Death of Jesus:-
According to Muhammadan Islam, no prophet of Allah can be killed by human beings.
All the prophets died by the will of Allah.
Hence it is inconceivable for them to accept the Christian version of the passion story whereby Jesus died by crucifixion.
3: 55 Behold! Allah said: "O Jesus! I will take thee [mutawaffika] and raise thee to Myself [wa rafi'uka ilayya] and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject Faith to the Day of Resurrection; then shall ye all return unto Me and I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute.
#Read this with iv. 157, where it is said that "whereas they slew him not nor they crucified him but it was made dubious unto them. The guilt of the Jews remained, but Jesus was eventually taken up to Allah. 395 Jesus was charged by the Jews with blasphemy as claiming to be Allah or the son of Allah. The Christians (except a few early sects which were annihilated by persecution, and the modern sect of Unitarians), adopted the substance of the claim, and made it the cornerstone of their faith. Allah clears Jesus of such a charge or claim.396 Those who follow thee refers to those who followed Jesus in contrast to the Jews who rejected him 397 All the controversies about dogma and faith will disappear when we appear before Allah. He will judge not by what we profess but by what we are398 After a description of the high position which Jesus occupies as a prophet, we have a repudiation of the dogma that he was Allah, or the son of Allah, or anything more than a man. If it is said that he was born without a human father, Adam was also so born. Indeed Adam was born without either a human father or mother. As far as our physical bodies are concerned they are mere dust. In Allah's sight Jesus was as dust just as Adam was or humanity is. The greatness of Jesus arose from the divine command "Be": for after that he was-more than dust - a great Prophet and teacher#
*** There is another deliberate mis translation of the verse above to cover up the inconsistencies of the Quran.
" I shall take thee…" should actually read " I shall cause thee to die and then raise thee…" since the word 'mutawaffika' has its root in Tawaffa meaning to DIE, which completely changes the meaning and hence the implications of the verse because it contradicts the earlier assertion in the Quran (4:157) that Jesus did not die.
Moreover, assuming for an instance, that the general theme of the Gospel accounts is true, then the Jews - contrary to the malicious implications of the interpreter - had rightly rejected Jesus for the following theological reasons:
a) He declared himself the son of God which would have been unacceptable to the strict monotheism of the Jews just as it would have been totally unacceptable to Muhammad and his followers.
b) He did not fulfil the characteristics as accepted in the tradition of the Jews of their Messiah; he did not, after all, liberate them from Roman occupation and subjugation***
c) Let us assume for a moment that the Jews were and or are 'guilty' for causing the death of Jesus, what has eluded the INTELLECT, MORALITY and JUSTICE of both the Christians as well as the Muhammadans is the FACT that without the DEATH of Jesus, there would have been no RESURRECTION.
That without DEATH & RESURRECTION there would have been no CHRISTIANITY.
Hence, the Jews, instead of being insulted, denigrated, and accused of DEICIDE, should be LOVED and eternally GRATEFUL by the Christians for allowing them to have
SALVATION & REDEMPTION ***
4:157 That they said (in boast) "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary the Apostle of Allah"; but they killed him [qataloohu] not nor crucified him [salaboohu] but so it was made to appear to them and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no (certain) knowledge but only conjecture to follow for of a surety they killed him not [qataloohu].
#663 The end of the life of Jesus on earth is as much involved in mystery as his birth, and indeed the greater part of his private life, except the three main years of his ministry. It is not profitable to discuss the many doubts and conjectures among the early Christian sects and among Muslim theologians. The Orthodox Christian Churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the Cross, that he died and was buried, that on the third day he rose in the body with his wounds intact, and walked about and conversed, and ate with his disciples, and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven. This is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam. But some of the early Christian sects did not believe that Christ was killed on the Cross. The Basilidans believed that some one else was substituted for him. The Docetae held that Christ never had a real physical or natural body, but only an apparent or phantom body, and that his Crucifixion was only apparent, not real. The Marcionite Gospel (about A.D. 138) denied that Jesus was born, and merely said that he appeared in human form. The Gospel of St. Barnabas supported the theory of substitution on the Cross. The Quranic teaching is that Christ was not crucified nor killed by the Jews, notwithstanding certain apparent circumstances which produced that illusion in the minds of some of his enemies: that disputations, doubts, and conjectures on such matters are vain; and that he was taken up to Allah (see next verse and note)#
*** This is the Quranic version of the NONE DEATH of Jesus and has no resemblance whatsoever to anything in the New Testament.
According to the Quran and its followers, the New Testament is just as invalid due to human corruption of its contents as the Torah of the Jews.
Of course, the Quran - which came about between two thousand to six hundred years after the events that it asserts it has knowledge of - arrogantly declares that it knows best.
