur'an would describe her as being from the family of Aaron? Some point out that in Luke 1:5, Elizabeth is said to be a descendant of Aaron; and in Luke 1:36, Elizabeth is said to be a cousin or relative of Mary ^[7]. But, as it stands, being related to a descendant doesn't guarantee one's own descendancy from the same ancestor (Aaron in this case).

Furthermore, if she was a known descendant of Aaron, then one wonders why the learned Arab Christians (and Aisha and Mughira b. Shu'ba) of Muhammad's time were unaware of this.

The additional description of her as the "daughter of Amram (Imran)" in Surahs 3 and 66 appears to make the matter even foggier and more clearly problematic.

"Mary coincidentally had a father called Imran and a brother called Aaron"

Christian sources say her father was named Joachim and they don't mention she had a brother called Aaron. And if she had a brother called Aaron, then the question still is, why is she called "sister of Aaron"? If her brother is so important that he had to be mentioned with her name, why don't we hear more about him? It is more probable that the author of the Qur'an thought that she really is the sister of Aaron and Moses and so in the Qur'an people called her "sister of Aaron" to emphasize her social status.

In other words, the people asked "How can you have a baby without a husband, when you are from such a moral family".

In Hebrew he is called Amram (עַמְרָם) with the letter mem (ם) at the end. In the Arabic Bible he is also called Amram (عمرام), with the letter meem (م) at the end:

In Islam he is called Imran (عمران). Although English translation chose to translate it as Amram:

the Arabic original has the letter nun (ن) at the end:

Miriam was the daughter of Amram and a sister of Aaron. The Qur'an describes Mary, the mother of Jesus, as being a daughter of Amram and a sister of Aaron - in the same family relationship as Miriam. Many people, including Aisha, understood Mary and Miriam to be the same person, based on their understanding of the Qur'anic text.

When Christians criticized the verse which calls Mary "sister of Aaron" in the Quran, Muhammad's response was that "people were named after pious persons who lived before them". Islamic scholars concluded that Mary was either called "sister of Aaron" because she was his descendant or she had a brother coincidentally called Aaron. Both these solutions seem to be inventions, because Mary was not known to be a descendant of Aaron and she was not known to have a brother called "Aaron". On the other hand Miriam was well-known to be a sister of Aaron.

Since Mary and Miriam are both pronounced Maryam in Arabic, it seems probable, that Muhammad, based on the Christian stories he heard,^[9] mixed these two women into one person, when he was making up the Qur'an.

Modern scholars note that the author of Surat-Maryam had an in depth knowledge of the Christian tradition, and that in fact the author might have themselves been a Christian clergyman of some sort, whose work was taken up and used by the incipient believers movement or who joined the movement himself. As the author was likely themselves steeped in the Christian tradition, it seems unlikely that they would have made a mistake about of Mary, the mother of Jesus, conflating her with Mary, the sister of Aaron and Moses. Rather, what is being invoked here is likely both Mary's descent from the scions of the Jewish people, Moses and Aaron, as well a priestly tradition in the Church of Kathisma in Jerusalem, linking the Dormition (apparent death, followed by the resurrection and assumption of Mary alive into heaven) with the priesthood of Aaron. As such a Georgian Christian homiletic text exists which seems to explicitly calls Mary the sister of Aaron. The reference to this Georgian text from Jerusalem in the Qur'an is remarkable; it suggests that whoever the author is of the rest of the Qur'an and even surat-Maryam, the author of this passage must have been a Christian from the area around Jerusalem, one intimately familiar with the Christian tradition around the church of Kathisma and the liturgical traditions the church possessed around the virgin Mary ^[10].

