Mary, the sister of Aaron?

There are no records in scriptures of the past as to who Mary's parents were. This in itself is enough to discard all these conspiracists' theories to the dustbin of baseless conjectures. But let us still delve into that issue further and leave them no chance at exploiting this ambiguity to serve their malicious objectives.

The Quran says Mary's mother was married to a man named Imran 3:35. This is where the conspirasists jump for joy and begin their tirades. The Quran they say, makes an anachronistic error because it names Mary's father Imran, who also happens to be the father of another Mary that lived centuries prior in the Bible.

As if people within a tribe dont share the same names, or that for example Zechariah is the only prophet to hold that name or that Joseph who is believed by Christians to be Mary's husband was the first man ever among Israel to bear that name? Or was Mary actually married to the Joseph who ruled Egypt? There are many instances within the Bible to corroborate for example Jethro's 7 different names are shared by other people too, some of them were his contemporaries and others came after him. Same thing with Elihu ben Barachel, whose name many people share over different generations for example the prophet Samuel's great-grandfather 1Sam1:1, a brother of the prophet King David 1Chron27:18, a chief of the Manasheh tribe 1Chron12:20 and a descendant of Korah 1Chron26:7.  

It is however interesting to note that in extra Biblical tradition, Mary's father is named Joachim. Etymologically, Imran and Joachim share a similar origin. Joachim is "the one whom Yahweh set up" while Imran may stem from aamr/to build up, rise up.

In her pregnancy, Imran's pious wife vowed to offer what was in her womb to the devotion of God 3:35 as denoted with "muharraran" to mean that the child is free of any other obligation or attachment. She desired a male whom she wanted to follow in the footsteps of the priestly family, living in devotion to God and serving Him in the Temple. This religious function was prescribed exclusively for the male descendants of the Levites branch. It was Harun/Aaron who is said to have initiated that function for the Israelites Ex28:1,29,40:13,Lev8,1:3,Num3:10,18:4-7 and renewed again by Phinehas Numbers25:13.

But when she brought forth a female whom she thought wouldnt be able to live up to her spiritual expectations and duties in the Temple, she was explained that her excellence would go far beyond any hopes she had entertained

3:36"God had been fully aware of what she would give birth to, and [fully aware] that no male child [she might have hoped for] could ever have been like this female".

She named her Maryam and invoked Allah's protection on her and her offspring 3:36.

In the ahadith we read that in answer to her mother's prayers, the divine protection and supervision of Mary extended to her son Jesus, to the point Allah prevented in her case a seemingly harmless event of the unseen, that every newborn experiences at birth 

"No child is born but that, Satan touches it when it is born whereupon it starts crying loudly because of being touched by Satan, except Mary and her son".

The hadith does not speak of sin, nor of sinful nature, rather conveys the idea that Allah will protect them both from the assaults of evil entities, from birth till they return to Him.

Maryam was orphaned early on which is why she was given at a young age to one of God's prophets, Zakariyya, for care 3:37,44.

God received Mary's mother's prayers and manifested them in the best way; under Zakariya's close guardianship, she was taken care of to develop physically and spiritually. The Arabic in 3:37 uses a beautiful imagery saying literally

"her nurturing Lord accepted her with beautiful reception, and made her planted a good planting, and He made Zachariah to take care of her".

Mary remained in total devotion to God, mostly practicing worship in seclusion in her own private area of prayers, almihrab. The root H-R-B means war or distancing and separation. It also means the person’s money or the most important place in the house. Here the word implies the most important part of the house and the place of prayer is included within that meaning. As a side note, Zakariyya was Jesus' uncle through marriage with Elizabeth, who is Mary's relative, and who is a prophet according to the NT in Lk1:67-79.

A priest's daughter or "Bat-Kohen" is considered unique compared to the other Israelite daughters. That uniqueness is due to her scrupulous modesty, thereby portraying the values of maintaining a life dedicated to holiness, as well as her inherent ability to cope with above than average, and even intense levels of spirituality due to her upbringing by a Kohen/priest, whose life is dedicated to God's service.

Since Mary belonged to the priestly caste, whose founder was the renowned Harun, she was associated to him with the metaphorical phrase "sister of Harun" by the slanderers who saw her with an newborn 19:27-28. This was to stress the shamefulness of her act in relation to the illustruous names in her family, most relevant to her status as a priest's daughter. 

Now we get to the part most interesting to the misleading and misinformed critics of Islam. The Quran they say, made here an anachronistic error by mistaking Mary/Miriam Jesus' mother with Mary/Miriam Aaron's and Moses' sister spoken of in the Bible and who lived long before. Putting aside the fact that such critics, mainly from a Judeo-Christian background forget that such phraseologies have always been used by Israelites, including Jesus when he stated that, regardless of time and space

Mk3:35"Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother".

What these critics need to consider is that, had this been true, had the Quran truly mixed up the 2 Marys, why does the verse not depict these Jewish slanderers as resorting to the weigthiest of all arguments by singling out her other alleged brother, Moses? He is mentionned in the same sentence together with Aaron, as Miriam's brother in the text from whence the Quran's author supposedly copied from Num26:59.

