Maria the Copt (Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah): Difference between revisions

Maria the Copt (Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah) (view source)

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 ==Historicity==
-As noted above, the story of Mariyah is deeply reflective of the story of Abraham (Ibrahim)'s concubine Hagar (Hajar) in the Bible. Like Hajar she is Egyptian, and the tradition associates a number of sayings of the prophet to Muhammad that the Muslims should treat the Copts of Egypt well based on the prophet's love of Mariyah; similar hadith traditions exist about Hajar. Like Hajar Mariyah provided a son to the otherwise son-less Muhammad. The fact that Muhammad had so many wives but so few children in an age when it was considered a sign of god's  favor for a man to have many children must have caused suspicion to arise--which is likely why the Qur'an verse above specifically mentions Muhammad by name, which is unusual in the Qur'an, and states that he is not the father of any of the men of the believers (and the verse itself is likely an interpolation into the text after the death of the prophet). Like Hajar Mariyah became a devout believer in the message of her prophet, and like Hajar Mariyah aroused the jealousy of the prophet's household  due to her youth and her fertility in bearing a son for the prophet. These parallels, as well as the convenient connection of her to some otherwise hard-to-explain verses in the Qur'an, have led some scholars to conclude that Mariyah either never existed or her story was embellished beyond recognition by elements lifted wholesale from the Hajar narrative<ref name="GordonHain2017_4">{{cite book | editor1 = Matthew Gordon | editor2 = Kathryn A. Hain | date = 2017 | title = Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History | publisher = Oxford University Press | pages = 228| isbn = 978-0-19-062218-3 | oclc = 1014474115 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F3QzDwAAQBAJ}}</ref>. The constant pairing of Hajar and Mariyah in later Muslim debates about the concept of "umm-walad" in Islamic law underscore the close connection between these two figures.
+As noted above, the story of Mariyah is deeply reflective of the story of Abraham (Ibrahim)'s concubine Hagar (Hajar) in the Bible. Like Hajar she is Egyptian, and the tradition associates a number of sayings of the prophet to Muhammad that the Muslims should treat the Copts of Egypt well based on the prophet's love of Mariyah; similar hadith traditions exist about Hajar. Like Hajar Mariyah provided a son to the otherwise son-less Muhammad. The fact that Muhammad had so many wives but so few children in an age when it was considered a sign of god's  favor for a man to have many children must have caused suspicion to arise--which is likely why the Qur'an verse above specifically mentions Muhammad by name, which is unusual in the Qur'an, and states that he is not the father of any of the men of the believers (which has led to the theory that the verse itself is perhaps an interpolation into the text after the death of the prophet). Like Hajar Mariyah became a devout believer in the message of her prophet, and like Hajar Mariyah aroused the jealousy of the prophet's household  due to her youth and her fertility in bearing a son for the prophet. These parallels, as well as the convenient connection of her to some otherwise hard-to-explain verses in the Qur'an, have led some scholars to conclude that Mariyah either never existed or her story was embellished beyond recognition by elements lifted wholesale from the Hajar narrative<ref name="GordonHain2017_4">{{cite book | editor1 = Matthew Gordon | editor2 = Kathryn A. Hain | date = 2017 | title = Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History | publisher = Oxford University Press | pages = 228| isbn = 978-0-19-062218-3 | oclc = 1014474115 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F3QzDwAAQBAJ}}</ref>. The constant pairing of Hajar and Mariyah in later Muslim debates about the concept of "umm-walad" in Islamic law underscore the close connection between these two figures.
 In addition to the biblical connections to Hajar, the tradition closely associated Muhammad with Ibrahim. In the sirah of Ibn Hisham/Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad is said to remark upon meeting Ibrahim that he is the person that most resembles himself<ref>{{Cite web| title = When Ibrahim (AS) Met Muhammad (SAW) {{!}} About Islam| author = | work = About Islam| date = | access-date = 24 November 2021| url = https://aboutislam.net/multimedia/videos/when-ibrahim-as-met-muhammad-saw/| quote = }}</ref>. In giving birth to "Ibrahim" Mariyah brings the entire circle around full in respect to the connection of her narrative to that of Ibrahim and Hajar. Even her name has antecedents--in the Shahnahmah (the epic poem describing the lives of the pre-Islamic shahs of Iran) the emperor Maurice (582-602 CE) gave his daughter Mariyah in marriage to the Persian shah Khusraw Parviz (590-628 CE). He ended up leaving her, though, for the love of his youth, Shirin. The royal antecedent for Mariyah is fitting, considering how at the time of the compilation of the Islamic narratives of the sirah and the hadith Muslim claimants to the throne of the caliph were claiming royal lineage through their slave mothers and citing the example of Mariyah<ref name="Öhrnberg1984">{{cite book | author = Kaj Öhrnberg | date = 1984 | title = Mariya Al-qibtiyya Unveiled | publisher = Finnish Oriental Society | pages = 298 | oclc = 28522109 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=s_ZSwQEACAAJ}}</ref>. In addition to all of the above, the death of young Ibrahim serves to underscore the status of Muhammad as "khaatim al-nabiyyin" خاتم النبيين or the "seal of the prophets.<ref name="Powers2011_5">{{cite book | author = David Powers | date = 15 March 2011 | title = Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Press | pages = 57| isbn = 978-0-8122-2149-7 | oclc = 1037937026 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=OUxWN1VBnBEC}}</ref>" Considering the literary and biblical allusions, it seems that Mariyah in fact either never existed<ref name="Öhrnberg1984_2">{{cite book | author = Kaj Öhrnberg | date = 1984 | title = Mariya Al-qibtiyya Unveiled | publisher = Finnish Oriental Society | pages = 302 | oclc = 28522109 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=s_ZSwQEACAAJ}}</ref> or the major details of her story were literary embellishments meant to strengthen the connection of Muhammad to Ibrahim, provide a link with Muhammad to the people of Egypt, justify the norms around the "umm-walad" in the Islamic shari'ah, underline the doctrine of the seal of the prophets and reinforce the idea that Muhammad "Is not the father of any of your men."