References to Other Narratives

The entire first portion of Surat-Maryam (verses 1-63) makes constant references to apocryphal stories from legendary apocryphal gospels such as the Protoevangelium of James and the gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. These texts outline an infancy gospel of the Virgin Mary, telling of her father Joachim and mother Ana, righteous Israelis who served the poor and followed the word of the Lord. Joachim was excluded from a temple ritual, though, for lack of a child, as all the righteous men of Israel had had children. He went to the desert to pray and fast while Ana prayed for children from the lord; after seeing a sparrow's nest in a tree, the angel of the Lord appeared to her and informed her that she would bear a child. In their joy for being granted a child at such an advanced age, the couple dedicated the child, Mariam, as a perpetual virgin to the Lord. When she grew older she was entrusted to the care of an older man, Joseph, who would act as her husband but would not engage in sexual intercourse with her. When the Lord impregnated marry with Jesus, the Jews accused Joseph and Mary of violating her oath to the Lord. The priest of the temple put Joseph to the test of the water of the ordeal of the Lord, drinking it and returning unharmed; furthermore, when Mary gave birth to Jesus, a blinding white light bathed the cave she was in, and both the midwife and the accused inserted their finger into her vagina and where shocked to see that even after Jesus' birth she was still a virgin. After seeing these great signs, the faith of Mary and Joseph was vindicated. Although these sources are uncredited in Muslim exegesis, there is no doubt that Surat-Maryam makes numerous references to this Marian infancy cycle, and in ayah 25 it also makes explicit reference to the Palm miracle recorded in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 20:1-2.

The Palestinian Connection

There exists in Palestine a Byzantine Church dedicated to the virgin Mary, the church of the Kathisma or Holy Throne of the virgin Mary. This church has a deep and complex relationship with the Islamic tradition, and was the likely model for the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem ^[11]. Around the time of Muhammad, this church was a center of the Christian cult of the virgin Mary. Unlike modern Catholic and Orthodox church where only the Bible is ready from the lectionary during the mass, at this time it was not unusual for reading to be done from the apocrypha and other non-canonized works. The Kathisma was built upon the site of the palm miracle mentioned in Pseudo Matthew chapter 20 and surat Maryam verse 23-25. According to the lectionary found for this church, the miracle of the palm, the virgin conception of Jesus, the immaculate (sin-free, virgin) conception of Mary, and the dormition (assumption into heaven alive) of Mary were all celebrated at this church. The Marian stational liturgy of the Dormition was celebrated here from the 13th of August to the 17th of August in the church calendar. In addition, in the middle of this celebration there were also reading on the 14th of August from the Life of Jeremiah. The Life purports to tell how the prophet Jeremiah saved the Ark of the Covenant and concealed it after the destruction of the 1st temple by the Babylonians. A text from the Kathisma , preserved in Georgian, one of the languages of mass celebration at the church, adds an extra prophecy to the story in the Life of Jeremiah ^[12].

The use of "sister of Aaron" is being invoked here deliberately by the Georgian author, who always uses "Mary" for the mother of Jesus and "Miriam" for the actual sister of Aaron. The Qur'an is thus not showing its ignorance here; rather the reference to Mary as Aaron's sister is an extremely complex reference to the celebration of the cult of the virgin Mary in Palestine. It is thus unlikely that an uneducated pagan audience in Mecca or Medina might have understood this verse; there are several explanations for how such a complex reference could have made its way into the Qur'an, and none of them align with the tradition narrative:

1. The Arab audience of the northern Hijaz was not actually illiterate and pagan, but was rather already in Muhammad's time Christian and intimately familiar with the literate, multi-lingual Grecophone and Syriac-speaking culture of the Byzantine near east.
2. This surah was not composed as a preaching of Muhammad, but was rather the product of Christian holy men working for an Arabic-speaking audience inside of the Byzantine empire; the first part of the surah which makes these allusions is thus a separate text from the later part of the surah which is heavily "Islamic" and lacks the complex Christian allusions, and the entire surah as a whole is thus a composite work.
3. Muhammad did not compose and preach this surah in the hijaz but rather in or around Palestine for an audience which would understand it; if Shoemaker is to be believed, this could have been after he personally conquered Jerusalem itself.

Likely Meaning Imran

When the Qur'an states that Mary is the daughter of 'Imran, it is likely using typology, an approach to scripture which sees figures are reflections of their biblical forebearers. Thus what the Qur'an is here saying, through the mother of Jewish interlocuters, is that Mary and her family were pre-figured by the family of Aaron and Miryam. This pre-figurement further plays into the links established between Mary and Miriam at the church of the Kathisma, and once again demonstrates the intimate knowledge of the author with the Palestinian cult of the virgin Mary.

• Imran in Islam

• Scientific Errors in the Quran

• Contradictions in the Quran‎

• "Mary, Sister of Aaron & Daughter of Amram" (Answering Islam)

Translations

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