A Hoax and its Paradoxes

The Cruci-fiction of the Qur’an

Masud Masihiyyen

It will not be an exaggeration if we say that Islam and its scripture dissent from the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity from cradle to grave, for most of the Qur’an verses interpret both Jesus’
miraculous birth and His passion in a totally different and controversial way. In sharp contrast to
what Christian scripture teaches about Jesus’ crucifixion, the Qur’an overtly rejects Jesus’
passion and death, implicitly endorsing a theory of illusion or a case of mistaken identity:

And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the apostle of Allah;
and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and
most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge
respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure. Nay! Allah took
him up to Himself; and Allah is Mighty, Wise. (Surah 4:157-158)1

Being rather vague and open to interpretation, these Qur’an verses take the form of an unsolvable
mystery in the hands of Muslim apologists who ironically contribute to their obscurity through
their differing and puzzling comments. This kind of a disagreement concerning the true meaning
of the verses quoted above condemns the Qur’an into a chain of paradoxes that subsequently
undermine the validity and credibility of the Islamic hypothesis about Jesus’ crucifixion.

The first paradox is based on the allegation that “the ones bragging about crucifying and killing
Jesus the Messiah” are followers of a conjecture as they do not know anything about this
incident. These verses most likely address the Jews and designate them as ignorant people who
did not know what had actually happened at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. However, the same
verses somehow fail to explain to mankind all the supposed mysteries of the crucifixion as they
do not allow even Muslims to comprehend how and why Jesus was saved from the cross. Thus,
Muslims and non-Muslims alike are deprived of the divine knowledge, without which their
opinions remain as conjecture awaiting authorization from above.

The second paradox, derived from the erroneous argument that disagreements prove doubt as
well as inadequate knowledge, is embedded in the following statement that ascribes ignorance to
people who are said to have differing views about Jesus’ crucifixion:

… most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge
respecting it… (Surah 4:157)

Apparently, either there is a problem with the linguistic structure of this particular verse or it
contains a logical fallacy. In the first place, Muslims cannot be exempt from the charges of doubt
and ignorance since they absolutely dissent from Christians and Jews when they deny Jesus’
crucifixion. Second, the quoted verse does not narrow the content and form of disagreement,
confirming the idea that Jewish or Christian groups do not know anything about Jesus’
crucifixion because they disagree among themselves. If we suppose that one group dissented
from the other by denying Jesus’ death, even that certain group would be condemned to
following speculations despite the fact that they concurred on the denial presented in the Qur’an.
As a result, the Islamic scripture surprisingly teaches that whoever denies Jesus’ crucifixion as a
matter of disagreement has nothing else than doubt!

The third paradox is related to the following Qur’an verse:

And when Allah said: O Isa, I am going to terminate the period of your stay (on earth) and cause
you to ascend unto Me and purify you of those who disbelieve and make those who follow you
above those who disbelieve to the day of resurrection; then to Me shall be your return, so l will
decide between you concerning that in which you differed. (Surah 3:55).

In this verse Allah supposedly speaks to Jesus and promises to cleanse Him from all His
disbelieving adversaries. The striking feature of this alleged statement is that it refers to Jesus’
ascension, which occurs also in Surah 4:155-158, where the negation of Jesus’ crucifixion and
death are strengthened through His relevant ascension to Allah. The meaning of the Arabic word
“waffa” occurring in this verse is still disputed among Muslims apologists2 as to whether Jesus
experienced a physical death prior to His ascension or not, but this does not change the fact that
the Qur’an considered Jesus’ ascension the termination of His earthly life and prophetic mission.
This conclusion begets the question why Jesus’ physical departure from this world had to
coincide with the Jewish resistance and disbelief. A similar question is why Allah would ever let
the Jewish disbelief result in the forced end of Jesus’ prophetic ministry.

When we analyze the aftermath of Jesus’ alleged ascension in the Qur’an, we can see that this
incident has a disappointing result for Jesus, who is targeted by a disbelieving community. This
is merely because the inevitable end of Jesus’ mission in the form of a bodily departure and
isolation from this world signifies His foes’ salvation from Him more than His own rescue from
their hands. More to the point, those who disbelieve and plan to take Jesus out of their lives are
absolutely grateful to the god of Islam, who takes Jesus out of this world before they bother to
punish Him and shed His blood. Thus, it surprisingly becomes impossible for the god of Islam to
blame some Jews of Jesus’ time for crucifying and killing Him. As there is no victim, there is
neither guilt nor accusation.

