467. There was nobody by the name of Yahya earlier.
In verse (19:7) of the Quran Allah says He blessed Prophet Zakariah with a baby boy at an old age.
Naming a child is not a task so important to be handled by the creator, and neither is it a task difficult for man to carry out. Is Prophet Zachriah incapable of naming a child given by the Almighty?
To prove nobody existed carrying the name Yahya till then did Allah christen the name for the baby.
To prove the Quran is the word of God, this one verse is more than sufficient.
Allah blessed Prophet Zachriah with a baby and also christens him as Yahya and says nobody existed with that name earlier.
This cannot be said by any human being now or in the past.
If it this message been declared by any man, he should have been conversant with all languages of the world and should have had the knowledge of all the names of all those born in this world till then, and he should have also had the knowledge that the name of Yahya did not exist among the millions of names till then. Even now, in this age of computers no man can declare a particular name as unique, where it requires a registry of the names of all those born and dead throughout the world.
It is being said in the Quran nearly 2000 years before, Prophet Zachriah conveyed the message that nobody by the name Yahya existed till he was christened.
If it was discovered someone with that name did exist at some part of history in the olden days, then the verse of the Quran would be proven as false.
This could not be proved as the imagination of Prophet Muhammad, through whom the Quran was revealed, because the thought anyone did exist with the name would stop him from such an utterance.
The declaration that nobody with the name Yahya existed before that time could be made only by the Almighty God.
Though this fact was not declared in the scriptures of the Jews and Christians and only in the Quran, confirm it is the word of God.
Hence can be considered as Allah confirming He is the ‘All Knowing.’
Allah challenges everyone to check and prove that someone with the particular name did exist till that time of history when Yahaya was christened.
It is hard for anybody to declare the existence or non-existence of something at certain times because when such declarations turn out to be false, they cast a bad light on the persons who declare. Only the Almighty is capable of making such declarations.
Though the Christians tried in vain to find out the name ‘Yahya’ to disprove the Quranic verses, they met with failure.