Maryam bint ‘Imran

Saint Mary the Holy Virgin (سلام الله علیها)
Mary and Jesus in a Persian miniature
Virgin, The Purified, The Exalted, Mother of Isa, Keeper of Chastity, Mystic, Female Exemplar, Maternal Heroine, Queen of the Saints Sai'mah, Mustafiah, Rāki’ah, Sājidah, Qānitah, Siddiqah, Tāhirah
Born	c. 20 B.C.E. Nazareth
Died	c. 100–120 C.E. Jerusalem
Venerated in	Islam Christianity
Major shrine	Mary's Tomb, Kidron Valley
Influenced	Many notable Muslim and Christian women

Mary (Arabic: مريم‎, translit. Maryam‎), the mother of Jesus (Isa), holds a singularly exalted place in Islam as the only woman named in the Qur’an, which refers to her seventy times and explicitly identifies her as the greatest of all women, stating, with reference to the angelic saluation during the annunciation, "O Mary, God has chosen you, and purified you; He has chosen you above all the women of creation." In the Quran, her story is related in three Meccan chapters (19, 21, 23) and four Medinan chapters (3, 4, 5, 66), and the nineteenth chapter of the scripture, the Chapter of Mary (Surat Maryam), is named after her. The Quran refers to Mary more than the entire New Testament.

According to the Qur’an, divine grace surrounded Mary from birth, and, as a young woman, she received a message from God through the archangel Gabriel that God had chosen her, purified her, and had preferred her above all "the women of the worlds." This event, according to the same narrative, was followed by the annunciation of a child who was to be miraculously conceived by her through the intervention of the divine spirit while she was still virgin, whose name would be Jesus and who would be the "anointed one," the Promised Messiah. As such, orthodox Islamic belief "has upheld the tenet of the virgin birth of Jesus," and although the classical Islamic thinkers never dwelt on the question of the perpetual virginity of Mary at any great length, it was generally agreed in traditional Islam that Mary remained virgin through the entirety of her life, with the Qur’an's mention of Mary's purification “from the touch of men” implying perpetual virginity in the minds of many of the most prominent Islamic fathers.