However, some Islamic groups deem it necessary to reinterpret Surah 3:55 as they are not
pleased with the idea of Jesus’ physical death prior to His ascension. This they can achieve
through the symbolic parallelism they draw between death and sleep, which finds support in
another Qur’an verse likening sleep at night to the state of death3. Their relevant conclusion is
that Jesus was taken up alive, and that He will die after His second coming4. This approach to the
form of Jesus’ ascension – which is the result of an attempt to harmonize the tension between the
verses of the Islamic scripture – aims to radically distinguish the Islamic tenet concerning Jesus’
glorification from the basic Christian tenet binding Jesus’ glorification to His passion and death.
St. Paul the apostle stresses the relation between Jesus’ passion and exaltation when he writes
that Jesus’ humility became manifest in His incarnation and culminated in His surrender to death
on a cross5. Thus, in Christian theology of salvation, Jesus’ glorification is preceded by and
cannot be separated from His physical death. The literal interpretation of the verb “cause to
die/end one’s life” in Surah 3:55 is thus discarded by some Muslim apologists who want to evade
any thematic or linguistic affinity between the means of Jesus’ exaltation in Christianity and in
Islam.

Nevertheless, the symbolic interpretation of Jesus’ bodily departure from our world in Surah
3:55 paradoxically becomes more troublesome for its adherents. The assertion that Jesus did not
experience a physical death prior to His ascension makes Him a figure that was granted eternal
life before Mohammad, which contradicts a Qur’an verse:

And We did not ordain abiding for any mortal before you. What! Then if you die, will they
abide? (Surah 21:34)

Besides, Jesus’ infancy narrative in the 19th Surah of the Qur’an contains some statements that
make Jesus equal to a messenger named Yahya (John the Baptist) in terms of physical death and
resurrection:

And peace on him on the day he was born, and on the day he dies, and on the day he is raised to
life. (Surah 19:15)

And peace on me on the day I was born, and on the day I die, and on the day I am raised to life.
(Surah 19:33)

Another Qur’an verse implies that ALL the messengers/prophets before Muhammad passed
away:

And Muhammad is no more than an apostle; the apostles have already passed away before
him; if then he dies or is killed will you turn back upon your heels? (Surah 3:144)

According to the Qur’an, every human must experience death:

Every soul must taste of death and We try you by evil and good by way of probation; and to Us
you shall be brought back. (Surah 21:35)

At this point, Muslim scholars are torn between making Jesus exempt from death through their
symbolic interpretation of Surah 3:55 and making Jesus subject to death because of the verses
quoted above. In order to find a way out of this paradox, they make use of Jesus’ second coming
at the end of times, which is a purely Christian concept compatible with the apocalyptic doctrines
of Jesus’ universal Kingdom and divine authority as the Judge of the mankind6. Consequently,
bringing Jesus down from the sky just before the Day of Judgment signifies for some Muslim
scholars the only way of terminating Jesus’ long life so that He can be adapted to the former
messengers and prophets of the Qur’an, all of whom are said to have passed away.

This sort of reasoning adds a new item to the list of contrasts between Islamic and Christian
creed. Although both faith systems believe in the second coming of Jesus to our world, the
chronology of the events in Jesus’ life has a sharp contrast. In Christianity Jesus experiences
death during His first advent and conquers death on the third day. His resurrection proves that
death has no more dominion over Him7, as a result of which He comes the second time not to
die, but to judge the living and the dead and proclaim His eternal Kingdom. Islam reverses this
order by claiming that Jesus will come the second time to die as death had no dominion over
Him during His first advent until His ascension. More interestingly, Jesus in Christianity comes
the first time so that He can save mankind through His death whereas in Islam Jesus comes the
second time so that He can die and save some Muslim apologists from a theological problem.

In addition, the Qur’an verse used as a reference for the prediction of Jesus’ second coming is
highly problematic:

And most surely it is a knowledge of the hour, therefore have no doubt about it and follow me:
this is the right path. (Surah 43:61)

This specific verse talking of the knowledge of the hour is not a standardized version since
Muslim scholars have not reached a consensus on the gender of the personal pronoun occurring
in this verse yet. This is why in another Qur’an version (Yusuf Ali’s translation) we read Jesus’
name inserted into the translation in brackets:

And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no
doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way. (Surah 43:61)

Interestingly, another Qur’an version (Pickthall’s translation) omits the personal pronoun from
this sentence:

And lo! verily there is knowledge of the Hour. So doubt ye not concerning it, but follow Me.
This is the right path. (Surah 43:61)

