Vocabulary

When (idh): The word “when” in “When the wife of ʿImrān said” is either in the accusative case due to an implied verb “remember,” meaning recall this historical event and recount it, or it is in the accusative case due to “All-hearing, All-knowing” in the previous verse.(1) However, the implied verb “remember” is more appropriate because the words “All-hearing, All-knowing” are not exclusive to the story of the family of ʿImrān and also encompass other past events. This means that God chose the blessed tree of the family of Abraham and the family of ʿImrān because He hears everyone’s words and knows what is in everyone’s hearts.

Vowed (nadhart): A “vow” (nadhr) is making obligatory upon oneself something that is not obligatory in order to bring about something.(2) Vow in the language means fear, and “warning” (indhār) means to frighten.(3) The one who makes a vow out of fear of harm befalling them or losing something good is called a vower (nādhir).

On this basis, the origin of a vow is fear, whether fear of the arrival of a “threat” or fear of losing a “promise.”

Dedicated (muḥarraran, lit. “freed”): The intended meaning is not the freeing of a slave or liberation from slavery, because the child whose birth was awaited was not a slave for the wife of ʿImrān to free. Rather, the meaning is freeing the child from parental guardianship and management and dedicating them to service in the temple instead.(4)

Written composition is also called taḥrīr (“liberation”) when the logical order of topics in the writing is observed; if a writer deviates from this logical order, their writing will not be “liberated” (muḥarrar), because they have constrained the scope of the topic.(5)

Accept it from me (fa-taqabbal minnī): This phrase means “so accept him from me” and the masculine pronoun is used because the mother thought her child would be male.

It can be said that the word “what” (mā) mentioned previously in “I dedicate to You what is in my belly, in consecration” grammatically justifies the masculine pronoun, just as it permits the masculine form of the passive participle (dedicated). However, from a semantic perspective, it was the wife of ʿImrān’s confidence that the child would be male that led to the tone of regret in the dialogue when a daughter was born.

“Accept” (taqabbul) means to accept graciously, not merely to accept, as “accept” (qabila) differs from “graciously accept” (taqabbala): the first conveys basic acceptance of an action, as in “Do they not know that it is God who accepts the repentance of His servants”,(6) while the second indicates complete acceptance, which requires piety, as in “God accepts only from the Godwary”.(7)