One night, Maryam (a.s.) prolonged the time of prayer and supplication and remained glorifying God, until she was separated from everything around her and her soul communicated with the heaven repeating the verses that glorify the greatness of the Creator and reciting the supplications that increase His favors and pour on her dignity and glory as they pour on all the righteous and selected people.  While she was indulging in those contemplation’s, she felt suddenly some hard trembles that shook her body and some strong emotions that stirred her; she looked around her to find a human creature who made her dominated by awe, and think of fleeing all the more that she guessed that the man may be a criminal who took advantage of the inadvertence of the inhabitants of the temple and slid furtively into her sanctuary.
 But in spite of the terror of what happened, she controlled her feelings and sent Satan away from her, and refused to be fearful because she is the pure, the devoted, the clean and the chaste woman who disdains to be dominated by feeling of tremor.
 She looked inquiring about the man who realized what she is thinking about and said to her, "Fear not, nor grieve.  I am only a messenger of your Lord, that I may bestow on the a faultless son".
 She answered inquiring, "Who are you?"
 He answered, "I am the faithful Gabriel."
 

When Maryam (a.s.) heard the words of Gabriel, she felt awe and was dominated by a awe of apprehension.  But she did not lose control of herself or leave the surprise make her tongue-tied, in spite of the fact that she felt tired.  She looked well at him, then gathered her forces and said, "How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me neither I have been unchaste?"
 He said, "So (it will be) Thy Lord saith:  It is easy for Me.  And (it will be) that we may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy of Us, and it is a thing ordained."
 

Gabriel (a.s.) stepped forward wiping her head with his hands, mumbling some inaudible words, then he blew in her face a strong blow and disappeared.
 Maryam remained in her place remembering what Gabriel said to her without knowing the essence of what he said.  But she asked herself:  "How can I have a son while I am a virgin?  And how can I become pregnant and deliver a son without having a husband?"
 She became anxious about the coming days and the way with which she will face people and about the doubts that will people foster toward her.  She buried the dreadful secret in the deepest of herself and passed successive months, anxious, keeping silent about that secret, and when passion stimulated her, she used to say, "Oh, would that I had died ere this and had b

In order to hide herself from the eyes of all the people, she chose to move from her seclusion in Jerusalem to a new seclusion place in El-Nasira where she was born in order to deliver her baby in that rural home which was void of any splendor save the splendor of devotion and she considered that place as a shelter to her, hiding herself in it away from the observers and the intruders. Maryam (a.s.) wanted to keep away from her folk, meeting nobody of them and nobody communicates with her even her guardian Zacharia himself who recommended to her to stay away from people in order to avoid stimulating rumors around her and to avoid the wicked tongues so that chastity will not collapse in the eyes of the people while Maryam (a.s.) is the wonderful ideal and the symbol of chastity.  Her hope was that God will hear her prayers and accept her supplications so that nobody will feel any doubt about her behavior all the more that she derives from a family famous for its chastity and its purity and that her father was not a wicked man nor was her mother a harlot; she was following the same way of her family and God chose her to be the selected worshipper, so is it possible for her to be an object of charge while she did not commit neither a sin nor a crime? It is true she can do nothing in front of God’s will, so her sole way of rescue is through trusting her problem to God the High, the Mighty, the Merciful towards who clings to his rope.
 

The hour of delivery came nearer and she felt the pains of labor, so she went furtively from the village towards the wilderness where she resorted to the trunk of a dry palm tree, clinging to it under the impact of labor pains, while she was alone without anybody to help her or a midwife who will show compassion towards her and offer to her any treatment.  The hour of delivery came and the virgin gave birth to her child.  She looked to the child, upset to see this human fruit come out to existence in complete isolation.  She contemplated well the child and was cheerful to see him but her melancholy was stronger, so she wished life to him and wished for herself a grave that will hide her and consequently she will leave this life and the world will forget her.

 Maryam was confused, not knowing what to do with the child or with herself:  there is no food that she can eat in order to foster the child, no water that quenches her thirst and no friend to help her.  While she was confused and grieved, she heard a voice calling her from beneath the palm-tree to the trunk of which she clung to in the moments of labor, "Grieve not! Thy Lord hath placed a rivulet beneath thee, and shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee.  So eat and drink and be consoled".
So in a few moments everything changes around her, water flows in the dry land, and the dry palm-tree sends down ripe dates upon her, and above all, the call urges her to be satisfied in the depth of herself.  What makes her more quiet is that piercing voice of Gabriel (a.s.) which (the voice) entertained her dreariness advising her to speak to nobody during that day:
"And if thou meetest any mortal, say:  I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent and may not speak this day to any mortal".

