Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
to an easterly place.
Thus did she seclude herself from them,
whereupon We sent to her Our Spirit <sup1
and he became incarnate for her
as a well-proportioned human.
18 She said, ‘I seek the protection of the All-beneficent
from you,
should you be Godwary!’
19 He said, ‘I am only a messenger of your Lord
that I may give you a pure son.’
20 She said, ‘How shall I have a child
seeing that no human being has ever touched me,
nor have I been unchaste?’
21 He said, ‘So shall it be.
Your Lord says, “It is simple for Me.”
And so that We may make him a sign for mankind
and a mercy from Us,
and it is a matter [already] decided.’
22 Thus she conceived him,
then withdrew with him to a distant place.
23 The birth pangs brought her
to the trunk of a date palm.
She said, ‘I wish I had died before this
and become a forgotten thing, beyond recall.’
24 Thereupon he 2 called her from below her [saying,]
‘Do not grieve!
Your Lord has made a spring to flow at your feet.
25 Shake the trunk of the palm tree,
<sup1 That is, Gabriel (‘a).
<sup2 That is, the angel Gabriel, or the baby Jesus, whom she was carrying in her belly.