It is not reasonable to claim that the personal pronoun in 43:61 refers to Jesus as the sign of the
Hour because this chapter was written prior to Mohammad’s adoption of the Gnostic heresy
denying Jesus’ crucifixion and death. The Islamic teaching that Jesus escaped death through
divine intervention was an innovation unknown in the early (Meccan) period of the Qur’an.
What Muslims today do is reinterpret an obscure verse of an earlier period of the Qur’an in the
light of another obscure verse of a later period with the help of Hadiths reiterating the Christian
tenets about Jesus’ second coming. Muslim commentators can claim only now (after the
completion of the whole Qur’an) that the referent in Surah 43 points at Jesus. Nevertheless, such
an interpretation would be unthinkable in the early days of the Qur’an when Muslims were not
familiar with the Islamic doctrine that Jesus had been taken to Heaven. Nothing in the Meccan
period of the Qur’an enabled Muslims to infer that Jesus was somehow in Heaven.

If we get back to the unstated and vague reasons underlying the necessity of Jesus’ salvation
from the cross and the related denial of His crucifixion, we first encounter a group of Muslims
who cannot endure the idea that almighty and righteous God would allow some evil unbelievers
torture and murder one of His honorable prophets8. This kind of an objection to Jesus’ passion
and death primarily became so dominant and popular in the Islamic world that even a Christian
saint writing a critique of the basic Islamic tenets remarked that Muslims’ faith in God’s love
towards Jesus was the main obstacle in the way to their endorsement of the passion and
crucifixion9. The claim that God loved Jesus so much that He did not allow Him to suffer and die
is a distorted version of the Christian doctrine that Jesus’ suffering and death expressed God’s
love for sinful mankind10. Although the Islamic theory that the admittance of Jesus’ passion and
death betrays God’s love for Him is not explicitly supported by the Qur’an, it manages to
provide a nice theological reason for the denial of the crucifixion. However, it is not possible to
say that this theological reason perfectly fits the case of many prophets and messengers of the
Qur’an.

Unlike the New Testament, the Islamic scripture disregards the notion of consistency when the
rescue of certain prophets is in question. The parable named the tenants of the vineyard11, which
is found in the Synoptic Gospels with slight variations, does not only illustrate that God’s elected
nation persecuted and murdered God’s messengers, but also that the Son of God in human flesh
was not exempt from a murderous act. Nothing could it make clearer than this parable that Jesus’
passion and death was the culmination of Israel’s unfair reaction to and disbelief in God’s chosen
servants. The Qur’an, on the other hand, contains inconsistent statements about the supposed
rescue of all prophets or messengers since it both sanctifies the concept of martyrdom and
promotes the supposition that certain messengers were miraculously saved from the hands of
their unbelieving enemies. Jesus is unsurprisingly forced into the specific group of prophets that
were saved from the harms of their adversaries.

First, there are certain Qur’an verses that extol the martyrdom of believers to the point of
proclaiming them immortal in God’s sight. This partly proves that Islam does not object to the
idea of associating suffering and sorrow with God’s holy and righteous servants:

And do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay, (they are) alive, but you do
not perceive. (Surah 2:154)

And reckon not those who are killed in Allah's way as dead; nay, they are alive (and) are
provided sustenance from their Lord. (Surah 3:169)

Jesus in Islam, however, is more than a righteous and pious servant of God. He is both a
messenger and a prophet who is allegedly given a divine scripture named the Good News.
According to some implicit verses of the Qur’an, what justifies Jesus’ divine rescue from His
enemies is His prophetic ministry. At this point, the story of Abraham’s miraculous salvage from
the hands of his idolatrous enemies12 may be introduced as an example to support the argument
that Jesus’ alleged salvation from the cross was not an exceptional case.

The comparative analysis of Abraham and Jesus’ supposed rescues reveals how erroneous it is to
assume that the denial of Jesus’ crucifixion is compatible with the stories of the former prophets.
This sort of a comparison highlights that both the means and results of Abraham’s alleged rescue
from his enemies are in sharp contrast to those of Jesus’ supposed salvation from disbelieving
Jews. In the first place the narratives relating Abraham’s life in the Qur’an lay emphasis on the
assertion that Abraham’s enemies became aware of their defeat because they could see and
understand how God supposedly saved His prophet from the fire of his pagan adversaries13. The
verse denying Jesus’ crucifixion and claiming His divine rescue in the Qur’an contrastively
affiliate the miracle saving Jesus from the evil plots of his enemies with an optical illusion. This,
in turn, entails the allegation that it was impossible for the Jews who tried to slay Jesus to be
aware of their failure and defeat. In other words, the invisible miracle in Jesus’ life bafflingly
prevented Jesus’ adversaries from both murdering Him and knowing that they did not actually
murder Him! This was such a paradoxical operation of divine rescue that the true miracle turned
out to be the concealment of the very miracle14.

