The Virgin Mary and the Prophet Muhammad
Mediating the Word of God in Christian and Islamic traditions
Mary Joan Winn Leith
May 14, 2024
36 Comments
48906 views
The Virgin Mary and the prophet Muhammad have a lot in common within their respective Christian and Islamic traditions, according to author Mary Joan Winn Leith. Photo: Detail of Fra Filippo Lippi’s “The Annunciation,” courtesy National Gallery, London.
With another Christmas season upon us and Christmas carols in the air, I am struck anew at how much, within their respective traditions, the Virgin Mary and the prophet Muhammad have in common. I hasten to note that I am not suggesting that Mary and Muhammad are of equal importance in their traditions—just that there are some interesting commonalities; and, of course, both Islam and Christianity honor Mary as the virgin who miraculously conceived and gave birth to Jesus, but I want to pursue a different angle here.
The similarities I have in mind first occurred to me when I was teaching the Qur’an’s Sura 97 (al-Qadr, “Destiny”). This is the Sura that extolls the holiest night of the Muslim calendar, the Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Destiny) when Muhammad received the first revelation of the Qur’an. The connection I see between Mary and Muhammad centers on the significance of the Word of God in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Basic to all three religious traditions is the understanding that God, impelled by compassion, reveals to humans the way to salvation. The traditions use different theological terminology (redemption, salvation, eternal life, etc.), but in essence, God’s revelation gives humans the knowledge and means to overcome the sorrow, pain and death that constitute the human condition. All three traditions describe this revelation as the Word of God.
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From the Jewish and Muslim perspective, this is quite straightforward. Both the Torah, given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and the Qur’an, disclosed by God in visions to Muhammad, are literally words from God. The Christian revelation is also the Word of God, but in Christianity the Word of God happens not to be a text but a person—Jesus. For example, the Gospel of John famously opens with the explanation, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). For Christians, Jesus is the “Word” that became flesh, or, to use another Christian term, Jesus is the “incarnation” (the “enfleshment”) of God. In a very real sense, then, both Mary and Muhammad are the mediators, the “middle person” (“middleman” doesn’t work here) between God and humanity.
Both are the bearers of a message from God that cannot be delivered to humans on earth without the agency of a human body. Mary literally bears the Word of God in her womb and—to use the archaic sense of the word—Mary is “delivered” of the Word of God when she gives birth to Jesus. Similarly, the earthly human capacity for hearing and speech allows Muhammad to bear and deliver the Word of God to the people of Mecca and Medina. It is significant, I think, that neither “deliverer” is considered to be divine, yet, from the earliest centuries of their respective religions, each was accorded a unique status hovering in the liminal area between human and divine.
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In a detail of Jean Patinir’s “Rest on the Flight to Egypt,” the farmer, the soldiers and both the bare and the wheat-filled field are seen. The soldiers, looking for Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, believed no one was hiding in the wheat-filled field.
Because Mary and Muhammad in their roles as mediators by definition experienced a direct encounter with the divine, both faiths came to believe that they must have enjoyed an exceptional degree of purity. Mary’s purity of course, is her virginity, a physical state which Christians, under the influence of Greco-Roman thought, associated with spiritual perfection and sinlessness. As for Muhammad, his purity had nothing to do with sexuality; after all, he married a number of wives, including even some widows. Muhammad’s exceptional purity has to do with knowledge, which initially may seem to be a peculiar form of purity. However, it is an article of faith in Islam that the words of the Qur’an are God’s, not Muhammad’s, and the proof of this among Muslims is the conviction that Muhammad could not read or write; he was, so to speak, a virgin from the point of view of education. No human father contributed to the incarnation of Jesus, and no human artistry had any role in the creation of the Qur’an.
