Conception of Mary (a)
How did Mary conceive Jesus? Was it by marrying an angel or by a breath of an angel?
According to the verses of the Qur'an, Mary did not become pregnant in the usual way. The words that the Qur'an uses for describing the conception of Mary is "we breathed into her." Moreover, it considers the creation of Jesus (a) as a miracle similar to that of Adam (a). In addition, it is stated in hadiths that Mary became pregnant by breathing of Gabriel, and there was no intimacy.
Gabriel gave Mary the good news about God's will regarding her. Mary was surprised about her conception with no intimacy, but she was reassured that this is an easy task for God.
Incarnation of Gabriel before Marry
Mary has chosen a place in the temple for worship. God sent a messenger, whom the Qur'an refers to as a "spirit," to Mary. Most exegetes maintain the "spirit" in this verse means Gabriel. Gabriel appeared to Mary as a human being. Mary was frightened when she saw him and said, "I seek refuge to God from you." Gabriel introduced himself as God's messenger and gave her the good news that God wanted to give her a pure son, "whose name is Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, distinguished in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near [to God]." Mary said, "How shall I have a child when no human being has ever touched me?" The archangel reassured her and said, "your Lord says, 'It is simple for Me.'"
Breath of the Angel
Mary became pregnant. The Qur'an does not give any explicit explanation about how this happened. The only expression regarding this incident is "we breathed into her." According to Qur'anic verses, the creation of Jesus was a miracle and was different from that of other people. The Qur'an regards his creation as similar to that of Adam, "Indeed the case of Jesus with Allah is like the case of Adam" (3:59) at they both had no father. For Jesus, there was only Mary, his mother, who had never contacted with any man. The Qur'an reads, "and Mary, daughter of Imran, who guarded the chastity of her womb, so We breathed into it of Our spirit" (66:12). There are hadiths that explicitly mention that there was no sexual intimacy, and conception was only the result of the breathing of the angle. Imam al-Baqir (a) says, "Gabriel grabbed the collars of Mary's shirt and breathed into them."
In the book Tafsir nemoneh, Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi has pointed out that in the verse about Jesus, the act of God was described as creation, "He creates," but in some verses before that about the birth of Jhon, there is "He does." This exegete of the Qur'an suggests that this difference alludes to the different ways of creation of these two prophets: one in usual and the other in a miraculous way.
Note
- This article is mainly taken from "باردار شدن حضرت مریم" on Persian Wikipasokh.