Zechariah was a Jewish priest mentioned in the New Testament and as a prophet in the Quran, and venerated in Christianity and Islam. In the Bible, he is the father of John the Baptist, a priest of the
Saint Zechariah by Jusepe de Ribera, 1634
Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco Zechariah Writes Down the Name of His Son (1490, fresco in the Tornabuoni Chapel, Florence)
The martyrdom of Zachariah in the Temple during the Massacre of the Innocents; and the Flight of Elizabeth, as depicted in a miniature from the Paris Gregory, a 9th-century manuscript codex
The Tomb of Absalom, built in the 1st century CE in the Kidron Valley; an inscription added three centuries later claims that it is Zechariah's tomb.
John the Baptist in Islam
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Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā, identified Biblically as John the Baptist, is considered in Islam a prophet of God who was sent to guide the Children of Israel. He was the maternal cousin of Isa and believed by
Zechariah, father of John the Baptist
…as such in the 1st century, Absalom had lived centuries earlier. Zechariah is also a prophet in Islam, and is mentioned in the Qur'an as the father of Yaḥyā (John the Baptist). Zechariah is also believed by some Muslims to have been a martyr. An old tradition narrates that Zechariah was sawn in half, in a…
Baby Yahya being held by two angels, late 16th century illustration from Ottoman manuscript
Shrine of Yahya in Sebastia, Palestine
Shrine purportedly housing the head of Yahya in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria
Like Yahya, Muhammad's grandson Al-Husain was beheaded, and his head was temporarily kept here, in what is now the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus