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Surah Ali 'Imran — 3:36

فَلَمَّا وَضَعَتْهَا قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّى وَضَعْتُهَآ أُنثَىٰ وَٱللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا وَضَعَتْ وَلَيْسَ ٱلذَّكَرُ كَٱلْأُنثَىٰ ۖ وَإِنِّى سَمَّيْتُهَا مَرْيَمَ وَإِنِّىٓ أُعِيذُهَا بِكَ وَذُرِّيَّتَهَا مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ

Falammaa waqa'athaa qaalat Rabbi innee wada'tuhaaa unsaa wallaahu a'lamu bimaa wada'at wa laisaz zakaru kalunsaa wa innee sammaituhaa Maryama wa innee u'eezuhaa bika wa zurriyyatahaa minash Shaitaanir Rajeem

When she gave birth, she said, "My Lord, I have given birth to a girl" — and God knew well what she had delivered, and the male is not like the female — "and I have named her Maryam, and I seek your protection for her and her offspring from Satan, the rejected."

Reflection

Two voices share this verse: a mother reporting a birth, and an aside from outside the scene noting that God knew what had been delivered. The clause about male and female has been read as her own weighing of the child against expectation, and equally as a correction of that weighing, and the tradition has never settled it. She closes by naming the girl and asking shelter for her and her descendants, which is the first thing said over Maryam.

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