The Nature of Mary’s Mother’s Vow

Through this vow, Mary’s mother (a.s.) established a special covenant between herself and God: she renounced her guardianship and authority over her child and in fact entrusted the choice and selection of appropriate work to the child; not that she wanted to compel her child into service, requiring the child’s permission. With this explanation, doubts such as whether her vow was unauthorized (fuḍūlī) and whether an unauthorized vow is valid or not, are resolved.

When she discovered that her child was female, she said with regret and sorrow: “My Lord, I have borne a female [child]”,(10) because she had wanted a male child to serve as a caretaker of the “Sacred House” (Bayt al-Maqdis). Indeed, she did not want a male child to solve her personal problem; her only desire was for her child to be a servant of God’s house.(11)

Note: The belief or hope of ʿImrān’s wife was that the child would be male; however, this certainty or hope was not a condition that would make Mary’s mother’s vow conditional. If the concept of condition is mentioned in the definition of vow (nadhr), it is of the nature of a predominant qualification; meaning that vows are predominantly conditional rather than absolute, not that the essence of a vow is constituted by conditions.

The point is that the vow in the verse “My Lord, I dedicate to You what is in my belly, in consecration” is absolute, not conditional. The possibility of it being conditional is rejected by the premises of wisdom, and since there is no evidence of abrogation in Islamic law, this can be used as evidence to establish the validity of absolute vows.

The explanation of this matter will come in the discussion of allusions and subtleties.