And when she gave birth to her a girl and she had been hoping for a boy since only males were consecrated to the service of God she said apologetically ‘O Lord I have given birth to a female’ — and God knew very well what she had given birth to a parenthetical statement constituting God’s speech a variant reading for wada‘at ‘she gave birth’ has wada‘tu ‘I gave birth’ making these Hanna’s words sc. ‘and God knows very well what I have given birth to’; the male that she had asked for is not as the female that was bestowed upon her because he is designed for the service of God while she would not be suitable on account of her lesser physical ability her private parts the effects of menstruation on her and so on. ‘And I have named her Mary and commend her to You with her seed her children to protect them from the accursed the outcast Satan’. In a hadīth it is stated ‘Every new-born is touched by Satan and begins life by crying except for Mary and her son’ as reported by the two Shaykhs Bukhārī and Muslim.
