Zachariah · Zakariyya
Zachariah in Islam
Zachariah is Zakariyya in Arabic, written زَكَرِيَّا. The two names belong to the same person, and the two traditions tell his story differently enough to be worth reading side by side.
- English
- Zachariah
- Arabic
- زَكَرِيَّا
- Read as
- Zakariyya
- Status
- Prophet in Islam
- Where the English comes from
- Hebrew Zekharyah, the Lord has remembered.
- What the Arabic carries
- Zakariyya, the Quranic form of the same name.
- Full name page
- Zakariyya on AsrNaam
Is Zachariah the same as Zakariyya? Yes. Zachariah is the English form and Zakariyya the Arabic form of one name. He is the old man who prayed for an heir and was given Yahya, and the guardian of Maryam before that.
Zakariyya in the Quran
Zakariyya is the old man who asks anyway. The Quran has him praying in secret, saying that his bones have grown weak and his head is aflame with grey, and that he has never been disappointed in praying to God before. He asks for an heir, and he is given Yahya.
He is also Maryam's guardian. The Quran shows him finding provision with her in the sanctuary and asking where it came from, and her answering that it is from God, who provides without measure. It is directly after that exchange that he prays for a child of his own.
The sign he is given is three days of silence, able to speak to his people only by gesture. Both his story and his son's are in Surah Maryam and Surah Al-Imran.
Using the name
The full entry for Zakariyya carries the Arabic spelling, the Urdu, the pronunciation, the lucky number and the letter-by-letter Ilm ul Huroof reading, along with every romanisation the name is written in.
Open the full Zakariyya page →
Questions about Zachariah and Zakariyya
Is Zachariah the same name as Zakariyya?
Is Zakariyya the same as Zechariah?
What sign was Zakariyya given?
Can a Muslim family use the name Zakariyya?
Other names the two traditions share
Every one of these is one figure under two names.
Or start from the full list of Biblical names in Islam.