وَحَنَانًا مِّن لَّدُنَّا وَزَكَوٰةً ۖ وَكَانَ تَقِيًّا
Wa hanaanam mil ladunnaa wa zakaatanw wa kaana taqiyyaa
I współczucie pochodzące od Nas, i czystość.
and tenderness from us, and purity — and he was mindful of God,
Hanan occurs nowhere else in the Qur'an. Its root is the sound of yearning, the leaning of something toward what it loves, and here it is listed among things handed to Yahya rather than things he achieved: wisdom while still a child, then tenderness, then purity. Only after that list does the passage turn to his own conduct toward his parents, so the character is described as received before it is described as practised.