Thus, by denying the death of Jesus, at a stroke, it demolishes the whole basis of Christianity:
That Jesus died - and later resurrected - for the sins of mankind.
While this verse PRECLUDES the death of Jesus the following verse 4:159, PROCLAIMS his death.
The other blatant falsehood in the Quranic statement is the fact that not a single Jew even during his lifetime had proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, since he was not.
Jesus was proclaimed the 'Christ' by others, all of whom not Jews, long lafter his death and not during his lifetime.
Such manifest errors in the Quran preclude the possibility that these verses were 'revealed' to Muhammad through the agency of the angel Gabriel, who afterall, was the one who had revealed to Mary, 600 years earlier, the arrival of Jesus as the REDEEMER of all mankind ***
4:158 Nay Allah raised him up [rafa'ahu] unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power Wise.
#664 There is difference of opinion as to the exact interpretation of this verse. The words are: The Jews did not kill Jesus, but Allah raised him up (rafa'u) to Himself. One school holds that Jesus did not die the usual human death, but still lives in the body in heaven, which is the generally accepted Muslim view#
*** As usual, the Quran picks what suits its agenda and audience from all the available Christian traditions regarding Jesus. If Jesus did not die and suffer on the cross, then the whole core of Christianity is destroyed, which is what the Quran attempts to fulfil.
At first, the Quran denies the 'Jews' their heritage and then does the same to the Christians leaving itself as the sole remaining 'legitimate revelation'.
Only in the Quran does the concept of bodily existence - not spiritual - in the afterlife is accepted as a fact***
4:159 And there is none of the People of the Book but must believe in him before his death [mawtihi]; and on the Day of Judgment He will be a witness against them.
#665 Before his death: Interpreters are not agreed as to the exact meaning. Those who hold that Jesus did not die refer the pronoun "his" to Jesus. They say that Jesus is still living in the body and that he will appear just before the Final Day, after the coming of the Mahdi, when the world will be purified of sin and unbelief. There will be a final death before the final Resurrection, but all will have believed before that final death. Others think that "his" is better referred to "none of the People of the Book", and that the emphatic form "must believe" (la-yu' minanna) denotes more a question of duty than of fact.#
*** The interpreter of the Quran is doing his best to cover up all his bases since this verse contradicts 4:157 that declares that Jesus did not die.
In fact, the concept of the Mahdi in Shia' Islam is the same as the Second Coming of the Christians and the Messiah of the Jews.
All three religions are now awaiting the End of Days and the coming of their Messiah ***
6: 60 It is He Who doth take your souls [yatawaffakum] by night and hath knowledge of all that ye have done by day. By day doth He raise you up again; that a term appointed be fulfilled; in the end unto Him will be your return then will He show you the truth of all that ye did.
#881 As the rest of His Creation is subject to His Law and Plan, so is man's life in every particular and at every moment, awake or asleep. The mystery of Sleep-" the twin brother of death" - is called the taking of our soul by Him, with the record of all we have done in our waking moments, and this record sometimes appears to us in confused glimpses in dreams. By day we awaken again to our activities, and so it goes on until we fufil the term of our life appointed for this earth. Then comes the other Sleep (death), with the longer record of our Day (Life); and then, in the end comes the Resurrection and Judgment, at which we see everything clearly and not as in dreams, for that is the final Reality#
19: 33 "So Peace is on me the day I was born the day that I die [amootu] and the Day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"!
*** This verse obviously contradicts the previous Quranic assertion that Jesus did not die on the cross. The innumrable contradictions and inconsistencies in the Quran, cannot possibly have emanated from any divine entitity***
39: 42 It is Allah that takes the souls (of men) at death [yatawaffa] : and those that die not (He takes) during their sleep: those on whom He has passed the decree of death He keeps back (from returning to life) but the rest He sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are Signs for those who reflect.
#' 4306 The mystery of life and death, sleep and dreams, is a fascinating enigma, of which the solution is perhaps beyond the ken of man. A vast mass of superstition as well as imaginative and psychological literature has grown up about it. But the simplest and truest religious doctrine is laid down here in a few words. In death we surrender our physical life, but our soul does not die; it goes back to a plane of existence in which it is more conscious of the realities of the spiritual world: "Allah takes the soul"#
*** Mutawaffika is a word related to death such as Tawaffahu meaning caused him to die; Tawaffa meaning to die. Mutawaffika means causing you to die.
Muhammad and his Quran are obsessed with the dogma that those who die fighting in the 'path of Allah' end up PHYSICALLY in a paradise full of Carnal, Sexual and Sensual pleasures.
There is no concept of the SPIRIT in the Quran or in Muhammadan Islam***
