The five words commanded to Yahya / The asceticism and worship of Yahya / The killing of Yahya and Zakariyya / The place of the death of Yahya ibn Zakariyya

The five words commanded to Yahya

« Allah commanded Yahya ibn Zakariyya with five words, to act upon them and to command the Children of Israel to act upon them; he almost delayed. Isa (peace be upon him) said to him: you were commanded with five words, to act upon them and to command the Children of Israel to act upon them: either you convey them, or I shall convey them. He said: O brother, I fear, should you precede me, that I be punished or swallowed by the earth. Yahya therefore gathered the Children of Israel at Bayt al-Maqdis until the mosque was full; he sat upon the elevation, praised Allah and glorified Him, then said: Allah commanded me with five words to act upon them and commands you to act upon them: the first is that you worship Allah and associate nothing with Him: its example is one who buys a slave with his pure wealth, in silver or gold, then makes him work and pay his wage to other than his master: which of you would be pleased that his slave did so?

Allah created you and provided for you: worship Him then, and associate nothing with Him. And I command you prayer: Allah turns His face toward His servant as long as he does not turn away; when you pray, do not turn away. And I command you fasting: its example is a man carrying a pouch of musk in his pocket: all of them smell its scent; and the breath of the fasting one is sweeter to Allah than the scent of musk. And I command you charity: its example is a man taken captive by the enemy: they bind his hand to his neck and bring him to strike his neck, and he says: would you accept that I ransom my life?

He ransoms his life from them, in little and in much, until he frees his life. And I command you much remembrance of Allah: its example is a man whom the enemy pursues swiftly on his trail, who reaches a fortified fortress and shelters in it: and the servant is best sheltered from Satan when he is in the remembrance of Allah. » And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: « and I command you five things Allah commanded me: the community, hearing, obedience, emigration and jihad in the path of Allah: whoever leaves the community a hand-span has cast off the rope of Islam from his neck, unless he returns; and whoever calls with the call of Jahiliyya is among the crouching of Hellfire. » They said: O Messenger of Allah, even if he fasts and prays?

He said: « even if he fasts, prays and claims to be Muslim: call the Muslims by the names Allah named them: Muslims, believers, servants of Allah. »

Reported by Ahmad, Abu Ya'la, at-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah and al-Hakim

Thus Abu Ya'la reported it, from Hudba ibn Khalid, from Aban ibn Yazid, from Yahya ibn Abi Kathir; thus at-Tirmidhi, from the hadith of Abu Dawud at-Tayalisi and Musa ibn Isma'il, both from Aban ibn Yazid al-Attar; thus Ibn Majah, from Hisham ibn Ammar, from Muhammad ibn Shu'ayb ibn Sabur, from Muawiya ibn Salam, from his brother Zayd ibn Salam, from Abu Salam, from al-Harith al-Ash'ari; thus al-Hakim, by way of Marwan ibn Muhammad at-Tatari, from Muawiya ibn Salam, from his brother; then he said: Marwan at-Tatari alone reported it from Muawiya ibn Salam. I say: it is not as he said. And at-Tabarani reported it, from Muhammad ibn Abda, from Abu Tawba ar-Rabi' ibn Nafi', from Muawiya ibn Salam, from Abu Salam, from al-Harith al-Ash'ari, in similar terms: the mention of Zayd ibn Salam drops from this transmission.

Then the hafiz Ibn Asakir reported, by way of Abdullah ibn Abi Ja'far ar-Razi, from his father, from ar-Rabi' ibn Anas, who said: it was mentioned to us from the companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) what they heard from the scholars of the Children of Israel: Yahya ibn Zakariyya was sent with five words. And he mentioned terms like the foregoing.

