Muhammad and the Virgin Mary: A Match Made in Heaven?

^{Originally published under the title “Muhammad’s Sexual Fantasies of Virgin Mary.”}

Salem Abdul Galil: “Our prophet Muhammad—prayers and peace be upon him—will be married to Mary in paradise.”

At a time when non-Muslims are constantly warned to speak respectfully of Muhammad, or else offended Muslims might respond with violence—to the shame and blame of those who exercise their freedom of expression—consider what Muslims regularly say about the things non-Muslims hold dear.

Recently during his televised Arabic-language program, Dr. Salem Abdul Galil—previously deputy minister of Egypt’s religious endowments for preaching—gleefully declared that, among other biblical women (Moses’ sister and Pharaoh’s wife), “our prophet Muhammad—prayers and peace be upon him—will be married to (the Virgin) Mary in paradise.”

(Note: the Arabic word for “marriage” denotes “legal sexual relations” and is devoid of Western, “romantic,” or Platonic connotations.)

Where did Galil—this governmental official who also holds that Muslims can wear the hated crucifix to deceive Christians—get this idea?

As usual, from Muhammad himself. In a hadith that was deemed reliable enough to be included in the renowned Ibn Kathir’s corpus, Muhammad declared that “Allah will wed me in paradise to Mary, Daughter of Imran”[1] (whom Muslims identify with Jesus’ mother).

If few Christians today know about this Islamic claim, medieval Christians living in Muslim-occupied nations were aware of it. There, Muslims regularly threw this fantasy in the face of Catholic and Orthodox Christians who venerated Mary as the “Eternal Virgin.”

Eulogius of Cordoba couldn’t hold his peace about Muhammad’s wedding plans.

Thus, Eulogius of Cordoba, an indigenous Christian of Muslim-occupied Spain, once wrote, “I will not repeat the sacrilege which that impure dog [Muhammad] dared proffer about the Blessed Virgin, Queen of the World, holy mother of our venerable Lord and Savior. He claimed that in the next world he would deflower her.”

As usual, it was Eulogius’ offensive words about Muhammad—and not the latter’s offensive words about Mary—that had dire consequences: he, as well as many other Spanish Christians vociferously critical of Muhammad, were found guilty of speaking against Islam and publicly tortured and executed in “Golden Age” Cordoba in 859.

Not only do many Western academics suppress or whitewash such historical anecdotes of Muslim persecution of Christians, but some—whether intentionally or out of ignorance—warp them in an effort to portray Christian victims of Islam as Christian persecutors of Islam.

John V. Tolan

After quoting Eulogius’ aforementioned lament against Muhammad, John V. Tolan, a professor and member of Academia Europaea, writes:

Putting real or feigned history aside, let’s return to modern day Egypt and consider why Dr. Galil—a governmental official described as a “moderate,” a bridge-builder between Muslims and Christians—would openly say what he knows millions of Orthodox Christians in Egypt will find repugnant: that Christ’s mother would be given to—and have sex with—what Christians deem a false prophet?

In the Quran, Mary holds onto a palm tree when giving birth to Jesus, as in this 16th century Turkish depiction.

To be sure, many Egyptian Christians did express outrage, including on social media, though none responded with violence. Had a leading Christian cleric, or even a little Coptic boy, claimed that Aisha—Muhammad’s favorite wife, who holds a venerated place in Sunni tradition—will be married to and have sex with a false prophet, he would’ve been beaten and, if not killed in the process, imprisoned under Egypt’s “anti -defamation of religions” law, which supposedly protects both Islam and Christianity.

But as every Muslim and Christian knows, Egypt’s “anti-defamation of religions” law—which has been responsible for the arrest and punishment of many Copts accused of mocking Islam on social media—is in reality an anti-defamation of Islam law. Things held sacred by Christians are free game—including, apparently, for “moderate” governmental officials.

After all, Islam—beginning with its prophet and all throughout its scriptures—is built on defaming non-Muslims and their religions, Judaism and Christianity in particular. So how can repeating what Islam holds to be true ever be deemed blasphemous by Muslims—infidel sensitivities be damned?