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Maria the Copt (Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah): Difference between revisions
Maria the Copt (Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah) (view source)
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==Historicity== | ==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 narratives lifted from the Hajar narrative. | |||
In addition to the biblical connections to Hajar, the tradition closely associated Muhammad with Ibrahim. | |||