Two Births Beyond the Ordinary

As to how Maryam (peace be upon her) conceived, the account relates that an angel came to her, and that she took him for a man and warned him, if he were a God-fearing person, to keep his distance. He answered that he was an angel sent from Allah. He breathed into the opening of her garment, and she conceived. This is the qudrah of Allah (swt).

The sūrah thus sets side by side two births beyond the ordinary course — extraordinary, if not strictly to be called miraculous: a child granted to Zakariyyā (peace be upon him) in extreme old age, and a child born to Maryam (peace be upon her) without a father and without a husband. To anyone without children who longs for a child, the sūrah holds out considerable hope.

The declaration that he had been commanded to pray and to give zakāh serves the same argument: he must himself worship, he is obliged to worship, and he is therefore not himself an object of worship. The passage is full of such indications that he is not God — and then Allah states it plainly.