Beyond the complexities of theology and belief, surprisingly similar legends—neither story is in the Bible or the Qur’an—arose around Mary and Muhammad stemming from the fact that both had to flee for their lives. According to medieval tradition, as Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus fled from King Herod barely ahead of his soldiers, they came upon a farmer sowing his field. “Please don’t tell the soldiers you saw anyone come by,” they begged. The farmer, however, was too frightened to help them. When the soldiers arrived and asked whether the farmer had seen the fugitives, the farmer told the truth; “I saw them as I was sowing this field.” The soldiers, seeing the field, turned back. The wheat field was ready for harvest so they concluded that no one could have passed by anytime recently (see image above). Muhammad had to elude Meccan authorities who wanted to prevent him from making the Hijra (emigration) to Medina where he would found the first fully Muslim community (and whose date serves as the zero point on the Muslim calendar). Muslims love to tell the story of Muhammad and his companion Abu Bakr who had scarcely entered a cave to hide when the Meccans rode up. Having inspected the cave entrance, the pursuers rode on; the huge spider web across the mouth of the cave told them that no one had entered it in years.
This illustration depicts the Muslim tradition of the “Miracle of the Cave,” when Muhammad and Abu Bakr hid in a cave to elude Meccan authorities during the Hijra. The spider webs covering the cave entrance led the authorities to believe no one was in the cave. Photo: Desmond Stewart, Early Islam (Great Ages of Man), (New York: Time, Inc., 1967).
Finally, let me return to the Christmas carols and to Sura 97 that I mentioned at the start of this essay. Consider these lines from “Silent Night”:
Silent night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright…
Sleep in heavenly peace…
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia.
Or these from “Little Town of Bethlehem”:
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie…
But in those dark streets shineth the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Here is how the Qur’an describes the Night of Destiny:
Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Destiny.
Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Destiny is!
The Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months.
The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.
(The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.
The peace of the season to all!
Mary Joan Winn Leith is chair of the department of religious studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. At Stonehill, she teaches courses on the Bible and the religion, history and culture of the Ancient Near East and Greece. In addition, she offers a popular course on the Virgin Mary. Leith is a regular Biblical Views columnist for Biblical Archaeology Review.
This Bible History Daily article was originally published on December 16, 2014.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
Is the Earliest Image of the Virgin Mary in the Dura-Europos Church?
Mary, Simeon or Anna: Who First Recognized Jesus as Messiah?
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Salvation is only found in the Bible, but there is no such crucifixion made in the quran.Muslim never believe that Jesus was cruxified, how come you said that there is common salvation. Allah and God is too different.please study carefully. Bible was inspired by Holy Spirit and Quran is not.
Very well written.
If the message is understood by all, it is the same, and from the same source. Quran talks about the world at large. Old testament is referring to the Tribes of Israel only and New Testament refers to Christ only as the people of the Covenant.
Quran brings all nations within its ambit. It says that Adam’s message was the same as Noah, or Moses, or Christ, from the same source addressed and shaped according to the needs for each nation.
So Quran says the Covenant was made with Noah and those that survived. Out of those that survived are the Semetic and non Semtic. Out of Semtic are the Jews, Christians and Muslims. Non Semetic include Zoroastrians, Sabeans, Mageans etc under the covenant.
there are other minor races also mentioned in the quran.
In Total G-d sent 124,000 messengers to send message to every nation of the world. There will however be one nation from the time of Noah that will forget their identity in the tradition, all others will know where they come from!
In islam concept it’s not allowed to provide any drawings to any prophet. .though the similarities of face might occur and some people might think it’s a resurrection to one of them or he might got some powers due to his look alike..and it can be used in a very dangerous way misleading them .
so kindly no need to draw any prophets fsces
Dear author,
I guess you have made a little mistake while translating the Arabic word al-Qadyr into English. Qadyr means “Almighty”, “the most powerful one” or ” the only one who has the power of doing anything in the entire universe “. Also “Qadyr” is one of 99 names of God of Muslims, Allah. The word which means destiny is “Qadar”. I am from Turkey, of course I do not speak or know Arabic language but these are simple knowledge that everyone knows in my country. Even though I am not coming from a religious family, I was raised as a Muslim and 13 years ago I quit by my own will.
