5. Mary: Member of Trinity, Moses’ Sister, and Jesus’ Mother?
Mary, Sister of Moses
Miriam, Moses’ sister, had a father named Amram and brother named Aaron Numbers 26:59. Miriam and Jesus’ mother Mary share the same name in Semitic languages: Miryam. But Mary lived 1400 years later.
Yet, the Quran says Mary was born to “the wife of Imran” Quran 3:35-36, is “daughter of Imran” Quran 66:12, and “sister of Aaron” Quran 19:28.
Christians found the “sister of Aaron” problem during Muhammad’s lifetime and he responded:
“They used to give names after the names of apostles and pious persons who had gone before them” Sahih Muslim 2135
But he never explains why her father is Imran or why the Quran has a birth narrative of Imran’s wife giving birth to Mary. Quran 3:35-37
Two Errors in Three Verses (Quran 3:35-37)
Quran 3:35-37 contains at least two errors.
Family Mixup
Mary, Jesus’ mother, according to the Quran:
- was named Miriam
- had a father named Imran Quran 66:12
- had a brother named Aaron Quran 19:28
- was born to the wife of Imran Quran 3:35-37 (gives a whole birth narrative)
This is all true for Moses’ sister Miriam in the Bible Numbers 26:59, who lived 1400 years earlier. And it is recorded NOWHERE other than the Quran, even though Mary lived 600 years before Muhammad.
Historically Contradictory Legend
In Mary’s Quran 3:35-37 birth narrative, Imran’s wife pledges Mary to the Temple and Mary grows up there. This is historically contradictory and found only in the 2nd-century non-canonical Protoevangelium of James.
“The story of Mary’s childhood as given in the Protevangelium has no parallel in the New Testament, and reference to a nine-year stay in the Temple of Jerusalem contradicts Jewish customs.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Protevangelium of James
And even the Protoevangelium doesn’t botch Mary’s family: her father is Joachim and her mother is Anna.
So in just three verses Quran 3:35-37, the Quran makes two errors:
- reports a historically contradictory late legend about Mary,
- mixes up Mary’s family with that of Moses’ sister Miriam, who shares the same name.
Tafsir al-Tabari: Aisha Thinks Muhammad’s Explanation Is a Lie
“Ka’b said: his saying ‘O sister of Aaron’ - it is not Aaron the brother of Moses. So Aisha said to him: You have lied. He said: O Mother of the Believers, if the Prophet (ﷺ) said it then he knows better and is better informed; otherwise, I find between the two of them six hundred years. So she fell silent.” Tafsir al-Tabari on Quran 19:28
Aaron Was So Common a Name That 40,000 Aarons Attended Aaron’s Funeral
“Aaron was a reformer, beloved in his clan, and he is not Aaron the brother of Moses, but rather another Aaron. He said: and it was mentioned to us that on the day he died, forty thousand accompanied his funeral procession, all of them named Aaron, from the Children of Israel.” Tafsir al-Tabari on Quran 19:28
Encyclopedia Britannica: “Identified Miriam, the sister of Moses, with Mary, the mother of Christ”
“One would suppose that the most ignorant Jew could never have mistaken Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus, for the minister of Pharaoh, as happens in the Koran, or identified Miriam, the sister of Moses, with Mary (= Mariām), the mother of Christ.” Theodor Nöldeke, “Koran,” Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., p. 900
Oxford Scholar: “It did not occur to him to distinguish between them”
“Having heard a Mary mentioned in the story of Moses and another in the story of Jesus, it did not occur to him to distinguish between them.” Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, p. 61
Mary, Member of the Trinity
The Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But the Quran refutes the Trinity by saying:
“Those who say, ‘Allah is one in a Trinity,’ have certainly fallen into disbelief ... The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger... His mother was a woman of truth. They both ate food” Quran 5:73-75 then has Allah ask Jesus: “Did you ever ask the people to worship you and your mother as gods besides Allah?” Quran 5:116.
Classical Authorities Confirm Christian Trinity = Allah, Mary and Jesus
Ibn ‘Abbas (companion of the Prophet)
“This refers to the Trinity: Allah, may He be exalted, and His wife and His son.” Ibn Abbas (d. 687 AD), Tafsir al-Qurtubi
Muqatil ibn Sulayman
“‘They have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is the third of three,’ meaning the Melkites [Trinitarian Byzantine Church]. They said: Allah, and the Messiah, and Mary.” Tafsir Muqatil ibn Sulayman on Quran 5:73 (d. 767 AD)
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah
“With regard to what the Quran says about what the Christians said, ‘Allah is the third of the three (in a Trinity)’, the commentators said that it refers to Allah, the Messiah and his mother, as Allah.” Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328 AD), Majmu’ al-Fatawa, cited at IslamQA
Ibn Kathir
“Mujahid and several others said that this Ayah was revealed about Christians in particular. As-Suddi and others said that this Ayah was revealed about taking ‘Isa and his mother as gods besides Allah, thus making Allah the third in a trinity.” Tafsir Ibn Kathir on Quran 5:73 (d. 1373 AD)
Tafsir al-Jalalayn
“O People of the Scripture, the Gospel, do not go to extremes, do not go beyond the bounds, in your religion and do not say about God except, the saying of, the truth, such as exalting Him above any associations with a partner or a child: the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word which He cast to, [which] He conveyed to, Mary, and a spirit, that is, one whose spirit is, from Him: he [Jesus] is here attached to God, exalted be He, as an honouring for him, and not as you claim, that he is the son of God, or a god alongside Him, or one of three, because one that possesses a spirit is compound, while God transcends being compound and the attribution of compounds to Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and do not say, that the gods are, ‘Three’, God, Jesus and his mother.” Tafsir al-Jalalayn on Quran 4:171 (d. 1505 AD)
Reynolds: Verse Suggests Author Thought Trinity is “Father, Mary, Son”
“According to some scholars, verse 116 suggests that the Qurʾān (or more simply, Muḥammad) was influenced by the presence in the Arabian Peninsula of heretical Christians who believed in Mary’s divinity. Some scholars justify this idea with the notion that in the Byzantine period the Arabian desert was something a like a refuge for Christians who disagreed with Chalcedonian doctrine (to support this notion, scholars sometimes quote a tradition—unreliably ascribed to various Byzantine historians—that Arabia is ‘haeresium ferax,’ the ‘bearer’ [or ‘mother’] or heresies). Others note the reference in Epiphanius’s (d. 403) heresiographical work Panarion to a group of women in the Arabian desert who considered Mary a goddess and offered her cakes of bread (Gk. collyrida; for which reason Epiphanius names this group the Collyridians).
None of this speculation is necessary. Verse 116 need not be a precise record of the doctrines held by the Christians in the Qurʾān’s immediate context. However, this verse does seem to suggest that the Qurʾān’s author thought of the Trinity as “Father, Mary, Son” (God, Mary, Jesus). This conclusion also seems to be suggested by 5:75 (see commentary) and by the absence of any connection in the Qurʾān between the Holy Spirit and the Christian teaching of the Trinity.” Reynolds, “The Qurʾān and the Bible,” p. 218