Sam Shamoun the greatest liar of 21century is accusing Quran to describe the miraculous conception of Jesus in a very graphic way. His accusation can be divide into following categories.

1- Quran uses the term ‘farj’ which is a person’s private [here Mary’s vagina] part in the context of conception of Jesus.
2- The conception of Jesus (peace be upon him) in the Quran, as described by the Tafasir is gross and abusive.

3- To whom the Quran refer in 66:12 as ‘he’.
Before I start, I want to inform the readers that when I am going to use the word ‘God’ to refer to ‘Allah’ and ‘Yaweh’ for the God of the Bible.

Refutation of Allegation #1:

Sam Shaoun claims that Quran uses the word ‘farj’ to mean Mary’s vagina and he furthur twisted the translations alleges that Allah breathed into Mary’s vagina through angel Gabriel. He quoted the verses of the Quran which talks about how Maryam (A.S) got pregnant. He quoted Surah 21:90-91,66:12 regarding the verses of Maryam’s conception of Jesus (A.S). To further cement his claim he also quoted 24:30-31 and 23:125 to mean ‘farj’ as private parts. For the sake of brevity, I would quote only 21:90-91 which talks about the conception of Jesus. The verse says:

وَالَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهَا مِن رُّوحِنَا وَجَعَلْنَاهَا وَابْنَهَا آيَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ

And [mention] the one who guarded her chastity, so We blew into her [garment] through Our angel [Gabriel], and We made her and her son a sign for the worlds.

Farj – used as an honour:

None of the translators uses the word vagina while translating the word farj which is confirmed here . About the other verses, they are also translated as chastity not private parts , proof here . The angel breathed into the garment of Maryam (A.S) not in her vagina. So doesn’t farj means a person’s private area? Yes it does! But only when it is referring to private parts like in one of the Hadith (Sunan of Abu Dawud, Book 11, Number 2126). Arabs sometimes refer to farj in the context of chastity or honor. A narration below is one of the few examples.

A Shiite Muslim, Al-Kulayni (d. 329 A.H.) records;

عن أبي عبدالله (ع) في تزويج أم كلثوم فقال: إن ذلك فرج غصبناه

It is narrated from Abu Abdullah –on his be peace- he said about the marriage of Umm Kulthum. So he said: “That this was the honor (farj) that was coerced from us” (al-Kafi 5/494 Narration no. 9536. Al-Majlisi has accepted it as authentic)

Now here Abu Abdullah (i.e. Hassain bin Ali) is talking about his sister Umm Kulthum and it needs no elaboration that a brother –who is a learned imam- would refer to his sister as ‘honor’ and will never refer to her privacy even in his imagination, let alone mention it to others.

Farj- used as an opening [here of the garment]:

Commentators use the word farj here as a narrow opening of Maryam’s garment [not vagina since every garment has opening and it makes more sense] not vagina because the word for vagina is ‘mahbil’, if angel blew into the Maryam’s vagina the word ‘mahbil’ would have been used but that’s not the case, use of the word farj has opened the gates of two meanings. According To Lane’s lexicon ‘farj’ also means an opening.

It is unanimously agreed by commentators that the term ‘farj’ here means ‘the narrow opening of Maryam’s garment’. Some of the examples include:

1. Al-Tabari (d. 310 A.H.) states, “It is the opening of her garment.” (Tafsir al-Tabari, 23/500).

2. Al-Qurtubi (d. 671 A.H.) says it refers her garment and not her private part. (Tafsir Al-Jami’ al-Ahkam al-Qur’an, 18/203)

3. Al-Zamakhshari (d. 538 A.H.) states it’s about her garment. (Tafsir al-Kashshaf 4/573)

4- Al-Suyuti (d. 911 A.H.) says the very same. (Tafsir Jalalayn 1/754)

Refutation of allegation #2:

Let us jump to Surah 19:22-23, where a similar verse describes the conception of Isa (peace be upon him) and let us see the relevant commentary of Tafsir Ibn Kathir in this regard. Note the word farj isn’t used in this verse; Surah 19:22-23 says,

“And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, "Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten."

