3:45 When the angels said, “O Mary, surely God gives thee the good news of a word from Him, Jesus son of Mary, celebrated in this world and the next, and one of those given proximity.”
In this verse, the God of the universe, the enactor of the world’s folk, the assigner of daily provisions to the servants, the bestower of bounty and the lovingly kind, the caresser of the friends, caresses Mary and honors her. With this honoring He gives her excellence over the women of the world and separates her from all of them.
First, He calls her with the vocative of honor, saying “O Mary.” Exalted is this address! Exalted is this call! Thousands of thousands of prophets and friends went, either in the repose of having found it or in remorse and hope for it. O spirit of the world! If a thousand times you call on Him saying, “My Lord, my Lord,” that is not like His calling on you once, “My servant, My servant.” Even if you accept Him in Lordhood, that gains you nothing, for, in any case, His Lordhood is inseparable from you. What does the work is that once He should accept you for servanthood?
Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī said, “God stood me before Him in a thousand standing places, presenting the empire to me, but I was saying, ‘I do not desire it.’ In the last standing place, He said to me, ‘O Abū Yazīd, what do you desire?’ I said, ‘I desire not to desire,’” that is, I desire what You desire.
“Then He said, ‘You are My servant in truth.’”
Even if you do not have the gall to speak with God like Abū Yazīd, you are not too small to present your need to Him, to show Him your burning and hope, and to say, “O Lord, a name and mark is enough for me! You have come from Your threshold to place a name on me. Whatever name You want, let it be.”
A man went to the bazaar to buy a slave. They presented the slaves to him and he chose one to buy. He said, “O slave, what’s your name?” He said, “First buy me so that I may belong to you. Then call me by whatever name you want.”
When you are His servant, He will call you by whatever name He wants and keep you in whatever attribute He wants.
Master Abū ʿAlī said, “I saw an old man who was rushing from this wall to that wall, having become helpless and distracted. Because of my youth, I asked him, ‘O Shaykh! What have you been drinking?’ “He said, ‘Is it not enough that the Lord God of the world has let me know that He created me and that He is my Lord. Is something else needed?’”
Another caress of Mary was that the Lord of the Worlds wrote out the inscription of chosenness for her in two places, at the beginning and the end of a single verse. He said, “He has chosen thee and made thee pure, and He has chosen thee above the women of the worlds” [3:42]. Who among the women of the world has the honor that she has? She was free of this world and the world’s folk, as He says: “[I dedicate to Thee] what is in my belly as someone free” [3:35]. The one who accepted and approved of her in that freedom was God: “So her Lord accepted her with a beautiful acceptance” [3:37]. Her place and seat were the mosque and the prayer-niche, and in that place, her daily provision was coming to her from God’s threshold: “[Zachariah] found provision with her” [3:37]. Then also she was pious and obedient to God’s command: “And she was one of the devout” [66:12]. In her greatness and truthfulness, she had God as her witness: “And his mother was a sincerely truthful woman” [5:75]. Even more wonderful than this was her child, who came without a father and was God’s spirit. That is in His words, “Jesus son of Mary, was but God’s messenger, and His word that He cast to Mary, and a spirit from Him” [4:171]. In this verse, the Lord of the Worlds gave Jesus four names: Jesus, Word, and Spirit. In other words, Jesus was God’s messenger brought into existence by His speech, which He threw to Mary and a spirit given by His bestowal.
In this verse, He says, “a word from Him, whose name is the Jesus son of Mary, celebrated in this world and the next.” His face is recognized and his name good in this world and the next, and he is honored by God. He has various charismatic gifts and miracles, one of which is that he came from his mother without a father. Another is that he is the result of the in-blowing of Gabriel. The third is that he appeared from an uncreated word. Fourth is that He gave him wisdom and knowledge in infancy. That is in His words.
