She (Mary) said: “Would that I had died before this, and had become a thing forgotten, completely forgotten!” (Maryam 19:23)
يَا لَيْتَنِي مِتُّ قَبْلَ هَـٰذَا وَكُنتُ نَسْيًا مَّنسِيًّا
She (Mary) said: “Would that I had died before this, and had become a thing forgotten, completely forgotten!” (Maryam 19:23)
Everybody uses particular expressions for the things that they overly emphasize. For instance, Abū Bakr is reported—even though not so reliably—to have said: “My Lord! In the Hereafter enlarge my body to the extent that I would fill the whole Hell and nobody else would enter it!” Similarly, Said Nursi says: “If I see the faith of my nation secured, I am ready to be burned in the flames of Hell, for while my body is being burned, my heart becomes like a rose garden.”[1] Belief and altruism were so ingrained in their consciousness. As for Mary, chastity was so important to her that even though she was completely pure and sinless, her worries about the possible reactions of people to her giving birth to a child without a father were so unbearable that this heroine of chastity wished she would have died and become forgotten.
In fact, there have been many who have felt doubled up under the heavy responsibility of being human. When Abū Bakr saw a bird pecking at a fruit in a tree, he wished he would have been that fruit.[2] ‘Umar wished he would have been a chip of wood like the one he once held in his hand;[3] and another one wished he would have been a tree to be cut into pieces.[4] These are examples of certain momentary considerations coming from the unbearable heavy responsibility of being truly human.
[1] Nursi, Tarihçe-i Hayat (Said Nursi’s Official Biography), 1996, Vol II, p. 2206.
[2] Al-Bayhaqī, Shu‘abu’l-Īmān, 1/485.
[3] Ibid, 1/486.
[4] Tirmidhī, “Zuhd,” 9; Ibn Mājah, “Zuhd,” 19.
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