Second, the repeated accounts of Abraham’s supposed salvation from the fire of his pagan folk
through a miracle do not refer to the end of Abraham’s prophetic ministry unlike the verses that
attach Jesus’ ascension to His alleged salvation from death. Thus, Jesus is claimed to have left
this world despite His rescue from the hands of His adversaries whereas Abraham is claimed to
have continued his life and prophetic mission through a miracle. In short, Jesus’ story in the
Qur’an lacks the notion of survival. As it is impossible for the disbelieving Jews to know that
Jesus had not been crucified, it is also impossible for Jesus to continue His prophetic ministry in
Israel. Jesus’ survival in the sense of a continuation of his ministry is mysteriously made
impossible by those who want to kill Him, which means that the Jews who wanted to shut him
up have actually reached their goal.

It should be stressed that in the Qur’an Abraham is the only holy figure whose supposed rescue
from danger through a miracle is recorded in details if the Israelites’ salvation from Pharaoh’s
army in Moses’ leadership is distinguished as a miraculous incident aiming to save not only a
messenger but also his entire nation. At this point, Abraham and Moses’ stories make a more
plausible pair, for both figures are threatened by pagan folks that oppose the idea of monotheism.
Nonetheless, Jesus’ case in the Qur’an is rather different in that He is an Israelite who is sent by
God as a prophet to His own nation, and the Israelites at His time are followers of a monotheistic
faith. Accordingly, Jesus’ prophetic ministry must be examined in the same category as the other
Israelite messengers and prophets so that a sound comparison can be worked out.

Strikingly, the Qur’an recurrently denounces Jews for opposing God’s message and murdering
His messengers. In various chapters of the Qur’an, even more than once in a single chapter, the
Jews are marked as a rebellious community persecuting and murdering God’s chosen servants:

And abasement and humiliation were brought down upon them, and they became deserving of
Allah's wrath; this was so because they disbelieved in the communications of Allah and killed
the prophets unjustly; this was so because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits. (Surah 2:61)

What! whenever then an apostle came to you with that which your souls did not desire, you were
insolent so you called some liars and some you slew. (Surah 2:87)

And when it is said to them, Believe in what Allah has revealed, they say: We believe in that
which was revealed to us; and they deny what is besides that, while it is the truth verifying that
which they have. Say: Why then did you kill Allah's Prophets before if you were indeed
believers? (Surah 2:91)

Surely (as for) those who disbelieve in the communications of Allah and slay the prophets
unjustly and slay those among men who enjoin justice, announce to them a painful chastisement.
(Surah 3:21)
Abasement is made to cleave to them wherever they are found, except under a covenant with
Allah and a covenant with men, and they have become deserving of wrath from Allah, and
humiliation is made to cleave to them; this is because they disbelieved in the communications of
Allah and slew the prophets unjustly; this is because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits.
(Surah 3:112)

Allah has certainly heard the saying of those who said: Surely Allah is poor and we are rich. I
will record what they say, and their killing the prophets unjustly, and I will say: Taste the
chastisement of burning. (Surah 3:181)

(Those are they) who said: Surely Allah has enjoined us that we should not believe in any apostle
until he brings us an offering which the fire consumes. Say: Indeed, there came to you apostles
before me with clear arguments and with that which you demand; why then did you kill them if
you are truthful? (Surah 3:183)

Therefore, for their breaking their covenant and their disbelief in the communications of Allah
and their killing the prophets wrongfully and their saying: Our hearts are covered; nay! Allah
set a seal upon them owing to their unbelief, so they shall not believe except a few. (Surah 4:155)

Certainly We made a covenant with the children of Israel and We sent to them apostles;
whenever there came to them an apostle with what that their souls did not desire, some (of them)
did they call liars and some they slew. (Surah 5:70)

It is by no means a coincidence that all these verses belong to the late period of the Qur’an’s
composition and therefore reflect the religious and political conflicts between Muhammad and
the Jews of Arabia after the migration to Medina. The context of these verses points out
Muhammad’s scribes’ wish to speed up their anti-Jewish campaign and ascribe various negative
characteristics to the followers of Judaism. One of the most effective weapons of this campaign
is undoubtedly the presentation of the Jews as murderers of God’s messengers/prophets. The
authors of the Qur’an refer to the sinful acts of the elected nation of God in the ecstasy of their
anti-Jewish sentiments and fail to understand how their recurrent reference to the murder of
God’s prophets makes Jesus’ alleged redemption from the plots of disbelieving Jews odd and
unique. Muhammad’s scribes’ desire to accuse the Jews of murdering righteous and holy figures
consequently overrides the theological expectation that God’s messengers and prophets be saved
from the hands of their disbelieving enemies, and this makes Jesus’ divine rescue inconsistent
and exceptional.

