Tafsir of Surah Maryam - Verse 7

The acceptance of His Supplication

This statement implies what is not mentioned, that his supplication was answered. It was said to him,

يزَكَرِيَّآ إِنَّا نُبَشِّرُكَ بِغُلَـمٍ اسْمُهُ يَحْيَى

((Allah said:) "O Zakariyya! Verily, We give you the glad tidings of a son, whose name will be Yahya...") Similarly Allah, the Exalted, said;

هُنَالِكَ دَعَا زَكَرِيَّا رَبَّهُ قَالَ رَبِّ هَبْ لِى مِن لَّدُنْكَ ذُرِّيَّةً طَيِّبَةً إِنَّكَ سَمِيعُ الدُّعَآءِ - فَنَادَتْهُ الْمَلَـئِكَةُ وَهُوَ قَائِمٌ يُصَلِّى فِى الْمِحْرَابِ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُبَشِّرُكَ بِيَحْيَـى مُصَدِّقاً بِكَلِمَةٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَسَيِّدًا وَحَصُورًا وَنَبِيًّا مِّنَ الصَّـلِحِينَ

(At that time Zakariyya invoked his Lord, saying: "O my Lord! Grant me from You, a good offspring. You are indeed the All-Hearer of invocation." Then the angels called him, while he was standing in prayer in the Mihrab, (saying): "Allah gives you glad tidings of Yahya, confirming (believing in) the word from Allah, noble, keeping away from sexual relations with women, a Prophet, from among the righteous.")3:38-39 Allah said,

لَمْ نَجْعَل لَّهُ مِن قَبْلُ سَمِيّاً

(We have given that name to none before (him).) Qatadah, Ibn Jurayj and Ibn Zayd said, "This means that no one had this name before him." Ibn Jarir preferred this interpretation, may Allah have mercy upon him.

لم نجعَل لَّہ مِن قَبلُ سَمِیاً

"We did not create any one before him of the same name." - 19:7.

The word سَمِی means "person having the same name." It also means "similar." If the first meaning is adopted here then it would suggest that no one else had the name Yahya before him. This fact also suggests that he possessed certain special attributes which were not granted to anyone else before him. And if we take the second meaning of the word سَمِی then it will mean that some of his attributes and situations were such that they were peculiar to him and were not shared by any other prophet, and that he was unique in the possession of those special attributes, for instance his self abnegation and denial of worldly comforts (حصُور). However, it does not necessarily follow that he was superior to all the prophets who preceded him, for the superiority of Sayyidna Ibrahim Khalilullah (علیہ السلام) and Sayyidna Musa Kalimullah (علیہ السلام) over him is established and well known. (Mazhari)

This prayer was answered by the granting of a son—an extraordinary happening, as a son is not ordinarily born to people in such circumstances. The birth of a child to a couple, where the husband was extremely old and his wife had been barren throughout her life, was really a most unusual event. On account of this, Zachariah’s pleasure on receipt of this extraordinary and unexpected news spontaneously expressed itself as disbelief: how could he have a child when he and his wife were incapable of having children?