Death of Jesus in Quran -
5 Evidences
Nadeem Quraishi
( I invite the readers to join me in investigating the matter of
death of Jesus in the light of Quran. Take a copy of Quran in Arabic or any
translation you may prefer and follow the debate. Quran requests people to
ponder over its message (47:24). I sincerely, knowledgebly and firmly believe
and testify that there is no deity worthy of worshipping except Allah, and
Muhammad(pbuh) is His last messenger. Before some zealous reader declares kufur
judgement on me, remember that I testified Kalimah. Only Allah knows who is
correct and perfect with his Imaan, so please do not pronounce your verdict and
do not earn the wrath of Allah.
The Kalimah or Five-Pillars of Islam do not specifically recommend to believe
Jesus is either alive or dead. The definition of a person having taqwa
(al-muttakin) as given in various places also do not recommend to believe Jesus
is alive or dead. So this factor is only secondary to your faith.
The reason for not believing in the death of Jesus is because originally
Qadiani or Ahmadiyya groups propounded it. Let me assure you that I have no
connection in whatsoever form with Qadiani or Ahmadiyya groups. However, if I
read the Quran and try to understand it in its true spirit, I find the Quran
clearly says, again and again, that Jesus is dead. If I believe
Jesus is dead, all I am doing is following the teachings of the Qur'an. You can
do the same, and still you will be a true Muslim by any means. It is a win-win
situation. Brothers and sisters, please read the arguments and see the true teachings
of Qur'an.)
Majority Muslims all
over the world believe that Jesus(pbh) is alive in the Heaven. The
accepted faith is Jews wanted to kill him on the cross, instead Allah raised
him alive in the Heaven. This faith has been the subject of so much
investigation that a consensus is difficult to reach. Those who believe
and those who don’t believe come up with various evidences to justify their
point of view.
This page is
intended to show you plenty of evidences from Quran to prove that Jesus(pbh) is
not alive -- he is dead and that he was not raised alive in the
Heaven. Yes, I know the evidences I will put forward will not be
acceptable to most readers, although all the evidences will be from
Quran. I can provide at least 25 evidences, but for ease of comprehending
just five evidences may suffice. The purpose is to raise interest in the
reader's mind and let them investigate the issue in more detail.
Evidence #1:
The verse in 3:55
Allah uses a word which means death or termination of life. And the
way the sentence is framed, it is evident that death will be be ahead of
raising. Let us read the verse before going any further:
3:55 Behold! Allah Said: "O Jesus! I
shall cause you to die (wafat) and I shall exalt you
towards me and I shall
clear you of those who rejects Faith, and I am going to
make those who follow you above those who reject Faith - until the day of
Resurrection. Then unto Me is your return, so that I shall judge among you as
to in that wherein you used to differ.
They key words here
are : Ya Isa, inni mutawaffika wa rafi’uka ilaiya
Meaning:
"O Jesus! I shall cause you to die and I shall exalt you towards
me….."
In order to fulfil
the prophecy, first death will happen, second,
he will be raised. Allah did not say He will raise Isa in any manner
before his death. This argument is based on the key word 'wafat'. The
meaning of "wafat" is death, or take away soul. If soul is taken away
from a person, it is nothing but death. The problem arises when with
regards to this verse, Muslims refuse to interpret the meaning of "wafat" as
death. Irony is that all scholars who translated the Holy
Quran do agree "wafat" means death. They translated the word
"wafat" as death in at least 20 different instances.
However, in this particular verse, they interpreted the meaning as ‘take
away’ and insinuate physical ascension.
Fact remains that
the above verse states death must happen first before ascension. If not,
the verse is contradictory and false.
Evidence #2:
Let us read a very
crucial verse 21:34 regarding death of our beloved Prophet Muhammad(pbuh).
21:34 We have not
ordained abiding to any mortal before you (O Muhammad). What! Then, if
you
die will they then be abiding?
The first part of
the verse raises the question that if Muhammad(pbuh) being the most prominent
Rasul has to die, how can previous Rasuls remain alive? Muslims kept Jesus
alive in contrary to the obvious suggestion in the verse. However, same
Muslims quickly come up with solutions. According to them the issue here is
that of immortality. Jesus was not granted immortality, he will reamin
alive for 2000+ years and later on die sometime in 21st, 22nd or 23rd century
after his second coming!!! So the verse is valid either way.