So he recommended her to speak to nobody who passes near her and to give no importance to their astonishment upon seeing the child lying at her bosom, and to abstain from saying anything until the morning of the next day.  Then she came to her folk carrying her child and offering him to them as a gift from God who blew in her through His Holy Spirit, in order to make the child a portent to mankind and a mercy to the world, and this was his inevitable order and His decisive fate.

She offered the child to her folk in order to defend he honor and her chastity, but they denied what she was carrying in her hands and charged her with the worst charge, "O Maryam!  Thou hast come with an amazing thing".  Their charge did not stop at that limit but they went to extremes saying to her, "O Sister of Haroun.  Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot".
The people were ignorant and so they did not realize the reality of the divine power, and no matter how she will defend herself, they will not listen to her, but she owns a powerful weapon that nobody can withstand and a resort that no evil-doer can approach.  She stood in front of the folk, when time has come to prove her innocence:  Holy Qur’an:  Maryam, 29-34
"But she pointed unto him.  They said:  How can we speak unto one who is (yet) a child in the cradle."
"He (Jesus miraculously) said, "Verily I am a servant of God; He hath given me a Book (Evangel) and made me a Prophet!"
"And He hath made me blessed wherever I be and He hath enjoined on me prayer and poor-rate so long as I live!"
"And (to be) duteous to my mother, and He hath not made me insolent unblest!"
"And peace be on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised alive."
"This is Jesus, the son of Mary; (this is) a statement of the truth about which they dispute."

The Holy Baby (Jesus) came to the rescue of his mother against the calumny from the faithless Israelites.  While Jesus was lying in the cradle, words spoke out in the defense of his mother.  At that time, people questioned Maryam (a.s.) about her bearing a child without a husband when the event took place, and not when years had gone by when Jesus had grown up.  Besides, the Command of God to Maryam to observe silence under the plea of a fast was immediately after the birth of Jesus, when she was perturbed and she did not know what to tell the people who would not believe and the opening words of the verses clearly indicates that Maryam pointed out to the child (in the cradle), only when she according to God’ command was not to speak or give any verbal expression from her mouth.  The pointing out being on the occasion immediately following the birth is also borne out by wonder expressed by the people as to how Maryam expected them to talk to a baby in the cradle and their wonder at any direction from her to talk to her grown-up son would be nothing but sheer nonsense.

While Jesus spoke in the cradle, he claimed to be an Apostle of God and to have been given the Book (Injeel, ex.Evangel).  People suspected his mother at his birth without a male parent.  The number of the prayers and the poor-rate having been enjoined upon him by God, does not mean that the commandment was to be enacted on him but as a part of his mission as the apostle of God when he would enact the mission and minister the truth to the people, for example, Jesus (a.s.) had brought with him the message of prayer, and charity to the people.  Besides, the word ‘prayer’ doesn’t only mean the formal prayers by manifesting some physical movements of the body, but the soul being prayerful to the Lord and the excellent of the soul of an apostle would naturally be always in communion with the Almighty One who has sent the soul into the world with some particular purpose.  And the word ‘charity’ doesn’t only mean the action of giving away any thing but the purity of thought and conduct and the whole life of an apostle of God would naturally need to be ideally pure in word and action as a model to his followers.
 One of the important reasons that the words were uttered from the Holy Baby was to announce that he was not the curse of any illegitimate birth but the Blessing of the Almighty Lord. God commanded Maryam (a.s.) to observe silence and not to utter anything to the people because in order to save the occasion of Baby Jesus (a.s.) himself to stand out for his own position and to reveal that he was sent into the world as God’s Sign of His Omnipotence and Might. At that time, there were three types of people:  people who believed in Jesus (a.s.) and his apostleship, people who doubted Jesus (a.s.) and went against his birth without a male parent, and people who took Jesus (a.s.) to be the son of God.
 In another verse in the Holy Qur’an: Al-Mu’minun, 23:50 the Almighty says:
  "And made We the Son of Mary and his mother a sign, and We gave them refuge for both on a high land, quiet, secure and watered with springs."
 

According to this verse, Maryam (a.s.) was directed by God to take refuge in Bethlehem, where there was for her the fruit tree to eat of and also a spring of water to drink from.  This place was on the heights of Palestine nearby Jerusalem, surrounded by vineyards and fruit gardens and meadows with herds of cattle grazing in them.  History does not give us any authentic information about the life of Maryam and Jesus (a.s.), as to where this holy mother and her child spent the early days of infancy and the boyhood of Jesus until he appeared to the people in some of his apostle services.  It is said that she lived somewhere on the bank of the Euphrates nearby Palestine.
 

