21قالَ كَذٰلِكِ قالَ رَبُّكِ هُوَ عَلَيَّ هَيِّنٌ ۖ وَلِنَجعَلَهُ آيَةً لِلنّاسِ وَرَحمَةً مِنّا ۚ وَكانَ أَمرًا مَقضِيًّاMuhammad Asad[The angel] answered: "Thus it is; [but] thy Sustainer says, 'This is easy for Me;1 and [thou shalt have a son,] so that We might make him a symbol unto mankind and an act of grace from Us.'"2 And it was a thing decreed [by God]:Cf. the identical phrase in verse 9 above, relating to the announcement of John's birth to Zachariah. In both these cases, the implication is that God can and does bring about events which may be utterly unexpected or even inconceivable before they materialize. In connection with the announcement of a son to Mary, the Qur'an states in 3:47 that "when He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, 'Be' and it is": but since neither the Qur'an nor any authentic Tradition tells us anything about the chain of causes and effects (asbab) which God's decree "Be" was to bring into being, all speculation as to the "how" of this event must remain beyond the scope of a Qur'an-commentary. (But see also note 87 on 21:91.)One of the several meanings of the term dyah is "a sign" or, as elaborately defined by Raghib. "a symbol" (cf. surah 17, note 2). However, the sense in which it is most frequently used in the Qur'an is "a [divine] message": hence, its metonymic application to Jesus may mean that he was destined to become a vehicle of God's message to man - i.e., a prophet - and, thus, a symbol of God's grace. - As regards the words "thou shalt have a son" interpolated by me between brackets, a statement to this effect is implied in the subsequent phrase beginning with "so that" (Zamakhshari and Razi).