We do not know of any human who would do what Allah, the Quran says, had done to Mary. First, He impregnated her without letting anyone know about His affairs with her; then He made her leave the company of her relatives. He made her deliver His baby by the trunk of a desert palm-tree, where there was no other human being to extend her a helping hand. He capped His inane behavior by talking to her about food and water, which she would have needed only after she had safely delivered the child, instead of giving her help, together with the words of consolation, encouragement and love. 

Was it a manner in which Allah should have treated the mother of His only son? We wonder! If what He did to Mary was the standard bearer of His behavior, is there any way for us to believe that He is capable of treating us any differently? 

Verse 26: So eat and drink and cool (thine) eye. And if thou dost see any man, I have vowed a fast to (Allah), Most Gracious, and this day will I enter into no talk with any human being. 

Verse 27: At length she brought the (babe) to her people, they said: O Mary! Truly an amazing thing has thou brought! 

Verse 28: O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste! 

Verse 29: But she pointed to the babe. They said: “How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle? 

Verse 30: He said: I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; 

Verse 31:  And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me prayer and Charity as long as I live; 

Verse 32: (He) hath made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable; 

Verse 33: So Peace be on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)! 

Verse 35: It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory to Him! When He determines a matter, He only says to it, Be, and it is. 

Mary somehow delivered her baby. She also removed his umbilical cord with her own effort, perhaps, by using the edge of a palm-leave!  

Seeing both the mother and her baby safe and in good health, Allah asked Mary to eat and drink and to cool her eye by staring at him with an instruction not to talk to any stranger, should she happened to see one approaching her. She was to tell him: I have vowed a fast to Allah and I will not enter into any talk with any human being. 

What kind of a fast did Allah talk about in the verse? Does it resemble the one Muslims keep in the Lunar Month of Ramadhan, and also on other occasions? Do they eat and drink during their fasts? 

If answers to the questions are in negative, then did not the instruction Allah gave Mary to eat and drink but to tell others that she was fasting amount to telling a great lie? 

Some Muslim scholars have found an easy way to slip out of a tight situation the above question puts them in. According to them, the fast Allah had instructed Mary to keep was not the one Muslims keep today; it was a fast that the Children of Bani Israel of ancient time observed through silence.[1] 

Even if the Children of Israel kept their fast through silence, they must have had some rules, as do the Muslims of today that governed their fasts. Muslims begin their fast before the break of the day; they break it in the evening before it becomes dark. 

In the interim period of the day, Muslims do not drink or eat anything. Eating or drinking automatically nullifies a Muslim’s fast. Did the Children of Israel have similar rule for their community? 

 If they did, then was not Mary’s statement to a stranger that ‘she vowed a fast to Allah’ sufficient to break her fast of silence?  If it was, then why Allah taught her such a foolish thing? Does it indicate that He is an All-knowing deity whom Muslims should worship with so much of reverence and fervor? 

The fact that the Children of Israel did not talk once they begin their fast is evident from verse 29. Instead of answering people’s question on her baby, Mary signaled them to talk to him, for if she had said anything, it would have broken her fast. 

Why Allah did not ask Mary to talk to the strangers in a sign language, instead of telling her to open up her mouth, which she was not supposed to do during her fast? 

Trained well how to deal with the people she would be confronting on the question of her baby, Mary returned to her town. Immediately, its people began asking her questions on Jesus Christ. Instead of herself responding to their questions, she pointed to the baby and signaled them to talk to him. 

Since no human had ever seen or heard of a babe taking from his cradle, they thought that Mary had gone made. But the babe saved his mother’s reputation, and began telling them: 

I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet. ... 

How people must have reacted to a newborn baby talking to them from his cradle we do not know, but we are pretty sure that many of them must have died of heart failures. Others must have left the town, thinking that it had become an abode of a ghost; those who could not go away must have kept their children hidden in their homes, lest they become the dinner of a demon they never saw before. 

The baby’s claim that he began receiving revelations from Allah immediately after his birth must have created great uproar among the priestly people of the town. Driven by the news, they must have come, and fallen to his feet, beseeching him to become their chief priest then and there. They must also have asked him to lead them in their congregational prayers; to attend to their funerals and to arbitrate their disputes. And to do all other things they themselves were incapable of doing even after reaching their old age. 

But we do not find any record of the people of Mary’s town responding to such a never-heard of, earth-shattering and sky-falling happening that evolved around a newly-born baby who talked from his cradle and that, too, in a clear language! Was it possible that all of them had died as result of heart failures, caused by the fear of the baby’s speaking ability? Or, was it due to the reason that, like all the newborn babies in the world, Mary’s baby could not have talked immediately after his birth, hence the non-availability of its record to substantiate the Quran’s absurd claim?

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