Ibn Kathir’s commentary:

Ibn Kathir remarks on these verses: “Allah, the Exalted, informs about Maryam that when Jibril had spoken to her about what Allah said, she accepted the decree of Allah. Many scholars of the predecessors (Salaf) have mentioned that at this point the angel (who was Jibril) blew into the opening of the garment [farj which also means an opening] that she was wearing. Then the breath descended until it entered into her vagina and she conceived the child by the leave of Allah.” (Online Source)

First we should dig in the term ‘spirit’. Tafsir Al-Jalalayn while commenting on S 38:72 defines it as something that gives life, from a hadith (Sahih Bukhari, Book #55, Hadith #549) that says that an angel come to write about a person’s lifetime and then blow his spirit to give life to fetus which is in the womb, similarly God of the bible also blew into Adam’s nostrils [Genesis 2:7]. It would be foolish to say that God love to breath in someone’s nostrils, Adam was there with God but Eisa (peace be upon him) was to nourish in the womb of Maryam (A.S). The breath itself reaches the uterus through vagina [as in case of Adam it was his nose, so it’s just an opening into the body] as this is only opening into the uterus! Now it’s not mentioned anywhere that embryo Eisa was there in the womb when it happened. If you read furthermore, the Tafsir ibn Kathir says.

“After this, her menstrual bleeding ceased and she experienced what the pregnant woman experiences of sickness, hunger, change of color and there was even a change in the manner of her speech.”

It means Eisa (peace be upon him) wasn’t there in the womb of Virgin. Maryam(A.S) thus conceived her son through this breath which travelled through her vagina and into the uterus (womb), where Esa (peace be upon him) was nourished like every human born of a woman, Adam didn’t nourish in the womb of a female that’s why his spirit took the route of nostrils as the Bible says.

Refutation of allegation #3:

Sam Shoun in his gown of crusades alleged that to whom Quran refer to in 66:12, he remarked :

“The second problem is caused by the Arabic language. In Arabic, Allah does not say: ‘so we breathed into her of our spirit’, but ‘into him’. Who is it, into whom the spirit was breathed? The embryo 'Isa? That is difficult to accept, for then 'Isa would have existed in Mary's womb already before the spirit was breathed into her. That would mean that Allah created 'Isa beforehand or that he existed before he was conceived. Both options are out of the question for Islamic scholars.

Who is it then, into whom the Spirit from Allah was breathed? IT IS ALMOST UNSPEAKABLE, but the last expression in the previous sentence, which is masculine in Arabic, IS THE EXPRESSION FOR MARY'S GENITALS. The literal meaning of Allah's statement in Arabic is then, ‘so we breathed into her vagina [farj] of our spirit.’ This turns the stomachs of some of our readers.”

Surah 66:12 of the Quran reads:

وَمَرْيَمَ ابْنَتَ عِمْرَانَ الَّتِي أَحْصَنَتْ فَرْجَهَا فَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا وَصَدَّقَتْ بِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّهَا وَكُتُبِهِ وَكَانَتْ مِنَ الْقَانِتِينَ

Dr.Ghali: “And Maryam (Mary) daughter of Imran, who kept safe her private parts, (i.e., safeguarded) so We breathed in it of Our Spirit, and she sincerely (believed) in the Words of her Lord, and His Books; and she was one of the devout.”

Actually none of the translators translated as ‘unto him’ but as ‘there in(Pickthall) , in it (Dr.Ghali), into her (Yusuf Ali, Shakir)’. Again the Sam Shoun is playing his dirty tricks to confuse the readers and exposes his bigot nature; the word فِيهِ (fihi) is used in this verse as a masculine singular object pronoun and means the farj[opening] of Maryam (A.S)’s sleeves or garments as garments are treated as masculine in Arabic. We have earlier proved that Isa (peace be upon him) wasn’t there in the womb of Maryam (A.S) and she conceived him after she received the breadth from Gabriel which blew into her garment not her vagina.

LET ME TURN THE TABLES!

Before I come to the bone of contention i.e. Luke 1:35, let me reply to Sam Shamoun’s argument on this verse.

Argument 1: The word come upon is used in Luke 2:25 and Luke 3:22, about Simon’s righteousness and Jesus’ baptism.