Why is it that academics know so little about the religion they teach? Sorry but this article bears witness to the fact.
Quote: Similarly, the earthly human capacity for hearing and speech allows Muhammad to bear and deliver the Word of God to the people of Mecca and Medina.
The Torah confirms the NT and the NT confirms the Torah.
Then the Koran given to Mohammed by an angel tells an entirely different message to that preceding it – leaving out the most important feast of Israel and Jewish Christianity – the Passover, and changing the truths we believe in to say that Jesus was not crucified or resurrected from the dead. And very definitely isn’t God. And that it was Allah [God] himself who tricked us by putting some other poor guy in Jesus’ place. Then failed to tell us what he did until Mohammed came along. Not fair at all.
So in what way did Mohammed deliver the WORD OF GOD if it differs completely from what came before?
Help me understand why the sixth comment was removed. The comment was factual and not inflammatory, respectfully. You may email me. I hold a terminal degree in Systematic Theology focusing on Jewish Issues and Holocaust Theology. If facts have offended anyone, then this is the whole precedence of research isn’t it? Otherwise, I respect all beliefs here on this forum. I just noticed my comment was less inflammatory and deleted. Blessings
@Debra: don´t expect here democracy. Any critical comments will be removed.
Without wishing to offend anyone Islam and Judeo Christianity have nothing in common at all. Judaism and Christianity are inextricably linked. Mary is not venerated as a prophet, messenger nor divine mediator between God and man by any true bible believing Christian. Mary although blessed of women was in need of the same salvation Yeshua brought to the rest of humanity.
I agree Lisa
Greetings. Our Father is the Father of the World. Of all knowledge, there is nothing that man knows except what the Father has given him. Of Nations, there is no Nation that will stand least the Father wants them to stand. In all things, all things his purpose will be fulfilled. One purpose of his for the Muslims in the big picture was to protect the holiest, the Dome on the Rock from being covered in graven images and idols while he was using the Jews through slavery (no internet) to spread the knowledge of Moses throughout the world. His timing is different than ours. Each Nation, each generation, is unknowingly used by the Father for his purpose. There are many other ways he has used the Muslims, Christians and Jews and many more that are amazing. Happy hunting.
What God Promised Through the Prophets
THE ancient prophets showed faith in God. They believed his promises and built their lives around them. What did those promises include?
Immediately after Adam and Eve rebelled in Eden, God promised that he would appoint someone to crush the head of “the serpent,” representing “the great dragon . . . , the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan,” destroying him forever. (Genesis 3:14, 15; Revelation 12:9, 12) Who would that Coming One prove to be?
Some 2,000 years after giving that first prophecy, Jehovah promised the prophet Abraham that the Coming One would be a descendant of his. God told Abraham: “By means of your seed [or, offspring] all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves due to the fact that you have listened to my voice.”—Genesis 22:18.
In 1473 B.C.E., God gave the prophet Moses further information about the “seed.” Moses told the children of Israel: “A prophet from your own midst, from your brothers, like me, is what Jehovah your God will raise up for you—to him you people should listen.” (Deuteronomy 18:15) The coming prophet like Moses would thus come from among the children of Abraham.
That prophet would also be a descendant of King David and would himself become a great king. God promised King David: “I shall certainly raise up your seed after you [and] establish the throne of his kingdom firmly to time indefinite.” (2 Samuel 7:12, 13) God also revealed that this descendant of David would be called “Prince of Peace,” adding: “To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite.” (Isaiah 9:6, 7) Yes, that righteous Leader would restore global peace and justice. But when would he arrive?
The angel Gabriel later told God’s prophet Daniel: “You should know and have the insight that from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks.” (Daniel 9:25) Those were 69 weeks of years—7 years each—that totaled 483 years. They ran from 455 B.C.E. to 29 C.E.*
Did the Messiah, the prophet like Moses and long-awaited “seed,” really come in 29 C.E.? Let us see.http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/pc/r1/lp-e/1200272975/100/0