91وَالَّتي أَحصَنَت فَرجَها فَنَفَخنا فيها مِن روحِنا وَجَعَلناها وَابنَها آيَةً لِلعالَمينَMuhammad AsadAND [remember] her who guarded her chastity, whereupon We breathed into her of Our spirit1 and caused her, together with her son, to become a symbol [of Our grace] Unto all people.2This allegorical expression, used here with reference to Mary's conception of Jesus, has been widely - and erroneously - interpreted as relating specifically to his birth. As a matter of fact, the Qur'an uses the same expression in three other places with reference to the creation of man in general - namely in 15:29 and 38:72, "when I have formed him... and breathed into him of My spirit"; and in 32:9, "and thereupon He forms [lit., "formed"] him fully and breathes lit., "breathed"] into him of His spirit". In particular, the passage of which the last-quoted phrase is a part (i.e., 32:7-9) makes it abundantly and explicitly clear that God "breathes of His spirit" into every human being. Commenting on the verse under consideration, Zamakhshari states that "the breathing of the spirit [of God] into a body signifies the endowing it with life": an explanation with which Razi concurs. (In this connection, see also note 181 on 4:171.) As for the description of Mary as allati ahsanat farjaha; idiomatically denoting "one who guarded her chastity" (lit., "her private parts"), it is to be borne in mind that the term ihsan - lit., "[one's] being fortified [against any danger or evil]" - has the tropical meaning of "abstinence from what is unlawful or reprehensible" (Taj al-'Arus), and especially from illicit sexual intercourse, and is applied to a man as well as a woman: thus, for instance, the terms muhsan and muhsanah are used elsewhere in the Qur'an to describe, respectively, a man or a woman who is "fortified [by marriage] against unchastity". Hence, the expression allati ahsanat farjaha, occurring in the above verse as well as in 66:12 with reference to Mary, is but meant to stress her outstanding chastity and complete abstinence, in thought as well as in deed, from anything unlawful or morally reprehensible: in other words, a rejection of the calumny (referred to in 4:156 and obliquely alluded to in 19:27-28) that the birth of Jesus was the result of an "illicit union".For my rendering of the term ayah as "symbol", see surah 17, note 2, and surah 19, note 16.