The Quran

فَنادَتهُ المَلائِكَةُ وَهُوَ قائِمٌ يُصَلّي فِي المِحرابِ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُبَشِّرُكَ بِيَحيىٰ مُصَدِّقًا بِكَلِمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَسَيِّدًا وَحَصورًا وَنَبِيًّا مِنَ الصّالِحينَ

Muhammad Asad

Thereupon, as he stood praying in the sanctuary, the angels called out unto him: "God sends thee the glad tiding of [the birth of] John, who shall confirm the truth of a word from God,¹ and [shall be] outstanding among men, and utterly chaste, and a prophet from among the righteous."

In view of the fact that the expression kalimah is often used in the Qur'an to denote an announcement from God, or a statement of His will, or His promise (e.g., 4:171, 6:34 and 115, 10:64, 18:27, and so forth), we must conclude that in the above passage, too, the "word from God" which would be confirmed by the birth of John (described in the Gospels as "John the Baptist") refers to a divine promise given through revelation: and this, indeed, is the interpretation adopted by the famous philologist Abu 'Ubaydah Ma'mar ibn al-Muthanna, who lived in the second century H. and devoted most of his labours to the study of rare expressions in the Arabic language; his identification, in the context under discussion, of kalimah with kitab ("revelation" or "divine writ") has been quoted by Razi in his commentary on this verse and is, moreover, agreeable with a similar announcement conveyed to Mary regarding the birth of Jesus (see verse 45 of this surah).