My Response: The Greek word used in Luke 1:35 is ἐπέρχομαι (Strong’s G1904-eperchomai), and in context of spirit coming upon someone is used only in Luke 1:35 and Acts 1:8, but the spirit when came upon the disciples in acts, one of the disciples of Jesus Mary Magdalene didn’t conceive any baby so it must have come upon them in a different way. The Luke 1:35 uses this word for explaining the impregnation of Mary, as something is coming upon her as a husband come upon his wife.

Argument 2: Jesus was transfigured by clouds in Luke 9:34.

My Response: The term overshadow doesn’t always mean that a person is shadowed by some cloud, we should have to see the context also as to where and why the word is used and what possible meanings it may have, which I have discussed below.

Catholic assumption about Luke1:35 : The Catholic view about the birth of Jesus can be put in a nutshell by this simple picture.

Holy Ghost hovered over Mary exhorted creative energy on her womb while Yahweh was overshadowing her with clouds and boom! Jesus was conceived. Infact, early church fathers gave many theories which we will view in the later text and this isn’t the first place where God of the bible sounds pornographic, the intention of God to have martial relationship with his people is also reflected in.

In Ezekiel, God compares Bride Israel to a young woman, using some striking imagery to describe his love for her:

Then you grew up, became tall, and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown.Yet you were naked and bare.Then I passed by you and saw that you were ready for love; so I SPREAD MY CLOAK OVER YOU and covered your nakedness. I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became mine, declares the Lord God. - Ezekiel 16:7-8

The phrase "spread my cloak over you" was a Hebrew euphemism for conjugal relations (see Ruth 3:9). This passage should give us an idea of the basic goodness of the marital act as God designed and intended it.

Ruth 3:9 : And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: SPREAD THEREFORE THY SKIRT OVER THINE handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible: Spread thy skirt ... - The phrase indicates receiving and acknowledging her as a wife.

Due to the nebulous and somewhat graphical language of Luke 1:35 several theories are proposed depending which sect of Christianity you are talking about, since Catholics aren’t the only Christians in the scene.

Intimacy with Yahweh:

The language of Luke 1:35 made some Christians (Mormons) to believe that Yahweh was sexually involved with Mary. Luke 1:35 states, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon you and the power of the most high (Yahweh) will overshadow you. This makes some Christian to come to conclusion when Holy ghost came upon Mary she became unconscious and Jehovah had an intercourse with her.

To further explain as to why he reach this conclusion on Luke 1:35, he said,

Intimacy with Holy Ghost:

Luke 1:35 says that holy ghost will come upon Mary and the power of the most high will overshadowed her. A Christian source remarked, 'overshadowed' is just another delicate discreet way of saying a man got on top of a woman, casting his shadow over her, and entered her with his penis and 'made love' to her. This is just the good old-fashioned missionary way of producing babies. The woman gets 'overshadowed'...or as King Solomon via the Holy Spirit said... His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. (Song of Solomon 2: 6) Because her lover is over top of her.... and he is overshadowing her .....'and his banner over me was love' (2: 4).
Do clouds penetrate into the womb ?.... Does gas produce babies ? The answer obviously NO. The Lord created sperm to break thru the egg of a woman to combine with the cell of a woman to reproduce into a new body for a new soul. That's the Lord's biology, that's His embryology. That's the Lord's sexuality.

  Mathew 1:20  But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is CONCEIVED IN her is of the Holy Ghost.

And the conception happened INSIDE Mary's womb.

Luke 2:21 And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was CONCEIVED IN THE WOMB.

