34ذُرِّيَّةً بَعضُها مِن بَعضٍ ۗ وَاللَّهُ سَميعٌ عَليمٌMuhammad Asadin one line of descent.1 And God was all-hearing, all-knowing2Lit., "offspring of one another" - an allusion not merely to the physical descent of those prophets but also to the fact that all of them were spiritually linked with one another and believed in one and the same fundamental truth (Tabari). Thus, the above passage is a logical sequence to verses 31-32, which make God's approval contingent upon obedience to His chosen message-bearers. The names which appear in this sentence circumscribe, by implication, all the prophets mentioned in the Qur'an inasmuch as most of them were descendants of two or more of these patriarchs. The House of 'Imran comprises Moses and Aaron, whose father was 'Imran (the Amram of the Bible), and Aaron's descendants, the priestly caste among the Israelites - thus including John the Baptist, both of whose parents were of the same descent (cf. the reference, in Luke i, 5, to John's mother Elisabeth as one "of the daughters of Aaron"), as well as Jesus, whose mother Mary - a close relation of John - is spoken of elsewhere in the Qur'an (19:28) as a "sister of Aaron": in both cases embodying the ancient Semitic custom of linking a person's or a people's name with that of an illustrious forebear. The reference to the House of 'Imran serves as an introduction to the stories of Zachariah, John, Mary, and Jesus.My joining of this phrase with the following passage is in agreement with the interpretation advanced by Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida' (Manar III, 289).