The Qur'an in its historical context (pdf - Islam and Christian-Muslim ...

MARY IN THE QUR’AN
sweet, copious, and cool water. One of these we call Palm, the other
Olive, to the present day, for it was not between two trees, but between
two fountains, that the goddess Leto was delivered of her children.
(Plutarch [d. after 119 CE], Life of Pelopidas, 16.3–4 29 )
All the various Hellenistic and Latin variants of the original myth of Leto giving
birth to Apollo by a palm tree reflect the borrowing and adaptation by groups who
reshaped it for their own objectives and needs. Appropriations of ancient myths
were common in the ancient world, and the early Christians were no exception.
The palm-tree story that found its way to sura Maryam is a reworking of Leto’s
labor. It is about a distressed pregnant woman (Leto/Mary) who seeks an isolated
place (Delos/a remote spot), sits by the trunk of a palm tree next to a stream
(Inopos/a brook), and delivers a holy child (Apollo/Jesus).
It is nevertheless unlikely that the myth of Leto was the direct source for sura
Maryam. As was aforementioned, the concise version found in the latter has two
parts: Mary’s labor and delivery, and the miracle. We might therefore suspect that
there was a stage when Leto’s myth was borrowed and applied to Mary. This
would reflect an attempt by a Christian group, probably converts who had
previously worshipped Leto and Apollo, to modify the story by replacing them
with Mary and Jesus. After that, the appropriated story was appended with a
miracle typical of Jesus: the dead palm tree providing fruit and water for Mary.
Indeed, a possible Christian group among whom such a story could have been
circulated is the Christian community of Najran, in West Arabia, who, according
to Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari, used to worship a palm tree before converting to
Christianity. 30 If that was the case, then adapting the Leto myth to Mary would
have permitted them to keep part of their belief, yet give it a Christian guise. 31
The flight of Mary and Jesus
The Qur’anic story of the flight of Mary and Jesus to escape what is described in
the gospels as the Massacre of the Innocents (Matthew 2:13–18), provides a
vague description of the site to which they fled (Q. 23:50).
We made the son of Mary and his mother a sign to mankind, and gave
them a shelter on a rabwatin dhati qararin wa-ma’inin (peaceful hillside
watered by a fresh spring).
Verse 23:50 does not specify the location of the rabwa, and only a few Muslim
historians have associated this passage with the flight to Egypt. For instance,
al-Tabari says in his Ta’rikh that the rabwa is located in Egypt, and quotes
the Qur’anic verse in question as a proof of the flight’s historicity. 32 Similarly,
al-Maqrizi (d. 845/1442 CE) locates the rabwa in the Egyptian town of Bahnasa,
because, according to him, the Copts say so. 33
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