al-Taḥrīm 66:12

Wa Maryama'bnata ʿImrāna'llatī aḥṣanat farjahā fa-nafakhnā fīhi min rūḥinā wa ṣaddaqat bi-kalimāti rabbihā wa kutubihī wa kānat mina'l-qānitīn

"And Mary, the daughter of ʿImrān. She guarded her chastity; and We breathed into it of Our spirit. She confirmed the words of her Lord and His books, and she was of those devoutly obedient."

The first three examples were built upon an axis of marriage: two women with good husbands, one woman with a bad husband.

The fourth example abandons this axis entirely. Mary has no husband. And the verse mentions her not by reference to a man but by reference to her father: ibnata ʿImrān — the daughter of ʿImrān.

This is important in point of the structure of the example. Three examples tested the "husband factor": a good husband does not save, a bad husband does not prevent. The fourth example removes the factor altogether and shows what remains.

That is, the structure proceeds in three steps:

1. Good husband + bad choice = loss (66/10) 2. Bad husband + good choice = gain (66/11) 3. No husband + good choice = gain (66/12)

The third step makes certain the conclusion that follows from the second: the variable has nothing whatever to do with the husband.

Root ح ص ن (ḥ-ṣ-n). The concrete sense of the root is a fortress: ḥiṣn — a place surrounded by walls, which cannot be taken. And all the derivatives carry this picture:

• حِصْن (ḥiṣn) — a fortress, a fortified place.
• تَحَصَّنَ (taḥaṣṣana) — he withdrew into the fortress, he became sheltered.
• حَصِين (ḥaṣīn) — sound, well protected.
• مُحْصَنَة (muḥṣana) — a woman protected, taken into shelter.
• And for a horse: فَرَسٌ حِصَان — ḥiṣān, a war horse. A horse that protects its owner and cannot be captured.

The finding that comes out of this is important: Arabic names chastity not with a word of deprivation but with a word of fortification.

In English and in many languages chastity is described by way of "not doing" — keeping away from something. The Arabic word turns this round: chastity is drawing a wall around oneself. That is, not a subtraction but a building.

And note: the verb is active and its subject is Mary: aḥṣanat — "she guarded". Not passive. That is, she was not guarded by someone else; she guarded herself.

This distinction becomes clear when compared with the other uses of the word in the Qurʾān. The same root is used passively too, in the form muḥṣanāt. Here the active form has been chosen.

A note: the same root recounts a fortress in this verse, while in the previous verse the word for house (bayt) recounted a structure. The last two verses of the sūra close with two different words for structure: one a house asked for, the other a fortress already built. I record this as an observation, not as a claim.

فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا — "We breathed into it of Our spirit."

This expression is used in the Qurʾān for the creation of Adam as well (nafakhtu fīhi min rūḥī — al-Ḥijr 15/29; Ṣād 38/72). The same verb, the same construct.

Note the particle مِن: min rūḥinā — "of Our spirit". This states partitiveness; and at al-Baqara 2/3, in connection with mimmā razaqnāhum, the function of this particle was recorded. Here too what is recounted is a taking of a share from a whole, not a transfer.

The wide disputes about Mary and Jesus (ʿĪsā) are not the subject of this sūra and I do not carry them here; the verse passes over this matter in a single sentence and I pass over it too.

Root ص د ق (ṣ-d-q): to be true, the word's matching reality. Ṣidq (truthfulness), ṣadīq (a friend — one whose word is trustworthy), ṣadaqa (what is given; the act that confirms the giver's claim), ṣiddīq (one who confirms much) are from the same root.

In the tafʿīl form (ṣaddaqa): he confirmed, he counted true. And this is the exact opposite of the verb kadhdhaba (he counted false) treated in al-Māʿūn — the same pattern, the opposite root.

That is, the verse uses the opposite of the verb at the opening of Sūrat al-Māʿūn: there yukadhdhibu bi'd-dīn (the one who counts the religion false), here ṣaddaqat bi-kalimāti rabbihā (she who counted true the words of her Lord). Both take their object with the particle bi.

بِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّهَا وَكُتُبِهِ — "the words of her Lord and His books."

Two things at once: words and books. The two are counted separately.

Kalimāt — the words of God; in the Qurʾān it is used in the sense of revelation, of ruling, and of the decree that an event should come about. Kutub — the books sent down. At al-Bayyina 98/3 the root ك ت ب was treated in connection with kutubun qayyima; I do not repeat it. In one sentence: the concrete sense of the root is to join, to sew, and "to write is to bind."

A note on variant readings: it is recorded in the sources that this word is read both as kutubihī (plural) and as kitābihī (singular). The difference between the two readings is whether the confirming is directed at all the books or at a particular book. Because I am not sure to which imam of the variant readings it belongs I write no name, and I make no preference between the two readings; both are meaningful.

The sūra closes with a grammatical surprise.

قَانِتِين — masculine plural. The expected form would have been qānitāt: the feminine plural, just as it occurred in the fifth verse (qānitātin).

That is, the same sūra used the same word in the feminine seven verses earlier; at the end it uses the masculine. This is data enough to draw attention.

Root ق ن ت (q-n-t): the sense of the root is continuous and silent obedience; it also carries the sense of standing long in the presence. Qunūt — standing in prayer and supplicating. At the centre of the word there is not a noise or a display but continuity and silence.

The classical explanations for the grammatical question:

All three have been defended in the classical sources. I do not impose a preference.

But there is an observation that stands independently of the explanations and I record it.

The first explanation — that it states a genus — is the normal working of Arabic grammar and is probably correct. However, in the fifth verse of the sūra the feminine form of the same word had been used; that is, the text knows how to use the feminine form and does use it. That the masculine form comes at the end is not something grammar makes necessary but the choosing of one of two possible forms.

And the consequence of the form chosen is this: Mary is entered into a category not defined by sex. The last word of the sūra, in recounting a woman, positions her not "among the women" but "among those who obey".

I write this not as a ruling but as a record of a work the text does.

And a support from within the Qurʾān: in the address directed to Mary in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān there is a similar structure: "O Mary! Be devoutly obedient to your Lord (uqnutī), prostrate, and bow with those who bow" (Āl ʿImrān 3/43). The maʿa'r-rākiʿīn at the end of the sentence is masculine plural too — "with those who bow", not the feminine form.

That is, about the same person, around the same family of verbs, the same grammatical choice has been made in two different sūras. This repetition takes the choice out of being accidental. I impose no conclusion; I record the data.