What is meant by the Spirit that God sent to Mary?

The Spirit does not mean a part of God, but His command and will. This will appeared to Mary in the form of a perfect man in order to bring about the birth of Jesus (as).

The Arabic word for spirit is “Ruh”. To understand it correctly, we have to ask the Holy Qur’an itself. The second verse above says that the Ruh comes into being by the command of God. So where God speaks of His Ruh, He means His will, which acts and brings things into being.

We must not imagine a soul of God, in the way a human being has a soul within a body. God has no body. If God had sent His own spirit to Mary, He would have been without a spirit at that moment. Such an idea does not befit God and must not be attributed to the Holy Qur’an.

Why did this will of God appear in the form of a perfect man? Mary was a woman like other women, but God had placed in her a special capacity through which she could conceive without a man. The appearance was meant to set in motion within her the natural processes that led to conception. This is the order in which the Holy Qur’an describes it.

No man, then, was involved in the birth of Jesus (as). Yet this does not make him the Son of God. Adam had no father either, and no one calls him God’s son for that reason. The third verse above shows that God creates what He wills, in the way He decides.

Mary was a pure and devout woman whom God had chosen for this task. The birth of her son is a sign of God’s power, not proof of anything divine in Jesus (as).