It was also said that her pregnancy lasted eight months. This was another sign, for a child born after eight months does not survive; yet Jesus was born after this period and lived.
It was also said that she gave birth after six months.
Muqatil ibn Sulayman said: Mary conceived him within an hour, he was formed within an hour, and she gave birth to him within an hour, when the sun had passed its zenith that day. She was ten years old (1), and had menstruated twice before conceiving Jesus (2).
“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.’” (23)
“Drove her”: that is, they compelled her and brought her. “The pains of childbirth” means the pain of delivery, “to the trunk of the palm tree.” It was a dried-up palm tree in the wilderness, during the severity of winter, and it had no fronds.
It was also said that she sought refuge by it in order to lean upon it and hold fast to it amid the pains of childbirth. “She said, ‘Oh, I wish I had died before this’”: she wished for death out of modesty before people and fear of disgrace. “And was in oblivion”: Hamzah and Hafs recited it as nasyan, with the initial n pronounced with a fatḥah (a-vowel), while the rest recited it as nisyan, with a kasrah (i-vowel) (3). Both are linguistic variants, just as watr and witr, and jisr and jasr, are variant forms. It means something forgotten. Linguistically, nisy refers to anything cast aside, forgotten, and left unmentioned because of its insignificance.
“Forgotten”: that is, abandoned. Qatadah said: Something neither known nor mentioned. Ikrimah, al-Dahhak, and Mujahid said: A discarded carcass. It was also said that she meant: If only I had never been created.
(1) Omitted from manuscript A.
(2) Some commentators have listed as many as seven opinions regarding the duration of her pregnancy. The apparent meaning of the verse, as indicated by the immediate sequence expressed by the particle fa, is the view of Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: “No sooner had she conceived than she gave birth.” Ibn Kathir considered this unusual, because although fa indicates succession, the succession of each matter is according to what is appropriate to it. He then preferred the view of the majority, saying: “The well-known and apparent view—and Allah is capable of all things—is that she carried him as women carry their children, even though his origin was contrary to ordinary custom. The context does not state how she conceived him or how long she carried him: was it an ordinary pregnancy, as women carry children, with the breath having imparted life and activity to the ovum, so that it became a clot, then an embryo, then bones, which were then clothed with flesh, and the fetus completed its usual stages? This is possible: after fertilization, a woman’s ovum begins to develop and grow until it completes nine lunar months, and the breath may have served the role of fertilization, after which the ovum proceeded according to its natural course. It is likewise possible, in such a special case, that after the breath the ovum did not proceed through its normal course, but that the stages were abridged, followed by the formation, growth, and completion of the fetus within a short period. The text indicates neither of these two possibilities, so we should not pursue at length the determination of a matter for which we have no evidence. And Allah knows best.” See: Zad al-Masir, 5:219; Ibn Kathir, 3:117; Fi Zilal al-Quran, 4:2306–2307, Dar al-Shuruq edition; Adwa al-Bayan, 4:244.
(3) The text within the brackets is omitted from manuscript A.