The story
Before Yahya was born, heaven named him, and noted the name had never been given before (19:7). Before he was a man, heaven commissioned him: 'O Yahya, take the Book with strength. And We gave him judgment while yet a boy' (19:12). The Qur'an then writes the character reference every parent dreams of: 'and compassion from Us, and purity, and he was fearing of Allah, and dutiful to his parents, and he was not a domineering tyrant' (19:13-14).
He confirmed 'a word from Allah' (3:39), his cousin Isa, and called Bani Israil back to their covenant with a courage that spared no palace. The tradition holds that his stand for the law against a corrupt ruler's marriage cost him his head, making him the prophet-martyr of the family of Imran.
The Qur'an grants him its rarest blessing formula, the same it grants Isa: 'Peace upon him the day he was born, and the day he dies, and the day he is raised alive' (19:15). The three loneliest checkpoints of existence, each secured with salam.