Page 167 - New English Book L

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Chapter III

John the Baptist (pbuh) announces

A powerful Prophet

John the Baptist (pbuh) , according to the narratives of

the four Evangelists, was a cousin and contemporary of
Jesus (pbuh) , being only about six months older than the
latter. The Quran does not mention anything about the
life and work of this Prophet except that God, through
the angels, announced to his father Zachariah (pbuh) that he
would have a son name Yahya, who would bear witness
to the word of Allah, and that he would be an honourable
person, chaste, and one of the righteous John Prophets
(Quran, iii.-). Nothing is known about his infancy,
except that he was a Nazarite living in the wilderness,
eating locusts and wild honey, covering his body with
a cloth made of camel’s hair, tied with a leather girdle.
He is believed to have belonged to a Jewish religious
sect called the “Essenes,” from whom issued the early
Christian “Ibionites” whose principal characteristic was
to abstain from worldly pleasures. In fact, the Quránic
descriptive term of this hermit Prophet –“hasura,” which
means “chaste” in every sense of the word- shows that
he led a celibate life of chastity, poverty, and piety. He
was not seen from his early youth until he was a man of
thirty or more, when he began his mission of preaching
repentance and baptizing the penitent sinners with water.
Great multitudes were drawn to the wilderness of Judea
to hear the fiery sermons of the new Prophet; and the
penitent Jews were baptized by him in the water of the
River Jordan. He reprimanded the educated but fanatical
Pharisees and the Priests, and threatened the learned
but rationalistic Saduqees (Saducees) with the coming
vengeance. He declared that he was baptizing them with