The asceticism and worship of Yahya

They mentioned that Yahya (peace be upon him) was often solitary, apart from the people: he kept only to the wildernesses, ate the leaves of trees, drank the water of rivers, fed on locusts at times, and said: who is more blessed than I, O Yahya. Ibn Asakir reported that his parents went out seeking him and found him by the marsh of the Jordan; when they met him, he made them weep bitter tears, by what was in him of worship and fear of Allah. Ibn Wahb said, from Malik, from Humayd ibn Qays, from Mujahid: the food of Yahya ibn Zakariyya was herbs, and he would weep from fear of Allah, to the point that had tar been upon his eyes it would have burned it. Muhammad ibn Yahya adh-Dhuhli said: Abu Salih reported to us, al-Layth reported to us, Uqayl reported to me, from Ibn Shihab, who said: I sat one day with Abu Idris al-Khawlani while he narrated, and he said: shall I not tell you of the man of the finest food?

When he saw that the people were looking at him, he said: Yahya ibn Zakariyya had the finest food: he ate only with the wild beasts, loathing to mix with the people in their livelihoods. Ibn al-Mubarak said, from Wuhayb ibn al-Ward, who said: Zakariyya lost his son Yahya for three days, went out seeking him in the wilderness, and there he was: he had dug a grave and stood in it weeping over himself. He said: O my son, I seek you three days, and you are in a grave you dug, standing weeping in it? He said: O father, was it not you who told me that between Paradise and the Fire lies a wilderness crossed only by the tears of the weepers?

He said to him: weep then, O my son. And they both wept. Wahb ibn Munabbih and Mujahid reported the like. Ibn Asakir reported from him: the people of Paradise do not sleep, for the delight of what they have of bliss; so it behooves the truthful not to sleep, for what their hearts contain of bliss in the love of Allah.

Then he said: how much between the two delights, and how much between them both. They mentioned that he wept much, until weeping left its traces on his cheeks from the multitude of his tears.

The killing of Yahya and Zakariyya

An account of the causes of the killing of Yahya (peace be upon him). They mentioned many causes; the most famous is that one of the kings of that time, in Damascus, wanted to marry one of his mahram relatives, or a woman whose marriage was not lawful for him: Yahya (peace be upon him) forbade him that, and she bore a grudge against him. When she had won the king's affection, she asked him as a gift the blood of Yahya, and he granted it to her. She sent the one who killed him, and he came with his head and his blood in a basin to her; it is said she died within the hour. It is said: rather, the wife of that king loved him and wrote to him, but he refused her; when she despaired of him, she contrived to ask the king to give him to her; the king refused, then answered her; she sent the one who killed him and had his head and blood brought to her in a basin.

Its meaning has come in a hadith reported by Ishaq ibn Bishr in his Book al-Mubtada, where he said: Ya'qub al-Kufi informed us, from Amr ibn Maymun, from his father, from Ibn Abbas: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), on the night of the Ascension, saw Zakariyya in the heaven, greeted him and said: O Abu Yahya, inform me of your killing: how was it, and why did the Children of Israel kill you? He said: O Muhammad, I inform you that Yahya was the best of his era, the most handsome of them, the brightest of face, and he was as Allah the Most High said: a master and chaste; he had no need of women. The wife of the king of the Children of Israel desired him; she was a harlot; she sent to him, but Allah protected him, and Yahya restrained himself and refused her. She resolved upon the killing of Yahya.

They had a festival in which they gathered every year, and the king's custom was to promise without breaking or lying. The king went out to the festival, and his wife rose to see him off, which she had never done before and which flattered him. When she saw him off, the king said: ask of me: whatever you ask, I shall grant you. She said: I want the blood of Yahya ibn Zakariyya.

He said: ask me for other than that. She said: it is that. He said: it is yours. She sent her guards to Yahya, who was in his prayer sanctuary praying, while I prayed at his side.

He was slaughtered in a basin, and his head and blood were carried to her. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: to what extent did your patience reach? He said: I never faltered in my prayer. When his head was carried to her and set before her, and they passed the night, Allah swallowed the king, his household and his army.

In the morning, the Children of Israel said: the god of Zakariyya is wrath for Zakariyya: come, let us be wrath for our king, and kill Zakariyya. They went out seeking me to kill me; the Warner came to me and I fled from them, while Iblis walked before them, pointing me out to them. When I feared I could not escape them, a tree presented itself to me and called me: to me, to me; it split open for me and I entered it. Iblis came and seized the hem of my garment, and the tree closed, the hem of my garment remaining outside the tree.

