Sura 19 is named for Maryam, the only woman named in the Quran, and the birth scene is unusually raw. She withdraws to a remote place, the pains drive her to the trunk of a palm, and she says she wishes she had died before this and been a thing forgotten. A voice tells her not to grieve, that a stream has been set below her, and to shake the trunk toward her so fresh dates fall — she is told to do something physical for herself in the middle of it. Then she is instructed to vow silence and to say nothing to anyone, and when the town confronts her with the child she points at him and he speaks in her defence. Muslim devotion holds Maryam in extremely high regard: she is described as chosen above the women of the worlds, sura 3 recounts her childhood in the temple, and the Quran's account of the annunciation and virgin birth is affirmed without the incarnation Christianity draws from it. Date palms and the practice of eating dates at childbirth trace to this passage in popular practice.