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A prophet named in the Qur'an, sent to the Children of Israel. In Christianity he is known as John the Baptist. Yahya, as the Islamic sources call him, is the son of Zakariyya (Zechariah); his mother was the maternal aunt of Mary.
The Western form of his name, Jean (John), goes back to the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "Yahweh has been gracious". According to the Islamic sources, however, the word yahya derives from the root hayat, "to live". God gave him this name, in the sense of "he will live", because of his virtuous life, because he revived his mother by ending her barrenness, because his heart was brought to life by faith and sincerity, because God kept him alive in obedience, and because martyrs remain ever alive and he was martyred. According to another interpretation, God gave him this name to reassure Zakariyya and his wife that this child, born to them in their old age, would live.
The Qur'an dwells on his birth and character rather than his historical identity. According to the suras Al Imran and Maryam, Zakariyya asked God for a helper to serve the sanctuary after him; although he was very old and his wife barren, the angels gave him the glad tidings of a son to be named Yahya — a name given to no one before. When Yahya was born and grew up he was told "Hold fast to the Scripture", and was appointed a prophet. The Qur'an states that he was given wisdom while still a child, tenderness and purity, and that he was God-fearing and dutiful to his mother and father (Al Imran 3/38-41; Maryam 19/2-15).
The hadiths relate that the Messenger of God met Yahya in the second heaven during the Mi'raj; that God commanded Yahya five things — not to associate partners with Him, to pray, to fast, to give alms and to remember God; and that everyone except Yahya has committed an error or come close to one.
The Qur'an does not narrate his death. According to some sources, the second of the two corruptions that the Children of Israel were told they would cause on earth (al-Isra' 17/4) was their killing of Yahya and their resolve to kill Jesus. The account of his life and death in the Christian sources is given in the Multiple Views section.
His Tomb and Complex — The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus (al-Jami' al-Umawi) was built on the site of a Roman temple of the 1st century BC and of the Church of St John (the Prophet Yahya), from the time of Theodosius (379-395), which stood beside its ruins. After the conquest of Damascus (14/635) the great hall of the temple was converted into a mosque under the supervision of Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah; the construction of the present great mosque was begun by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik (705-715). The prayer hall, whose foundations were laid in 86 (705) or 87 (706), was completed in 96 (714). According to a report, during the construction a head was found in a small crypt, inside a casket inscribed as belonging to Yahya, its skin and hair preserved; it was kept in place, and a tomb was later built over it. The tomb of Yahya lies in the prayer hall, between the Companions' (Maliki) mihrab and the Dome of the Eagle (Qubbat al-Nasr). Every day after the dawn prayer a seventh of the Qur'an was recited opposite the Tomb of Yahya, so that in this recitation circle, called the sub', the whole Qur'an was completed once a week.
Differing Scholarly Views
The source's frame — The source entry notes that no written source on the life and teaching of Yahya and his followers survives apart from what is in the Gospels and the Qur'an; to these it adds Josephus's Jewish Antiquities and, among the Sabian scriptures, the Ginza and the Book of John. In the main text the atlas records the account of the Qur'an, the hadith and the Islamic sources; under these headings it records the account of the Christian sources, within the source's own frame.
His life according to the Christian sources — According to this account Yahya became known as "the Baptist" at a time when Herod Antipas ruled Galilee and Perea and Pontius Pilate Judaea and Samaria. His mother's name was Elizabeth (in the Islamic sources Isha'/Ishba'). He came from a family of the priestly class (kohen) devoted to temple service; instead of taking up that service he withdrew into the wilderness bordering the Jordan to lead an ascetic life. He is said to have lived on locusts and wild honey, to have worn a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt; because this dress resembled Elijah's, some at the time claimed that he was Elijah returned. In Christian understanding he is the son of Jesus's maternal aunt and the one who baptised him, and began his preaching in AD 27. He called people to repent of their sins in readiness for the Day of Judgement and to be baptised in the Jordan, and announced the prophet to come after him: "After me comes one who is mightier than I." The source states that apart from his birth in Luke and his death in Mark and Matthew, it is not possible to reconstruct his life from the Gospel accounts, and that the Gospels differ even on whether he baptised Jesus (yes in Matthew and Mark, no in Luke); the view that what the Christian scriptures say of him was altered so as to present him as Jesus's forerunner is the entry author's own assessment.
His relation to the Essenes — It is claimed that in his way of life and dress he resembled the Essenes, and even that he was at first an Essene; after the decipherment of the manuscripts found in 1947 in the Dead Sea / Qumran valley some researchers put this possibility more strongly. Alongside the similarities the source lists serious differences: Yahya founded no settled community, was an inclusive figure addressing the whole Jewish people rather than a separatist, called people to be baptised only once in their lives, and wore a camel-hair robe rather than white garments.
His death — The Qur'an does not narrate his death, and the sources give no year for it. Some Islamic sources interpret the second corruption in al-Isra' 17/4 as his killing. According to the account based on the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee and Perea, was disturbed by Yahya's preaching; his anger grew when Yahya criticised his divorcing his wife, the daughter of the Nabataean king Aretas IV, and his marrying Herodias, his brother's wife; he had him arrested and imprisoned, and then executed by beheading.
Location of his head and remains — The entry EMEVİYYE CAMİİ states that the tomb of the Prophet Yahya is in the mosque and relates the finding of his head during the construction as a report. The entry YAHYÂ, for its part, records that it is claimed that bones of his arm and skull are in the Department of the Sacred Relics of the Topkapı Palace Museum. The sources do not give the place where his body was buried. The atlas record points to the tomb in the Umayyad Mosque as a shrine of visitation; it makes no choice between the two records.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. 43, pp. 232-234, entry “Yahyâ”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Tâlib Yâzîcî · vol. 11, pp. 108-109, entry “EMEVİYYE CAMİİ”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Ahmet Özel · vol. 11, pp. 109-111, entry “EMEVİYYE CAMİİ (2. Sosyal Hayattaki Yeri)”
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