The Children of Israel came, and Iblis said: did you not see him enter this tree? This is the hem of his garment: he entered it by his magic. They said: we shall burn this tree. Iblis said: saw it with a saw.

I was therefore sawn with the tree by the saw. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to him: did you feel touch or pain? He said: no; the tree alone felt it: Allah had placed my spirit in it. This is a strange context, an astonishing hadith, and its attribution to the Prophet is objectionable, and it contains what is objectionable in any case.

We have not seen, in any of the hadiths of the Ascension, a mention of Zakariyya (peace be upon him) except in this hadith. What is preserved, in some of the wordings of the Sahih, of the hadith of the Ascension, is: « I passed by the two sons of the maternal aunt: Yahya and Isa », who are maternal cousins according to the majority, as is apparent in the hadith: the mother of Yahya, Ashiya' bint Imran, is the sister of Maryam bint Imran. It is said: rather Ashiya', the wife of Zakariyya and mother of Yahya, is the sister of Hanna, the wife of Imran and mother of Maryam, which would make Yahya the maternal cousin of Maryam. And Allah knows best.

The place of the death of Yahya ibn Zakariyya

Then there was difference over the place of Yahya ibn Zakariyya's killing: was it in the al-Aqsa mosque, or elsewhere? Two views. Ath-Thawri said, from al-A'mash, from Shimr ibn Atiyya: upon the rock of Bayt al-Maqdis seventy prophets were killed, among them Yahya ibn Zakariyya (peace be upon him). Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam said: Abdullah ibn Salih reported to us, from al-Layth, from Yahya ibn Sa'id, from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, who said: Bukht Nassar arrived at Damascus and found the blood of Yahya ibn Zakariyya boiling; he asked about it, was informed, and killed seventy thousand over that blood: then it was stilled. This is an authentic chain to Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, and it suggests that he was killed in Damascus, and that the story of Bukht Nassar was after the Messiah, as Ata' and al-Hasan al-Basri said. And Allah knows best.

The hafiz Ibn Asakir reported, by way of al-Walid ibn Muslim, from Zayd ibn Waqid, who said: I saw the head of Yahya ibn Zakariyya when they wanted to build the mosque of Damascus: it was brought out from beneath one of the pillars of the qibla side, the one adjoining the mihrab, on the east side; and its skin and hair were in their state, unchanged. In a narration: as if he had been killed that very hour. It has been mentioned, concerning the building of the mosque of Damascus, that it was placed under the column known as the column of the Sakasika. And Allah knows best.

The hafiz Ibn Asakir reported, in his Book gathering the merits of al-Aqsa, by way of Abbas ibn Subh, from Marwan, from Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz, from Qusaym, the freedman of Muawiya, who said: the king of this city, meaning Damascus, was Hadad ibn Hadad, who had married his son to his cousin Arila, queen of Sayda. I say: among her sovereigns was the market of kings in Damascus, the old mint. He had sworn, upon her triple divorce, not to take her back, then he wished to return to her: he consulted Yahya ibn Zakariyya, who said: she does not become lawful for you until she marries another husband. She bore a grudge against him and asked the king for the head of Yahya ibn Zakariyya, at her mother's prompting.

He refused, then answered her, and sent, while he stood praying in the mosque of Jayrun, the one who came with his head in a basin; and the head began to say: she does not become lawful for him, she does not become lawful for him, until she marries another husband. The woman took the plate, carried it on her head to her mother, the head still saying that; when it was set before her mother, the earth swallowed her to her feet, then to her shins; her mother began to wail and the maids to scream and slap their faces; then she was swallowed to her shoulders. Her mother ordered the executioner to strike her neck, that she might console herself with her head; he did, and the earth cast out her corpse. They fell then into disgrace and perishing, and the blood of Yahya did not cease boiling until Bukht Nassar came and killed seventy-five thousand over it.

Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz said: it is the blood of every prophet. It did not cease boiling until Armiya (peace be upon him) stood by it and said: O blood, you have destroyed the Children of Israel: be still, by Allah's permission. Then it was stilled. The sword was lifted, and those of the people of Damascus who fled went to Bayt al-Maqdis; he pursued them there, killed a countless multitude, took captives of them, then returned.