In the Quran, Allah provides Mary with a stream of water and dates
from a palm tree:
“And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, ‘Oh, I wish I had died
before this and was in oblivion, forgotten.’ But he called her from below her, ‘Do not grieve; your
Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it
will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates.’”
Quran 19:23-25
Scholars trace the story to a non-canonical Christian legend which started in
the 3rd-5th century AD where the infant Jesus reveals a spring and orders a
date-palm to bend down and feed Joseph and Mary:
“And he said, ‘My mother, you did not understand my power. I first revealed it to you at the
spring, where I led Joseph. He was crying, the child who is glorified because he is greater
than everything, and Joseph was angry with you, saying, ‘Give your breast to your child.’ At once you
gave it to him, as you went forth to the Mount of Olives, fleeing from Herod. And when you came to
some trees you said to Joseph, ‘My lord, we are hungry, and what do we have to eat in this desert
place?’”
“And the child stopped [nursing from] your breast, this one who is greater than all things, and he
said to Joseph, ‘My father, why don’t you climb this date-palm and bring it to her, so that my
mother might eat from it, as was said about it. And I will feed you: not only you, but also the
fruit that comes forth from it. I will not be hungry even for one day.’ And the child turned and
said to the date-palm, ‘Incline your head with your fruit, and satisfy my mother and father.’ And
it inclined immediately. And who made it incline? Is it not because I have power, which was
because of me?”
Book of Mary’s Repose (3rd-5th century AD),
translated by Shoemaker, p. 20
Islamic Studies scholar Stephen J. Shoemaker:
“Modern scholars of the Qur’an have long acknowledged that the Qur’anic account of Jesus’ birth is
based largely on the reworking of a relatively obscure, apocryphal Christian tale, which is now
known in several versions. This early Christian legend describes certain miraculous events that were
imagined to have transpired during the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. According to these
traditions, while Mary and Joseph were travelling to Egypt with their newborn son, the Holy Family
came into a remote, desolate area. In the midst of this desert, Mary expresses her hunger to
Joseph, and in response, her infant son causes a tall date palm to bend and offer her its
fruit. Then, in some versions of the story, Mary also drinks from a spring that her son
miraculously provides. The parallels between this legend and Mary’s feeding from the date
palm and stream in the Qur’anic Nativity account are obvious.”
“As I have demonstrated in my recent book on these traditions, the narrative that best preserves the
story of Mary and the date palm was first composed by the early fifth century at the latest,
although the peculiar theology reflected in this narrative very strongly suggests its formation
sometime in the third century, if not even earlier. Several Syriac fragments copied in the
later fifth century form the earliest witness to this narrative, and by the end of the sixth century,
this version was widely dispersed throughout the cultures and languages of the Byzantine Near
East.” p. 19
“The dependence of the Qur’anic Nativity account on these earlier Christian traditions of Mary and
the date palm is all but certain: as modern Qur’anic scholarship has frequently recognized,
the similarities are just too striking to be mere chance.” p. 21
Shoemaker, “Christmas in the Qur’an”