So he raised his hands in supplication towards God and said...

So he raised his hands in supplication towards God and said, “O God, I wish you to grant me a pure and pious child a child who will be a source of satisfaction to me, the inheritor of me and the House Of Ya'qub.” (3:38, 19:1-6) Hazrat Zakaryya (a.s.) was engaged in prayer in the sanctuary when angels said to him, “God gives you glad tidings of a child called Yahya who is of the righteous and devout prophets.” Hazrat Zakaryya (a.s.) who was himself old and weary and saw the barrenness and sterility of his wife (and to become pregnant in such conditions was a gift which could not be expected).

He said with delight and surprise, “O God, in the state I and my wife are in, how can you grant me the favour of a child?” In answer to this it was said, “This work is easy for God. Did God the Almighty not bring you forth from non-existence into being? “ Thus Hazrat Zakaryya (a.s.) became one of the Divine prophets and throughout the whole of his life he called people to faith and salvation.

In the end he was martyred by one of the kings of Bani Isra'il who wanted to marry the daughter of his own brother against the law of God, and to whom Hazrat Yahya had forbidden this.[^5] 'Isa, Jesus, the Messiah One day, Maryam[^6] the girl who had grown up from infancy in the House of God and whose upbringing a prophet of the stature of Zakaryya had undertaken was engaged in worship when an angel appeared to her in the form of a man.

Maryam thought that he was a man, and in fear sought protection from God, but the angel gave her glad tidings, “I have come from your God to give you a pure and perfect son.

“ Maryam said, “How, since no man has had contact with me and I am not a fornicatress.'' “Your God,” said the angel, says that this work is easy for Him; that it may be appointed as a sign and an indication of His Mercy.” So Maryam became pregnant, and, since she had no husband some gossipers began to make obscene comments about her, and she became grieved so as to be free from these afflictions she took herself far from people, and had to go to a remote place.

There she counted the days until the birth of her child. At last, when the time of delivery arrived, she took refuge from her pain under a dry date palm in the desert, and in that very place she delivered her baby into the world without any mid-wife or nurse.