MARY IN THE QUR’AN:
Friend of God, virgin, mother
By Muna Tartari & Klaus von Stosch and trans-lated by Peter Lewis
Gingko. 260 pages. £30.00
ISBN 978 1 909 942 622
Many Christians are surprised to learn that an entire chapter of the Qur’an is named after Mary – ‘Surah Maryam’.
Two other Surahs also refer to her, in connection to Jesus. This thorough book, written from a liberal Roman Catholic position, examines the background to this. It is a translation from German (evidenced by the slip on p.51 referring to Jacob von Serugh!), and is somewhat dense and technical, but rewards detailed study.
Sometimes there are statements to which Protestants will object, such as the suggestion in the chapter ‘Mary in the Bible’ that the Magnificat implies an emerging ‘veneration’ of Mary (p.23), but an RC idea that Joseph was motivated by ‘awe’ when he wished to separate from Mary is rejected in favour of common Protestant exegesis that he suspected her of adultery (p.13).
The most vital chapters are those dealing with the Qur’an and the views of the Syriac Early Church Fathers – the sermons and liturgical texts of which ‘were in widespread circulation in the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century’ (p.106). Qur’anic Christology was influenced by, and critiqued/amended the Syriac Christian position, e.g. the late second-century Syriac Protoevangelium of James, essentially an apocryphal prequel to the Gospels supposedly relating the early biography of Mary, aiming to support the emerging (and unbiblical) doctrine of her ‘perpetual virginity’ (p.37ff).
This influenced ‘Surah Maryam’, as did the Syriac Fathers such as Jacob of Serugh, (p.130). However, the Qur’an amended this by omitting the figure of Joseph altogether! The usual Qur’anic description of Jesus as ‘son of Mary’ may reflect another Syriac Father, Ephrem the Syrian, giving Him this title (p.150), although he also described Him as the Son of God, which the Qur’an denied. Most obviously, the Qur’an denied the Deity of Christ and the Trinity, and ‘Surah Al-Maida’ presents a weird idea that the Trinity is actually three gods – Jesus, Mary and God – despite the fact that ‘no Christian would conceivably claim that Jesus and Mary were deities…’ i.e. separate gods alongside God (p. 218).
It is the presentation of the Syriac background – with which most Western Christians are unfamiliar – which makes this book an important volume in understanding Islamic origins and theology.
