4 Preface قالَ رَبِّ إِنّي وَهَنَ العَظمُ مِنّي وَاشتَعَلَ الرَّأسُ شَيبًا وَلَم أَكُن بِدُعائِكَ رَبِّ شَقِيًّاYusuf AliPraying: “O my Lord! infirm indeed are my bones, and the hair of my head doth glisten with grey: but never am I unblest, O my Lord, in my prayer1 to Thee!This preface shows the fervent faith of Zakariya. Zakariya was a priest of the Most High God. His office was the Temple, and his relatives were his colleagues. But he found in them no true spirit of the service of God and man. He was filled with anxiety as to who would uphold the godly ideas he had in mind, which were strange to his worldly colleagues.