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Muhammad in the Bible David Benjamin KeldaniEdited & Annotated by: Prof. Dawud M. R. Alhanbali & Prof, Dr. Kaseb A. Albadran ( 43 )JJohn the Baptist(pbuh) announces a Powerful Prophetohn the Baptist(pbuh), according to the narratives of the four Evangelists, was a cousin and contemporary of Jesus(pbuh), being only about sixmonths older than the latter. TheQuran does notmention 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 named Yahyā, who would bear witness to the word of Allah, and that he would be an honourable person, chaste, and one of the righteous prophets (Quran, iii.-). Nothing is known about his infancy, exceptthat he was aNazarene 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 religioussect called the “Essenes,” from whom issued the early Christian “Ibionites” whose principal characteristic wasto abstain fromworldly pleasures. In fact,the Quranic descriptive term of this hermit Prophet –“hasūra,” 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. Greatmultitudes were drawn to the wilderness of Judea to hearthe fiery sermons ofthe new Prophet; and the penitent