the quran says that mary grew up in the temple of prayer and had a special place of her own in the temple. the quran states that there was a cast of the dice to decide who would become the guardian of mary. the person chosen through this process was the prophet zechariah. often, when zechariah would visit the chamber of mary, he would find her with quantities of food. he always asked her where she had obtained the food, and mary would always answer: "allah provides to whom he will." as a prophet, zechariah would not have questioned this response because he would have known that allah is the provider of all things in life and, indeed, of life itself.