Well, there
can be desperate argument by those who say Jesus is alive. If this verse
is viewed vis-a-vis 3:143, (see Evidence #4), all contention will come to an
end.
Let us see another
verse 19:31 where Jesus(pbh) is saying as under:
19:31 …. He has enjoined
upon me Salat and Zakat so long as I live.
If Jesus(pbh) is
alive in the Heaven in his physical body, then he has been performing Salat and
paying Zakat. I am not keen to know if he is performing salat but my
question is who is enjoying Zakat paid by Jesus? Is he paying the Zakat
in the Heaven or to some one on the earth? I am sure you will agree that Zakat
cannot be paid to Angels or to dead people. Zakat must be paid to people
on this earth. Those who keep him alive cannot come up with convincing
answers except for utterly illogical stories and rambling explanantions which I
need not hear. Please apply your analytical mind and ask yourself about Zakat
paid by Jesus. Do you see that if Jesus is alive, then this verse is somewhat
irrational?
Evidence #3:
Verse 4:157-158 are
often referred to drive home that Jesus(pbh) was raised alive in the
Heaven. This is done mostly by resorting to manipulation and corruption
in translation. Let me show one example here:
This translation is of verse 4:157, done by Hilali & Khan and published by
the Saudi Government. They have placed Arabic text by the side of the English
translation. Any naïve reader would think that the translation is representing
the actual Arabic wordings. A naïve reader may further think that the
combination of Hilali & Khan and Saudi Government must have produced correct
teaching. On the contrary, it is incorrect and extremely corrupt!
4:157 Hilali & Khan : "And because of
their saying (in boast) "We killed Messiah Isa
(Jesus) son of Maryam
(Mary), the Messenger of Allah," -but they killed him not, nor
crucified him, but
the resemblance of Isa (Jesus) was put over another man (and
they killed that
man)….
Please note
carefully, Hilali & Khan translated the Arabic wa lakin subbiha lahum as "but
the resemblance of Isa (Jesus) was put over another man". In the
Arabic text given above, where are the words "of Isa" and
"another man"? Surprisingly Hilali & Khan put
interpolated words inside the translation suggesting that these were
"revealed text". This is noting but gross corruption. Yusuf
Ali, Pichthall, Shakir, Rodwell, and many others did not commit such extreme
corruption.
Only adamant and
corrupt people will keep arguing that the translation is OK. They say this
theory is based on some Hadith or Islamic consensus or something! Well,
then let them put those interpolated and false words inside parenthesis. Let
them put all the meandering stories as commentary in the footnote and not as
translation. Why people like Hilali and Khan are trying to fool the
Muslims with this notion that all the junk and fabricated words are
"revealed text"? This is just one example of how 'scholarly persons'
are cheating Muslims, and naïve Muslims are digesting the falsehood.
If we leave aside
the stories and concentrate on understanding the verse we will see a different
perspective. In the verse 4:157 please notice carefully, wa lakin subbiha
lahum means "He was made to resemble to them" or
"it was made to resemble to them" or "a likenss of that was made
for them" or "a similitude was made for them" -- not
"someone was made to resemble him". In the sentences,
"it" or "that" refers to the incident and not a
person. So Jehova resembling Jesus(pbh) can not arise. It was Jesus(pbh)
who was made to "resemble" to them. Resemble to the very issue in
question here: likeness or similitude of death. The issue is not Jesus(pbh)
resembling a different person or a different person resembling Jesus(pbh).
Jesus(pbh) was set up on the cross and he was made (by Allah) to resemble to
them (as if he really died) by sending him to a comatose or fainted state.
Jesus(pbh) survived
the incidence of crucifixion and lived up to gray haired age (3:45, 5:40).
Later on he was sheltered in a land full of meadows and springs (23:50). This
proves he was not raised at the time of crucifixion. It is important to
understand that if Jesus(pbh) was not killed or crucified, he still could die a
natural death. There is no need to send him to the Heaven to save him
from enemies.
If they really
killed Jehova taking him to be Jesus(pbh), then his mortal remains or tomb
should have been somewhere in Jerusalem. This tomb should have come to be
recognized as the tomb of Jesus(pbh). In reality there is no tomb in Jerusalem
that was ever identified or can be identified (correctly or otherwise) as the
tomb of Jesus(pbh).
