'Isa – Jesus in the Qur’an: A Messenger and a Prophet, Not crucified nor Killed – (Jesus Factors in Islam & Christianity Series.1)

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The series ‘Jesus Factors in Islam and Christianity’ considers the two narratives of the person of Jesus as noted in both the Qur’an and the Bible as contributing to different assumptions. In mathematics and some algebraic expressions, factors are defined as “one of two or more numbers, or the like, when multiplied together result in a given product.” For example, 8 and 5 are factors of 40. In this light, it views the Islamic interpretation of the person of Jesus as one factor, and the Christian interpretation of the person of Jesus as another factor.

This series is tasked with examining the characterization of Jesus in the Qur’an, namely: a messenger and a prophet, who was neither crucified nor killed.

Jesus – Son of Mary

In the surah (Maryam 19) of the Qur’an, Jesus is described as the son of Mary, and through the different Mary sayings the person and mission of Jesus were characterized as a messenger of Allah.  Surah (Al-Nisa’ 4:153-176) rejects the Christian understanding of Jesus as crucified.

The question to ask is: Why should we move from Mary to Jesus to understand his person? According to Esack: “the Qur’anic description “son of Mary” in a patriarchal society is indicative of his miraculous birth.”[i] Below is a narration of the announcement of the conception of Jesus to Mary as it is written in the Qur’an:

The angel said: “I am only a messenger from your Lord (to announce) to you the gift of a righteous son. She said: “How can I have a son, when no man touched me, nor am I unchaste? He said: “So (it will be), your Lord said: ‘This is easy for Me (Allah): And (We wish) to appoint him as a sign to mankind and a mercy from Us (Allah), and it is a matter (already) decreed, (by Allah).’ So, she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place (i.e., Bethlehem valley about 4-6 miles from Jerusalem). And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a date palm. She said: “Would that I had died before this and had been forgotten and out of sight! Then [the babe ‘Isa (Jesus) or Jibrael (Gabriel) cried unto her from below her, saying: “Grieve not: your Lord has provided a water stream under you. And shake the trunk of date palm towards you, it will let fall fresh ripe-dates upon you... Then she brought him (the baby) to her people, carrying him. They said: “O Mary! Indeed, you have brought a thing Fariyy (a mighty thing) (Maryam 19: 19-27).

Jesus – Messenger & Prophet

The miraculous birth of Jesus reveals his mission, and his mission confirms his prophecy. For the Qur’an, it was to bring good tidings, i.e., the Injil. “He ‘Isa (Jesus) said: “Verily, I am a slave of Allah, He has given me the Scripture and made me a Prophet” (Maryam 19:30). For Islamic scholars, Jesus was a Messenger and a Prophet who came with a book, the Injil.[ii] Jesus is also considered the ‘word of God’ in the Qur’an. But he is not the word of God as viewed in the Bible.

As a reply to the people of the Book who say that Jesus (‘Isa) was the Son of God, the Qur’an warns that “there is nothing like Him; and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer” (Ash-Shura 42:11). In the analysis of the essence of religious experience in Islam, Al-Faruqi noted that the Prophet Muhammad by his assertion of the uniqueness of God it brought a refreshing iconoclasm at a time and place where dualism and Trinitarianism were rampant, and polytheism was at the lower state of religious experience. He argued that:

To purge that consciousness free once and for all, Islam demanded utmost care in the use of language and precepts appropriate to the unique God. ‘Father’, ‘intercessor’, ‘saviour’, ‘son’, etc., were utterly banished from the religious vocabulary; and the uniqueness and absolute transcendence of the divine were stressed that no man may claim any relation to God which all other men cannot claim.[iii]

Though the Qur’an acknowledges Jesus’ miraculous and virgin birth, it utterly rejects any claim to his crucifixion. Rather the Qur’an claims that Jesus was translated to God:

And because of their saying (in boast): ‘We killed Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah’; - but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but the resemblance of Jesus was put over another man (and they killed that man), and those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no (certain) knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely, they killed him not (i.e., Jesus, son of Mary). But Allah raised him (Jesus) up (with his body and soul) unto Himself (and he... is in the heavens) ... And Allah is Ever All-Powerful, All-Wise (An-Nisa’ 4:157-8).[iv]