In another verse in the Holy Qur’an: As-Saff, 61:6, it states:
 "And when said Jesus, son of Mary: "O ye the children of Israel!  Verily I am an apostle of God unto you, confirming what is before you of the Torah and bearing (unto you) the glad tidings of an Apostle who shall come after me, his name being Ahmed (Muhammad);" and when came he (Ahmed) unto them said they: "This is a manifest Sorcery!"
 This verse has been long studied along with the references in the Old & New Testaments.  It must be remembered that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) was called Ahmad - both names come out of one and the same root ‘Hamd": praise or praising.  It must be known that the language of the people of Jesus (a.s.) (the Israelites) and the language which Jesus (a.s.) spoke was Hebrew and not Arabic.  It could easily be said that the matter not including the present Bible, must be of the nature opposed to the heathen or the pagan belief and about the one to come after Jesus as the son of God would not have liked to be brought to the light of the public.
 In the Bible, John, 14:16, it says:
 "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever."
 

Jesus (a.s.) announces that the one who would come after would also be called ‘Comforter’.  This comes to prove that Jesus (a.s.) could not have been the last prophet, and further proof can be also supported through the Bible in Chapter John, 16:12-13 when it says:
 "Jesus came only to convey a part of the Truth, and not the whole."
 "The one to come after Jesus would teach mankind all the truth."
 History reports that several Christians and Jewish scholars, monks who, with the knowledge of the prophecies in their original scriptures, waited for the advent of the Holy Prophet, and as they came to know of his advent, embraced Islam.
 In another verse in the Holy Qur’an, An-Nisa, 4:159 it says:
 "And there shall not be any one of the people of the Book but he must certainly believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he (Jesus) will be a witness against them;"

 Every one of Jesus’ followers of the various scriptures will ultimately recognize Jesus when he descends from Heaven when the last Holy Imam, al- Mehdi (a.s.), he would suffer death and the Muslims will conduct the funeral congressional prayers.  The Re-appearance of Jesus (a.s.) shall be as the Imams of the Holy Ahl-lul Bayt (a.s.) have declared.  Whoever of the people of the Book will then be, will all believe in Jesus as well as the Holy Imam (a.s.), the representative of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.), for example; all people will embrace Islam and whatever it has asserted.  About the important matters of controversy among them, the truth will be made manifest to every one of the disputants before his death and he will believe in it and the belief that is then earned will not be of any avail to the disputants for his salvation.  This also conforms to the correct belief about Jesus as much as it implies to the doubt about Apostleship. Prophet’s naturally came down as apostles, messengers, reminders, etc.  Furthermore, in order to prove apostleship, they demonstrated miracles.  However, as for Prophet Jesus (a.s.), he had to perform miracle after miracle.  Why?  He had to do this to earn the confidence of his people in his truth about being a prophet of God for two reasons:
1.  A Man of mysterious birth, which was deemed suspicious by his people as a whole, could never have expected to be listened to, by any section of the people; much less to be in, as an apostle of God.
2.  His people believed more in witchcraft that in any other kind of appeal to their intellect or reasoning.

 A few of many miracles that were quite interesting were as follows:
 Once when Jesus (a.s.) was still a boy, playing with two toy-birds on a Sabbath day (Saturday), the Jews complained to Joseph.  When Joseph approach Jesus (a.s.) to rebuke him, Jesus (a.s.) let the toy-birds loose, commanding  them to fly away, and off they flew, and the whole crowd was stunned with wonder. In another occasion of a miracle by Jesus (a.s.), it took place during his boyhood.  One time, while he was in a dyer’s house, he dipped all the clothes which had to be dyed in the different colors, in one pot-full of indigo color.  The dyer being shocked at the action, raised shouts of anger, and agony.  Jesus (a.s.) said, "Why dost thou get perturbed!  I shall get you the clothes out of this same pot, in any color you want," and he brought each cloth from the same pot of indigo, dyed in various colors as the dyer went on desiring each of it to be dyed into.
 Many people these days wonder and ask themselves, "Was Jesus (a.s.) really crucified?"  Well, in the Holy Qur’an: An-Nisa, 9:158 Allah tells us:
 "Nay!  God raised (lifted) him up unto Himself; and God is Mighty, Wise!"
 The disappearance of Jesus from the earth, is as mysterious as his birth.  Excepting the three main years of his ministry, the rest of his life is also unknown. According to the Christian faith, they believe that Jesus (a.s.) died on the cross, and that he was buried, and on the third day, he rose in the body with the wounds intact and walked about, talked to his disciples and ate with them, and afterwards, taken up bodily into the Heavens.
 