Evidence #4
In the battle of
Uhud, prophet Muhammad(pbuh), leading the Muslim army, fell down injured. A
rumor spread that Prophet has been killed. The Muslims were in despair and
broken-hearted. At that moment, in order to instill confidence and boost
morale of the Muslim army, a revelation came saying:
3:144 Muhammad is no more
than a messenger, surely the messengers before him have already
passed away. If then he dies or be killed, will you turn back upon your heels?…
Among other things,
this verse tells two things:
(1) Muhammad(pbuh)
was only a Rasul,
(2) Rasuls before him have passed away.
In this verse, the
meaning of 'passed away' is very clearly given by Allah as (a) he dies, (b) be
killed. So by 'passing away' Allah meant death and killing and nothing
else. Thus we can conclude that the use of the word can not mean anything
different other than death. If Jesus(pbh) was an exception and did not pass
away, Allah surely would have mentioned it. It is not a small exception by any
means.
Much later, when
Prophet Mohammad(pbuh) actually died, it was hard for Muslims to accept the sad
news. Thinking that it was conspiracy of the rumormongers, Hazrat Umar
(r) drew his sword and declared that whosoever would say that
Muhammad(pbuh) was dead, he will behead him. At this critical situation,
Hazrat Abu Bakar arrived, seeing the critical situation, he went into the hut
of the Prophet and ascertained the truth. Then he came out and recited the same
verse from Surah Al-e Imran 3:143 and further declared that whosoever wants to
worship Muhammad, let him know that he is dead, and whosoever wants to worship
Allah, let him know that Allah is all abiding.
This incidence
conclusively proves that all the companions of the Prophet and Caliphs knew
that all Rasuls before Muhammad(pbuh) had died. If the companions
believed that Jesus(pbh) was still alive, then at least someone would have
raised a point here. Also check outEvidence #2 once again.
Evidence #5:
If Jesus(pbh) is
alive in the Heaven, his age today is about 2000 years!! How can he live that
long defying rules and laws set forth by Allah? Are we not making words
of Allah contradict when we say in case of Jesus(pbh) Allah changed his
law and made him live that long? Can a person live that long? Let
us see what Allah has to say about it.
16:70 And Allah creates
you, then He causes you to die; and among youis he who is
brought back to the worst of the age, so that he knows nothing
after knowledge. Allah is truly all Knowing, Powerful.
22:5 … And among you
there is he who dies, and among you is one who is turned
back to the worst stage of life until he does not know anything after
having known...
36:68 And
whomsoever We cause to live long, We reverse him in constitution
These verses tell
us that whoever lives too long, Allah returns them as crippled and not knowing
anything after knowledge. This is more like a cycle of life. Birth -- Infancy
-- Childhood -- Adulthood -- Old age. At very old age, a person reverts to a
state much like infancy, depending on assistance for almost every daily
routine: eating, bath, walking, toilet etc. As if Allah reverts the person in
constitution (36:68) and makes him another infant. Like an infant, at
this time he does not remember things and has no knowledge of events around
him.
In this
context, if Jesus(pbh) is allowed to live that long, by now he is
so crippled and in the worst part of life that there is no use of him to come
back and do anything for Islam. In fact he can not do anything worthwhile
at that age. If it is difficult to comprehend, then it is possible that the
above verses are false.
The arguments above are not intended to agitate the readers in any manner.
Rather the idea is to let them think independently and come up with best
solution. There is absolutely no verse in the Qur-an that tells Jesus(pbh) will
come back in a later day. The second coming of Jesus(pbh) is largely based on a
few Hadith. In order to validate the Hadith, most Muslims do not hesitate
to twist the meaning of the Quran. To them the Hadith is absolute, and
Quran is secondary! They would not express it, but their faith and action
proves it. They would vehemently protect Hadith at the cost of Quran.
If a reader
refuses the validity of the arguments above, I have no problem. I am responsible
to Allah for my conduct and you are for yours. May I request you to read one or
two sites listed below? Again, unless it fully convinces you, you need
not believe everything . I am trying to arouse your rational thought
process with my arguments. May Allah bless all of us and guide us in the
right path.
http://www.freewebs.com/nadqur/evid.htm
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