Going further, the Qur’an asserts: “And (remember) when Allah said: “O ‘Isa (Jesus)! I will take you and raise you to Myself and clear you [of the forged statement that ‘Isa (Jesus) is Allah’s son] of those who disbelieve, and I will make those who follow you … superior to those who disbelieve... Then you will return to Me and I will judge between you in matters in which you used to dispute” (Al-‘Imran 3:55). Inasmuch as most Muslims believe that Jesus was never crucified, there are many who believe in the second coming of Jesus. Esack argued that such belief is based on this Medinan revelation:

And there is none of the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) but must believe in him [‘Isa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), as only a Messenger of Allah and a human being] before his [‘Isa (Jesus) … or a Jew’s or a Christian’s] death (at the time of appearance of the angel of death). And on the Day of Resurrection, he [‘Isa (Jesus)] will be a witness against them (An-Nisa 4:159).[v] 

There are some controversies about the end of the life of Jesus on earth. It was ravelled in mystery as was his birth. The Qur’an claims that Jesus was not crucified, nor killed (Al-Nisa’ 4:157) but was translated to heaven as against the main orthodox Christian teaching that Jesus was crucified and buried. But he rose from the dead, and after a while, he ascended to God his Father. These are two-factor statements, like 5 and 8 given product 40. The Qur’anic narrative enriches Jesus' arguments as the biblical narrative, as we shall see in series 2.

For Christianity, his death and resurrection fulfil the biblical accounts of the salvation history of humankind. For Islam, Jesus was not killed rather he was translated to God (Al-Nisa’ 4:158). This raises a problem of identity constructions of the two-factor-narrative of Jesus’ person: Was Jesus crucified or killed by the Jews or by the Romans? Was he translated to God as the Qur’an claims? The New Testament reveals that Jesus was crucified in various ways by the Romans. Though, the Jews asked for his crucifixion (Mark 15:16-28; Luke 23:13-34; John 19:16-22). The Roman soldiers did the crucifixion because it was a Roman method of executing a criminal of which the Jews claimed Jesus was one of a kind.

Nevertheless, it is not clear cut in the New Testament that the Jews physically killed Jesus by themselves rather the Roman soldiers did the physical killing by nailing him to the cross. The Qur’an rejects that Jesus was ever crucified; that the Jews never killed him. By implication, it suggests that Christianity is wrong in its claim that he was crucified and that the Jews killed him. This is a theological quandary: Are Muslims to accept the Christian Trinity? If they do, does this not render the Qur’an false? On the contrary, are Christians to accept the Qur’an as the ‘word of God?’ If they do, does this not render the Christian Trinity false? A glance at the footnote to Surah (Al-Nisa’ 4:158) by Yusuf ‘Ali summaries it all:

The Qur’anic 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 disputatious, doubts, and conjectures on such matters are vain; and that he was taken up to Allah.[vi]

Conclusion

Following from the above, it is evident that the Qur’anic interpretation of Jesus focuses on his humanity as against the Christian belief in Jesus’ humanity and divinity. Besides, it insists that the Oneness and indivisibility of God are beyond doubt central to its basic teaching. Therefore, in God there is none comparable to Him, none was His son, and He is no father to any. Jesus according to the Qur’an was a Messenger and a Prophet of God who came with the Injil, whose birth was a virgin one, but he was never crucified or killed by the Jews.

Let us remember the premise of the Qur’anic text is Tawhid and that is the reason why the prophet Muhammad received the revelation from Allah; it claims that the religions before Islam (Judaism and Christianity) corrupted their ideas about the nature of the one God. From this derives the Shahadah, “There is no god but God” (al-Fatihah 1). The Tawhid is a denial of the divinity of Jesus as the Son of God (Al-Ikhlas 112).

Hence, it asserts that Jesus (‘Isa) was a messenger of God, the prophet of God, the word of God and the son of Mary. Finally, it views the end of Jesus’s life on earth as a translation to God as against the biblical understanding that Jesus was crucified and afterwards rose from the dead and ascended to his Father. It firmly rejects the understanding that Jesus is the Son of God.

In series 2, we will examine the title: Christ: Jesus in the Bible – Son of God and Messiah, killed by crucifixion - Jesus Factors in Islam and Christianity.  

 

[i] Esack, F 2005. The Qur’an: a user’s guide. One World, Oxford. P.155

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Al-Faruqi, IR 1998. Islam and other faiths. Ataullah Siddiqui (ed). Islamic Foundation, Leicester. P12

[iv] (This An-Nisa’ 4:157-8 citation was taken from Al-Hilali and Khan 1996 translation).

[v] Esack, F. 2005. Op.cit.

[vi] The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an (Abdullah Yusuf Ali Translation). Amana Publications. 2008. P.236  

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