Islam refuses this imagination in the words of verse 157 of An-Nisa and verse 158, by saying that God did not allow Jesus (a.s.) to be killed nor even to be put on the cross but raised him to Himself.  The truth about this event is that when Jesus (a.s.) knew the Jewish plan to arrest and put him to death, he went and took shelter in a vacant house.  One of his disciples who knew the hiding place of Jesus (a.s.) was bribed with thirty pieces of silver and he took the soldiers of the Jews to the house.  In the meanwhile, God had raised Jesus up into the Heavens and when the traitor (the disciple) of Jesus entered the house and searched for him, he found him not there.  God made the treacherous disciple of Jesus to resemble Jesus and when he came out of the house to report to the soldiers that Jesus was not to be found in the house, the soldiers took him by his resemblance to be Jesus himself.  However, no matter how much the man shouted and cried saying that he was not Jesus, the soldiers crucified him.  It was the treacherous one of the disciples of Jesus that was actually crucified and not the real Jesus (a.s.).  All the post-crucifixion stories are the elements of the Christian belief are not agreed with and are considered and proved false by Islam.
 In another ver

se in the Holy Qur’an, in Chapter Al-e-Imran, 3:60, Allah the Glorious says:
 "And unto him who disputeth with thee therein after the knowledge hath come unto thee, Say! (O’ Our Apostle Muhammad!)  (Unto them) "Come ye, let us summon our sons, and (ye summon) your sons, and (we summon) our women and (ye) your women, and we (summon) ourselves, and (ye) yourselves and then let us invoke and lay the curse of God on the liars!" This verse refers to the famous event of ‘Mubahila’ which took place 10 A.H. against the Christians of Najran headed by Abdul Mashih, their chief monk priest in which they came and discussed with the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) about the personality of Jesus (a.s.).  The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) told them  not to worship Jesus for he was only a mortal created by God, and not God Himself.  Then they asked him as to who the father of Jesus was.  By this, they thought that since Jesus was born without a father, that the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) would helplessly accept Jesus’ father being God Himself.  In reply to this question, a verse was revealed in which the situation of Jesus was compared to that of Adam who was created without a father nor a mother.  But still, the Christians did not agree to any amount of reasoning, so the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) called the Christians to ‘Mubahila’ (a spiritual contest involving the curse of God upon the liar).  To this, the Christians agreed but they wanted to return to their place and would have the ‘Mubahila’ the next day.
 Early next morning, the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) sent Salman to the open place, fixed outside the city, for the historic event, to make a small shelter for himself and those he intended to take along with him for the contest.  A number of the companions of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) also assembled in the Mosque for the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) to take them along with him to the contest.

  On the opposite side appeared the Christians with their selected holy men, women, and children.  At the appointed hour, the Christians witnessed the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) entering the field with Husain in his lap, Hasan holding his finger, and walking beside him, Lady Fatema following him with Ali behind her.  The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) reaching the appointed spot, stationed himself with his daughter, her two sons, and her husband, raising his hands to heaven said, "Lord these are the people of my house."  At the appearance of these godly souls and with the divine radiating light from their faces, the chief Monk who had brought the selected group of Christians began to gaze at the faces and said, "By God!  I see the faces which, if they pray to God for mountains to move from their places, the mountains will immediately move."
 

The leader Monk asked as to who were those whom the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) had brought with him.  He was informed that the baby in the lap of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) was his young grandson, Husain; the child walking holding the Holy Prophet’s (s.a.w.) finger in his tiny hand was his first grandson; the Lady coming behind him was his daughter, and the one who followed the Lady was his son-in-law, the husband of Fatema.  The Chief Monk, the leader of the selected holy group of the Christians turned to the huge crowd of his people who had gathered at the spot, and addressed them saying:, "O believers in Jesus of Nazareth, I will tell you the truth that if you should fail to enter into some agreement with Muhammad and if these godly souls whom Muhammad hath brought with him, curse you, you will be wiped out of existence to the last day of the life of the earth."

 In another verse in the Holy Qur’an, Az-Zukhruf:61 it says:
 "And verily he shall be the sign of (approach of) the Hour (of Reckoning), doubt not then about it and follow Me:  This is the Right Path."
 Right now, you’re probably wondering, "Who’s ‘he’?"
 The Hour which is the Day of the Final Judgment, Jesus shall be the sign for the dawn of the Day of Judgment.  Just before the Day of Judgment, Jesus will descend from the heaven and destroy the idols in the churches which people have established in his name and break the cross and abolish once and for all the false doctrine of trinity and prepare the way for the universal acceptance of the Unity of God as found in the Holy Qur’an.
 

As for those who are wondering what trinity is; it is the Christian belief of 3 in 1:  The Holy Ghost, Jesus, and God in which the Christians believe and worship all as one.  To logically prove this false, it could easily be realized that if three existence’s are categorized as one, one will always be more powerful than the other, therefore, it will overpower the rest and leave it as the One and Only - God.  Therefore, it is God the Creator above all.
 
This information was extracted from:
1.  Samih Atef El-Zein.  Zachariah, Yehya, Jesus.  Dar Al-Kitab Allubnani.  Beirut Lebanon, 1983.