The Pains of Childbirth

The angel Jibrīl came to Maryam, and he blew into her. Allah (swt) says:

Fa-nafakhnā fīhā min rūḥinā: so We blew into her from Our Rūḥ. And ʿĪsā was created by the kalimah, the word — and that is kun. Kun fa-yakūn: that's how Sayyidunā ʿĪsā was created.

So she became pregnant. Fa-ḥamalathu fa-ntabadhat bihi makānan qaṣiyyā: and she withdrew with him to a far place. The far place is Bayt Laḥm. She was pregnant, and she went towards Bayt Laḥm, Bethlehem. And it seems that her pregnancy was concealed, and no one knew about it. She was able to hide it: throughout her pregnancy, nobody knew that she was pregnant.

And when she felt that her delivery was approaching, she left Jerusalem — she just went out of Jerusalem. And when she got towards Bayt Laḥm, she started feeling the pain of delivery. So she fell down under a palm tree. Allah (swt) says: fa-ajāʾahā al-makhāḍu ilā jidhʿi al-nakhlah — and the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a date palm.

And I want you to imagine now that you are over there. Imagine this situation. Maryam (peace be upon her) has been hiding this pregnancy for nine months — that's difficult. And now she's leaving her town, alone, with no help. And now she's feeling that pain, and it drives her, and she falls down under a palm tree.

It was so difficult on her that she said: yā laytanī mittu qabla hādhā wa kuntu nasyan mansiyyā — would that I had died before this, and had been forgotten and out of sight. I wish that I had died before this. Sayyidatunā Maryam was ʿafīfah: she was chaste and righteous. And now she's going to deliver a child, and she has never been married. And she knows the tongues of the people, and she knows the harm that they would cause her and her family — the righteous family of Āl ʿImrān.

It became so difficult on her. She said: I wish that I had never lived before this, and I wish that nobody had known me, and I was forgotten; I didn't exist.