Allah Has Chosen You

Allah (swt) says: wa idh qālati al-malāʾikatu yā Maryamu inna Allāha iṣṭafāki wa ṭahharaki wa-ṣṭafāki ʿalā nisāʾi al-ʿālamīn. Allah (swt) says: and remember when the angel said, O Maryam, verily Allah has chosen you. So Maryam (peace be upon her) was the chosen woman out of mankind. Among the women, it is Maryam (peace be upon her).

And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says in the hadith — and this hadith is authentic, and has been narrated in different forms by many, in many books of hadith, but the summary of it is — that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: khayru nisāʾi al-ʿālamīna arbaʿ, the best of the women of the world are four. And then he said: Maryam bint ʿImrān, and Āsiyah bint Muzāḥim, and Khadījah bint Khuwaylid, and Fāṭimah bint Muhammad. These are the four best women of the world.

Now, what is the ranking among them, among these four? There is a hadith, and that hadith says that the best of the women are Maryam — thumma, and then — after Maryam, Fāṭimah bint Muhammad, then Khadījah, and then Āsiyah. Now, in terms of Maryam being the best, this is something about which there is very little dispute, because she has been mentioned in the Qur'an as the one who was chosen.

And we notice something interesting: that these four women are related somehow to the anbiyāʾ. Two of them raised up a Nabī. And these two were? Maryam: she raised up ʿĪsā. And who? Āsiyah: she raised up Mūsā — even though she's not his mother, she's the one who raised him up. You can see that the nurturing that the woman gives to the child, in bringing up the child as a strong Muslim character, can elevate the woman to the highest level. And then we have a wife of a Nabī, and that is Khadījah. And finally we have a daughter of a Nabī, and that is Fāṭimah bint Muhammad. These are the best of the women of the world.

There are a few aḥādīth — but all of them are weak; there is doubt in their sanad, so keep in mind that you cannot use this as evidence; it's just information that could be true or false — that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) will marry Maryam and Āsiyah in Jannah. There are a few hadith mentioned, but as I said, all of them have a doubtful sanad. Some of the scholars did adopt this opinion, and some of them said: we don't know. But I'm mentioning it to you as something that has been mentioned in the books of history, and Ibn Kathīr talks about it.