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Mary, Sister Of Harun?
Mary, Sister Of Aaron(P)?
M S M Saifullah, Muhammad
Ghoniem & Mustafa Ahmed
© Islamic
Awareness, All Rights Reserved.
Last Modified:
1st September 1999
Assalamu-alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:
Christian missionaries have been calling Mary addressed
as Sister of Aaron(P) a contradiction. Below is the verse:
At length she brought the (babe)
to her people, carrying him (in her arms). They said: "O Mary! truly an amazing
thing hast thou brought! "O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man
of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste!"
[Qur'an 19:27-28]
It turns out that Christians in Najran during
the time of the Prophet(P)
raised a similar objection and it was answered by the Prophet(P). In Sahih
Muslim, the hadith related by Mughirah ibn Shu`bah [5326] says:
When I came to Najran, they (the Christians
of Najran) asked me: You read "O sister of Harun" (i.e. Maryam) in the
Qur'an, whereas Moses was born much before Jesus. When I came back to Allah's
Messenger(P) I asked him about that, whereupon he said: The
(people of the old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of
Apostle and pious persons who had gone before them.
This claim of contradiction is apparently mistaken
because it disregards both the Arabic idiom and the context of the verse. In Arabic
the word akhun or ukhtun (Underlined with Red
colour in the images) carries two meanings.
- Blood brother or sister and
- Brotherhood/sisterhood in clan and faith.
The above verse has used the word ukhtun
in the second sense. This is not unusual as the Qur'an uses the same idiomatic
expression in several earlier verses. In chapter 11 verse 78, Prophet Lot refers
to the women folk of his community as my daughters.
And his people came rushing towards
him, and they had been long in the habit of practising abominations. He said: "O
my people! Here are my daughters: they are purer for you (if ye marry)! Now
fear Allah, and cover me not with shame about my guests! Is there not among you a
single right-minded man?" [Qur'an
11:78]
In Chapter 7 verses 65, 73 and 85 Prophets Hud, Saleh
and Shuaib(P) are referred to as "brothers" of their respective
peoples.
And unto (the tribe of) A'ad (We
sent) their brother, Hud. He said: O my people! Serve Allah. Ye have no other
Allah save Him. Will ye not ward off (evil)?
[Qur'an 7:65]
And to (the tribe of) Thamud (We
sent) their brother Salih. He said: O my people! Serve Allah. Ye have no other
Allah save Him. A wonder from your Lord hath come unto you. Lo! this is the camel
of Allah, a token unto you; so let her feed in Allah's earth, and touch her not with
hurt lest painful torment seize you. [Qur'an
7:73]
And unto Midian (We sent) their
brother, Shu'eyb. He said: O my people! Serve Allah. Ye have no other Allah save
Him. Lo! a clear proof hath come unto you from your Lord; so give full measure and
full weight and wrong not mankind in their goods, and work not confusion in the earth
after the fair ordering thereof. That will be better for you, if ye are believers. [Qur'an 7:85]
The people of Lot are also mentioned in chapter 50
verse 13 as the brothers of Lot except for the word "banatii" which
means my daughters in 11:78, all other references have used the word "akhun"
which means brother.
The 'Ad, Pharaoh, the brethren
of Lut, (Qur'an 50:13)
And in another place, the Qur'an
addresses the believers as brothers-in-faith.
The Believers are but a single Brotherhood:
So make peace and reconciliation between your two (contending) brothers; and fear
Allah, that ye may receive Mercy. [Qur'an
49:10]
George Sale in his translation of
the Qur'an says:
From the identity of names it has been
generally imagined by Christian writers that the Koran here confounds Mary the mother
of Jesus with Mary of Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron; which intolerable anachronism,
if it were certain, is sufficient of itself to destroy the pretended authority of
this book. But though Mohammed may be supposed to have been ignorant enough in ancient
history and chronology, to have committed so gross a blunder; yet I do not see how
it can be made out from the words of the Koran. For it does not follow, because two
persons have the same name, and have each a father and brother who bear the same
names, that they must therefore necessarily be the same whereby it manifestly appears
that Mohammed well knew and asserted that Moses preceded Jesus several ages. And
the commentators accordingly fail not to tell us, that there had passed about one
thousand eight hundred years between Amran the father of Moses and Amrean the father
of the Virgin Mary: they also make them the sons of different persons; the first,
they say, was the son of Yeshar, or Izhar (though he was really his brother) the
son of Kahath, the son of Levi; and the other was the son of Matthan, whose genealogy
they trace, but in a very corrupt and imperfect manner, up to David and thence to
Adam. It must be observed that though the Virgin Mary is called in the Koran, the
sister of Aaron, yet she is nowhere called the sister of Moses.[1]
In the Bible, Elizabeth was called
daughters of Aaron(P). Was she literally a daughter of Aaron?
In the days of Herod, King of Judea,
there was a priest named Zechari'ah, of the division of Abi'jah; and he had a wife
of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
[Luke 1:5, RSV]
Or Jesus(P) was addressed as Son of David in the Bible. Was he literally
Son of David(P)?
And the crowds that went before him
and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"
[Matthew 21:9 RSV]
But when the chief priests and the
scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the
temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant; [Matthew 21:15 RSV]
If we take that literally then it is also a contradiction
in the Bible.
And Allah knows best.
Other Articles Related To The Historical Errors
Mary(P) &
Tri-Unity
Al-`Aziz
& Potiphar
Qur'anic Accuracy
Vs. Biblical Error: The Kings & Pharaohs Of Egypt
The 'Samaritan' Error In
The Qur'an
Reference
[1] George Sale, The
Koran, IX Edition of 1923, London, p.
38.
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