as a mark of Jesus’ superiority—peace be upon him—for Allah, Exalted is He, enabled him to raise the dead and to heal those born blind and the leprous. Ibn Abī Ḥātim transmitted this.

Mujāhid relates that Mary said, “Whenever I was alone, he would speak and converse with me; and when I was among people, he would proclaim Allah’s glory within my womb.”

The apparent view is that she carried him for nine months, like all women who carry to term and give birth at their appointed time; had it been otherwise, it would have been explicitly stated. Ibn ʿAbbās and ʿIkrimah held that she carried him for eight months, while another report from Ibn ʿAbbās (1) says that she delivered him as soon as she conceived. Some even maintained that her pregnancy lasted nine hours, arguing from the verse, “So she conceived him and withdrew with him to a distant place … then the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree” (Maryam 19:22–23). However, the sound view is that every stage proceeds in its proper order, for He says, “and by the morning the earth turns green” (al-Ḥajj 22:63).

Likewise, He says: “We created the drop as a clot, then We created the clot as a lump, then We created the lump as bones, and We clothed the bones with flesh; then We produced him as another creation—so blessed be Allah, the best of creators” (al-Mu’minūn 23:14). It is well-known that forty days separate each of these stages, as established in the agreed-upon ḥadīth (2).

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq said: Her situation then became public, and it was spread among the Children of Israel that she was pregnant; no household endured what befell the family of Zakariyyā. He continued: Some heretics accused her of (relations with) Joseph, who used to worship with her in the sanctuary. Consequently, Mary concealed herself from them, withdrew, and retired to a distant place.

The words, “then the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree,” mean that the contractions forced her to cling to a palm-trunk. According to the ḥadīth reported by al-Nasaʾī with a sound chain from Anas, and by al-Bayhaqī with an authenticated chain from Shaddād ibn Aws—both marfūʿ—this occurred at Bethlehem. One of the later Roman kings subsequently erected the imposing structure that still stands there today, as we shall explain.

Her cry, “Would that I had died before this and been a thing forgotten, lost in oblivion!” shows that it is permissible to wish for death at times of severe trial, for she knew that people would accuse her and refuse to believe her, branding her a liar when she appeared before them carrying an infant in her arms.