in her womb to a distant place; and the pains of child-birth came upon her near the trunk of a palm-tree. She said, Would to GOD I had died :before this, and had become a thing forgotten, and lost in oblivion. And he who was beneath her called to her, saying, be not grieved; now hath GOD provided a stream under thee; and do thou shake the body of the palm-tree, and it shall let fall ripe dates upon thee ready gathered. And eat, and drink, and calm thy mind. Moreover, if thou see any man, and he question thee, say, Verily I have vowed a fast unto the Merciful: wherefore I will by no means speak to a man this day. So she brought the child to her people, carrying him in her arms. And they said unto her, O Mary, now hast thou done a strange thing: O sister of Aaron, thy father was not a bad man, neither was thy mother a harlot. ۝30 But she made signs unto the child to answer them; and they said, How shall we speak to him, who is an infant in the cradle? Whereupon the child said, Verily I am the servant of GOD; he hath given me the book of the gospel, and hath appointed me a prophet. 2–40 Jesus The first section, verses 2–40, begins with the story of the prophet Zachariah and the birth of his son John, the story of Mary and the birth of her son Jesus, and a commentary on Jesus' identity according to Islam which rejects the Christian claim that he is God's son. 28 Sister of Aaron In Q19:28, she is referred to as 'Sister of Aaron'. Several occurrences of the word "أخ" are found in the Quran when referring to kinship or sharing the same ancestor. According to authentic Hadith, a Christian from Najran did inquire about the verse, to which Muhammad replied: Being the namesake of prophetess Miriam, the verse links Mary to Aaron specifically instead of Moses, who himself is a key figure in the Quran. According to Sahih International, the Arabic wording implies a descendancy of Aaron: While Mary's geanology is unknown in the Bible, her relative Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. Orientalist George Sale writes: Rhyme structures In its original Arabic, the text of chapter 19 progresses through a series of varying rhyme structures that correspond