His saying, exalted and glorified is He:

﴿He said, 'My Lord, how can I have a boy when old age has certainly come upon me and my wife is barren?' He said, 'Thus Allah does what He wills.'﴾

The commentators have differed regarding why Zakariya said, ﴿My Lord, how can I have a boy?﴾. Ikrimah and Al-Suddi said: He was called with this glad tidings, and then the devil came to disturb him regarding the blessing of his Lord. He said: 'Do you know who called you?' He said: 'The angels of my Lord called me.' He said: 'No, that was the devil. If this were from your Lord, He would have concealed it from you just as you concealed your calling.' So a whisper and doubt mixed with his heart, and he said: ﴿How can I have a boy?﴾. Al-Tabari and others went to the view that when Zakariya saw the state of himself and the state of his wife, and that she was not in a condition to bear children, he asked about the way in which the boy would come to be. Would the woman’s creation be changed, or how would it be?

And this is a good interpretation that suits Zakariya, peace be upon him. And Makkī said: It is said that he asked because he forgot his supplication due to the long period between the supplication and the glad tidings, which was forty years. And this is a weak statement in meaning. And 'how' means: how? And from where? And his saying: ﴿Old age has certainly come upon me﴾ is a metaphor, as if time is a path and events are racing in it. When two events meet, it is as if each one of them has reached its counterpart. The reality of reaching in matters is that the one who reaches moves to that which is reached. And it is appropriate in the verse ﴿Old age has certainly come upon me﴾ in that it is the expression of a weak person affected, while 'I have reached' is the expression of an active person in a state of dominance, so reflect on it. And this is not contradicted by his saying: ﴿And I have certainly reached old age﴾ [Maryam: 8] because he has expressed the weakness of his state in mentioning the state of being old.

And 'barren' is a person who does not give birth. This is said for both a woman and a man. 'Amir ibn al-Tufayl said:

'Wretched is the young man if I am one-eyed, barren, and cowardly; what is my excuse in every gathering?'

And 'barren' is a form of a doer and it is based on lineage and not on the action. The reference in His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿Thus Allah﴾ may be to this strange matter that he was given glad tidings of, meaning: like this astonishing ability, it is the ability of Allah. In the speech, there is an omission of a possessive, and the speech is complete in His saying: ﴿Thus Allah﴾ and His saying: ﴿does what He wills﴾ clarifies the ambiguity that is in that. And it may be that the reference with 'that' is to the state of Zakariya and the state of his wife, as if he said: 'My Lord, by what means will we have a boy while we are in such a condition?' So He said to him: 'Just as you are, a boy will be for you.' And the speech is complete on this interpretation in His saying: 'Thus,' and His saying: ﴿Allah does what He wills﴾ is a statement that clarifies and confirms in the soul the occurrence of this astonishing matter.