The status of Mary in the Quran and the New Testament is indicative of key distinctions between the two religions. In particular, while the Christian doctrine of original sin requires that Mary be presented as near-divine herself, the absence of this doctrine from Islam means that Mary is simply presented as exceptionally pure.

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Mary is mentioned in each of the four gospels of the New Testament, and she plays a key role in the narrative of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, alongside her position as one of the women who discovers the empty tomb following Jesus’ resurrection. Alongside her narrative importance, a key element of the Christian representation of Mary is the statement given in the annunciation that she is “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). Traditionally this view has been taken to suggest that Mary herself was free from sin, as well as supporting the notion that the conception of Jesus was immaculate, i.e. that it did not involve any intercourse between her and Joseph.

As Marilyn Adams notes, the tradition of representing Mary as sinless extended to the later idea that she herself had been immaculately conceived, something that enabled Christians to negotiate the apparent contradiction that an inherently sinful human being could have been involved in the generation of a messianic, redemptive figure (2010, 138). Even in the sections of the Bible in which it is not mentioned explicitly, Mary’s state of sinlessness is a crucial element of the narrative in which she participates. For example, Matthew’s gospel begins with the Joseph’s rejection of his betrothed, upon learning that she has fallen pregnant and it is only when an Angel of God intervenes to assert Mary’s innocence that Joseph returns, enabling the narrative of gospel to continue.

Alongside the role that Mary plays in the narratives of Jesus’ birth, she may also be seen to play a key role in his death, especially in relation to the gospel of Mark and the so-called “empty tomb tradition.” This tradition focuses on the role of women in discovering the empty tomb of Jesus and, by association, the fact of his resurrection. According to the final words of Mark, the women who discover the tomb, including Mary, are informed that they should go out and spread the word of the resurrection, that instead “went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled, and were amazed, neither said they any thing to any man, for they were afraid” (Mark.16.6-8). Several different interpretations exist as to why the Mark ended his gospel with manifestation of fear and with what appears to be failure to carry out the instructions that were given to them by a young man, heavily suggested to be an angel. One of the most important of these relies on the notion that the women functioned as living witnesses to the fact of the resurrection, something that no other person in the gospel stories experiences before they do.

In relation to this fact, Richard Buckham notes that “the women’s witness to the empty tomb was, and is, uniquely theirs […] Hence the gospel stories of the empty tomb perpetuate the women’s witness: all readers of readers of them are confronted with their distinctive witness” (2007, 27). In this sense, therefore, Mary is amongst a group of women who hold a unique status as those who are first to understand the fact of the resurrection, and as those who function as the first witnesses to it, even if the content of this witnessing is, initially, fear and dismay. The crucial role of this witnessing is further emphasized if one considers the fact that the stone around the tomb is depicted as having been miraculously rolled away. One commentator on this passage notes that the purpose of the “is not to allow Jesus to leave the tomb but to allow the women into the tomb to see that it was empty” (Stein, 2008, 730). The setting of the final scene of Mark is therefore arranged in order to emphasize Mary’s role as a witness to the resurrection, something that makes her crucial for both the birth and the death of Jesus. In this way, the figure of Mary may be seen to encapsulate the life of Jesus, a fact that clearly explains part of her status within Christian, and especially Catholic, tradition.

While Mary is a significant presence in the Quran, it is important to note that her presentation differs. She is mentioned in both the Meccan (Surah 19, 21 and 23) and Medina (Surah 3,4,5 and 66) sections of the text and is referred to as Maryam throughout. One of the major concerns of the Quaranic representation of both Jesus and Mary is to establish a context in which the latter could be understood as a powerful and important prophet, but in which it could also be denied that he was the actual son of God (Robinson, 1990, 161). With this in mind, several commentators have argued that descriptions of Mary’s in the Quran ignore any sense of immaculate conception (Malik et al. 1988, 387). This tension is shown in the verses of Surah 3 which read: “ O Mary, indeed God has chosen you, purified you, and chosen you above the women of the worlds” (ibid., 20). In this description, Mary is presented as being purer than any other women in the world, however she is not seen as being exempt from an original condition that affects others. As Malik argues, this apparent rejection of immaculate conception may be understood to serve two purposes. On the one hand, it makes clear that, despite that exceptional virtue of both Jesus and Mary, they did not exist in a quantitatively different ontological plane to other people and, secondly, it also makes clear a specific stance on the doctrine of original sin (ibid). The fact that Mary is not depicted within the Quaran as having been entirely absent from sin, may also be read as being indicative of the significantly smaller emphasis that Islam places on the notion of sin, at least in comparison to Christianity.

Along with this lack of emphasis on the idea of sin, it is also the case that Mary does not play any particular witnessing role within the Quran. While several verses mention the fact that Jesus was given signs and special knowledge by God, and that he was raised to a level that extraordinary for any mortal, at no point is it suggested that Mary herself plays a witnessing function, or that she is the first to experience any one particular event that has immense religious significance. Again, like the differing emphasis placed on sin between the Bible and Quran, this can be related to the fact that there simply is no suggestion of the resurrection in the Quran and, as such, there is no privileged place that Mary could be accorded, either in terms of her knowledge of this event or in terms of her capacity to bear witness to it.

In conclusion, therefore, to consider the nuances of the presentation of Mary in Christianity and in Islam is necessarily to consider the traits shared by the two religions. Importantly, such a consideration also shows the different emphasis that both religions place on the idea of sin, and its relationship to virtue and purity. Alongside this, the representation of Mary in Christianity may also be seen to be significantly related to the fact of the resurrection and to the knowledge that she possesses regarding this. As this event is in no way a concern for Islam, it follows that status of Mary as a singular kind of witness is unknown in Islamic scripture.