Maryam, "Mary," is the nineteenth surah — 98 verses revealed in Mecca.1 It is the only surah of the Quran named after a woman, and Mary is the only woman the Quran mentions by name.8 It is also a surah of mercy: its name for God, again and again, is ar-Rahman, "the Most Merciful," which occurs sixteen times in its 98 verses.
What it is about
The surah is a sequence of prophets remembered through their families: an old man praying for a son, a young woman given a son with no father, a son pleading with his idol-worshipping father. It tells these stories tenderly, with little of the confrontation found in the surahs around it, and then turns to those who claim that "the Most Merciful has taken [for Himself] a son" — a claim the surah answers with some of the strongest language in the Quran.
Key themes
Prayers answered beyond hope. Zechariah, his bones weakened and his head "filled with white," calls on his Lord privately for an heir, though his wife is barren. He is given John — "and peace be upon him the day he was born and the day he dies and the day he is raised alive."2
Mary. She withdraws from her family, and an angel appears to her "as a well-proportioned man." Told she will bear a son, she asks, "How can I have a boy while no man has touched me?" and is answered, "It is easy for Me." The pains of childbirth drive her to a palm tree, where she cries, "Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten," and is comforted — a stream beneath her, ripe dates to shake from the tree, and the instruction to keep a vow of silence.3
Jesus speaks from the cradle. When her people accuse her, Mary points to the child, and he speaks: "Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet... And peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive." The surah adds: "It is not [befitting] for Allah to take a son."4
Abraham and his father. Abraham pleads with his father four times, each beginning "O my father," not to worship what neither hears nor sees. Threatened with stoning, he answers only: "Peace will be upon you. I will ask forgiveness for you of my Lord."5 Moses, Ishmael and Idris follow briefly — prophets upon whom God "bestowed favor."
The gravest claim. "They say, 'The Most Merciful has taken [for Himself] a son.' You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation."6 Against it the surah sets a promise: "those who have believed and done righteous deeds — the Most Merciful will appoint for them affection."7
Why it matters
Maryam holds a special place in the history of Muslim–Christian encounter: it was among the passages recited to the Christian king of Abyssinia by Muslims who had fled persecution in Mecca. It gives the Quran's fullest account of the birth of Jesus and a portrait of Mary as a woman of faith in hardship, and its picture of Abraham answering his father's threats with peace remains a model of how to disagree with one's own family. To read Maryam in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.