Some Christians are of the view that Holy Ghost was the spouse of Mary. Can a spirit have sex with humans? According to a Christian source, there is a possibility, according to Zohar [a book on Jewish kaablah] and the Alphabet of Ben Sira [wrote by Jesus bin Sirach], Lilith was Adam's first wife who later became a succubus[female demon]. She left Adam and refused to return to the Garden of Eden after she mated with archangel Samael (who was an angel) and according to another source, even Pope Sylvester also had a sexual relationship with a succubus. However, Catholics kept this relationship in just spiritual realm; Saint Maximillian Kolbe say that the relationship between the Spirit of God and the Theotokos is redolent of a marriage in the following ways: As a husband and wife become "one flesh" in marriage (Genesis 2:24) yet remain distinct persons, so Mary and the Spirit are two distinct persons who share a deep spiritual union. As human spouses cooperate in giving life to their children, so, analogously, the Spirit and Mary "cooperate" in communicating spiritual life to us. (H.M. Manteau-Bonamy, The Immaculate Conception and the Holy Spirit: The Marian Teachings of Saint Maximillian Kolbe (Libertyville, IL: Franciscan Marytown Pr, 1977 ) , So how does husband and wife become one? Of course after sexual intercourse .Levi Jones, associate pastor of theology in U.S.A see the impregnation of Mary analogous to Zeus’s relationship with Leda.

As said earlier it is possible that a spirit can have sexual relationship with a human. However, Jesus is refereed to son as the son of Yahweh i.e. born of Yahweh’s sperm or semen and the spirit act as a vector in transferring the sperms of Yahweh into Mary’s womb probably in an old fashioned way. We see that Holy Spirit can take physical forms such as dove, thus it possible that it came upon her and overshadowed her. According to a source, Holy Spirit is also designated as the most high and he was the one overshadowing her and ejaculating the seed of Yahweh into her. Some Christian may say if this copulation then Mary is no longer a virgin which goes against Isaiah 7:14, Oh really? The word used for defining the virginity of Mary in the New Testament is παρθένος (strong’s G3933-parthenos), however! It also mean a marriageable maiden; Infact in Septuagint, this term is also applied for woman who are already deflowered women and harlots.

As for Isaiah 7:14, the R.S.V. 1952 Bible which was produced by Thirty-two scholars of highest eminence, and reviewed by fifty representatives of cooperating denominations, gives its translation as;

“Behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Imman’u-el.”

And in the footnote to this verse it says;

“Young woman, Hebrew ‘almah, feminine of ‘elem, young man (1 Sam.17.56, 20.22); the word appears in Gen.24.43; Ex.2.8; Ps.68.25, and elsewhere where it is translated “young woman,” “girl,” “maiden.”

(The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version 1952, Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger, Oxford University Press, New York 1962)

Intimacy with Gabriel and Jospeh:

In a book Unveiling God's Presence in the Bible By Tommy C. SEAY, he claims that it was the angle Gabriel sexually involved with Mary and this claim is inspired by his holy ghost (pg297-301). Bible Review Magazine 1902-1903 By Harry et al Wright, he claims that when ghost came upon both both Mary and Joseph when they were in bed and clouds overshadowed them, they committed sex unconsciously and this how Jesus was born (pg.113-114). All these books can be read on Google books.

Strange Arts:

Early Church fathers unable to understand how Mary became impregnated with Jesus, posed different drawings. One of them was that a Yahweh is oozing semen from his mouth through a tube which is going beneath Mary’s skirt.

Summary & Conclusion: Even the spirit brought the breath of God, there was no sex at all, the conception was totally spiritual etc etc. The point is that Luke 1:35 is at the time so graphic and nebulous that it made Christians to came up with some nasty and promiscuous thoughts about the conception. On the other hand, Quran is very clear and free of such imagery. Christians should check their own sources before criticizing ours. Infact, both Mathew and Paul never made any claim about the virgin birth, why? I leave this answer to the Christians.

Qur’an refers to Mary, the most chaste woman ever in the most excellent manner and in the language befitting the Divine Majesty. This is why Muslims never have had any graphical or immodest description of her conception, whereas the Biblical description speaks of a human mind behind the narrative which brings in a mental picture which has lead to all the non-sense shown above. And perhaps all this was a reflection of Greek mythology cf. Zeus’ relation with Leda.

Disclaimer! Whatever is given in the “turn the tables” section is just a showing of the mirror to Sam the Liar and other missionary haters of Islam otherwise neither the author of this post and nor any Muslim can ever think of anything remotely akin to it. No Muslim is a Muslim if he has any such imagination about the purest and greatest woman of all times.

Indeed Allah knows the best!

… by Azhan Ahmad