This passage speaks in one breath of Mary, Aaron and Moses as siblings. Even if this mysterious Quran author did not have access to the text itself, why would anyone transmitting the text orally specifically omit Moses' name? Or if that oral transmitter did not omit Moses' name, why would the mysterious Quran author want to remove it from the Quran?

Moses, in addition, in contrast to Aaron, is the sole prophet who, according to the Jewish tenets of faith up to this day, they must recognize as the greatest of all. Jewish tradition and scriptures repeatedly describe him as having superior authority, prestige and prophetic experience as echoed even in the Quran. Yet here is the Quran depicting those very Jews as pointing to Harun instead, a mere support and assistant of Moses, who lacked authority among his people to the point they rebelled against him in Moses' absence, returned to idol worship, with their scriptures even painting Aaron as among those that facilitated the transgression?

The mentionning of Harun instead of the greater names in Mary's alleged contemporary family such as Moses, demonstrates it cannot be speaking of her literal, physical sisterhood but rather to her metaphorical descendency, as established in the usage of the word in Semitic languages. That metaphorical descendancy refers to a specific branch whose founder was Harun, and who had established a cast inside which a woman, a bat-kohen, was supposed to represent the highest standards of chastity and piety through her spiritual devotion and impeccable upbringing by a priest. 

There is a liturgical text the Christians of Jerusalem used to read around the 7th century, called the Lection of Jeremiah. In it, Aaron is called the "brother of Mary". This further corroborates the metaphorical usage of brotherhood and sisterhood in religious terminology, knowingly and without anachronism, even when the persons are non-contemporaries whose direct family members hold the same names. Any other conclusion would imply that Christians of the Levant were confused on Mary's genealogy just as the Quran supposedly is.

Another objection cited on the subject is that the Quran should have said "daughter of Harun" as is usally done when speaking of the descendant of an illustruous character. This however is nonsensical in that context since the verse also speaks in one breath of her biological parents who have passed away. Had the Quran used "daughter of Harun" instead it would have confused the sentence and implied that Harun was her biological FATHER "O DAUGHTER of Harun! Your FATHER was not an evil human, nor was your mother unchaste". That argument not only is nonsensical syntactically but also shoots down the critics' own argument since it invalidates their claim that the Quran confounded Mary/Miriam (Jesus' mother) with the Miriam who was Aaron's biological SISTER and lived long before.

Furthermore if, according to Christian theology, Mary was not a Levite but from the house of Judah then referencing her as "daughter of Aaron" would imply direct descendancy from him. Sisterhood on the other hand has a different connotation. And even if one accepts Mary's Levitical lineage, which is more in line with NT genealogies, then calling her the "daughter of Aaron" would still be excluded for the aforementionned reasons.  

A holistic reading of the Islamic texts, whether it is the Quran, the traditions or the commentaries, all show that Mary and Jesus are from a different time period than Moses. The Quranic narrative implies that many generations of messengers succeeding eachother seperates them 2:87,3:50,5:43-46,etc.

Further, in the Quranic accounts surrounding Moses, Aaron, Jesus and Mary, the circumstances and locations are entirely different for the first 2 and the last 2, and the characters of both groups are never mixed in the same space and time nor do they interract, while they do interract among characters of the same group. For instance, Jesus and Mary are many times interracting, as is the case with Moses and Aaron yet we never see Jesus interracting with Moses or Aaron with Mary. Nor are Jesus and Mary ever seen in the same context and background as Moses and Aaron, and vice versa. 

Also, the Quran repeatedly speaks of Moses' sister, during the account of his infancy, without ever naming her Mary 20:40. Besides the contexts and timeframes clearly separating between Moses and Jesus, how could this already grown up "Mary" during Moses' infancy, be the same young Mary to give birth to Jesus many years later?

The converging factors are many, on a macro or micro-level, indicating that the Quran was accurate, correct and aware of the correct relationship between these various characters, and that the phrase "sister of Harun" was knowingly used.

More importantly, contrary to Miriam the sister of Aaron and Moses in the Bible from where critics claim the Quran copied from, Mary the mother of Jesus was orphanned very early on per the Quran meaning that her relatives spoken of during her early years and beyond are those of people who have passed away. In 19:28, the slanderers appeal to her parents' righteousness in the past tense, because they have passed away at the time. Because of this, she had to be put under someone elses' guardianship namely the prophet Zakariya. Mary was orphaned so young and abruptly, and her importance to the eyes of the elders of the comunity so great, that her entourage, after casting lots to decide who would be her guardian, still objected and contended with one another as to who would be honoured with caring for her 3:44.

Such measures would've been useless had her close relatives, such as her alleged brothers Moses and Harun been alive in her early years. Biblical and Judeo-Christian tradition plainly state her brothers outlived her by many years. Had the Quran's author been sourcing his information from those older materials, he would have never overlooked that information.