To play the devil’s advocate, it may be suggested that what necessitates Jesus’ rescue from His
enemies is the type of death Jesus is said to have experienced. Most of the statements in the New
Testament sound scandalous to Muslim believers because of the basic Christian tenet seeing in
Jesus’ passion and death the atonement of the mankind’s sins. All of the four Gospels recount
with much emphasis how Jesus was persecuted and murdered by His adversaries15. The accounts
of Jesus’ passion highlight His mockery and torment even prior to His crucifixion, indicating the
different methods of humiliation (mockery, insult, scourging) conducted by the opposing groups.
This rather embarrassing image of a fully humiliated, dishonored, and abandoned prophet may
be presented as a plausible reason for Jesus’ unique case of rescue from the hands of His
enemies. God exceptionally intervenes in Jesus’ life because He does not want the disbelieving
people to think that Jesus was a false prophet unsaved by the true God. This reasoning is related
to the approval of Jesus’ prophetic ministry, expecting God to save Jesus from His enemies so
that the Jewish allegations concerning the veracity of Jesus’ teachings can be rebutted16. In short,
the prevention of Jesus’ humiliation is said to be crucial for the deletion of the image of a false
prophet drawn by the Jews for Jesus.

No matter how reasonable and theologically valid this argument may seem, it too is condemned
to a paradox if the Islamic theory of substitution17, the oldest and traditionally prevalent theory, is
remembered. The adherents of this theory contend that the Qur’an verse implicitly refers to an
optical illusion through the sentence “so it appeared to them”. The disbelieving Jews are asserted
to have arrested, tortured, and murdered someone else in Jesus’ stead while the true Jesus is
saved from harm and taken up into Heaven. The improved and detailed version of this theory
gives us even the identity of the person who was mistakenly crucified instead of Jesus.

In the Gospel of Barnabas, which is a false medieval Gospel written by an author who knew
more about the Bible than about the Qur’an, Judas Iscariot is miraculously transformed into
Jesus’ image in return for his disbelief and betrayal. This supposed physical and vocal
transformation is said to be so successful and convincing that even Jesus’ apostles are claimed to
have mistaken Judas Iscariot for Jesus:

Truly I say that the voice, the face, and the person of Judas were so like to Jesus, that his
disciples and believers entirely believed that he was Jesus; wherefore some departed from
the doctrine of Jesus, believing that Jesus had been a false prophet, and that by art magic he
had done the miracles which he did: for Jesus had said that he should not die till near the end of
the world; for that at that time he should be taken away from the world. (Gospel of Barnabas
217:14)18

The author of the Gospel of Barnabas does not know that this so-called transformation God
allegedly performs to punish Judas Iscariot and the other Jewish leaders (Jesus’ adversaries) fails
to efface Jesus’ image of a humiliated and defeated false prophet. The author of the Gospel of
Barnabas and some Muslim commentators who endorse the theory of illusion and substitution
cannot understand that through the supposed miraculous transformation God Himself compels
Jesus’ enemies to see and be convinced that Jesus is truly a humiliated and defeated prophet
when He makes Jesus identical with a criminal and sinner (Judas Iscariot) in the eyes of the
disbelieving Jews! This is why in the Gospel of Barnabas the Roman soldiers and Jewish leaders
think that they mock and dishonor Jesus, for whatever Judas Iscariot does is automatically
ascribed to true Jesus due to the success of the divine miracle:

The soldiers took Judas and bound him, not without derision. For he truthfully denied that he
was Jesus; and the soldiers, mocking him, said: 'Sir, fear not, for we are come to make you
king of Israel, and we have bound you because we know that you do refuse the kingdom.' Judas
answered: 'Now have you lost your senses! You are come to take Jesus of Nazareth, with arms
and lanterns as [against] a robber; and you have bound me that have guided you, to make me
king!' (217:1)
If the only thing that matters about Jesus’ crucifixion is what Jews think about Jesus and how
they see Him, then Jesus cannot be saved by God from persecution and death in the sight of His
disbelieving adversaries, who are made to believe with the help of a miracle (!) that who is
arrested and crucified is no one else than Jesus of Nazareth! Here we encounter a baffling image
of a god who makes His holy prophet equal to a murdered traitor because He wants to save the
same holy prophet from a humiliating death and the image of a killed sinner! This ridiculous
argument enables us to comprehend that someone else’s supposed substitution for Jesus reflects
God’s alleged desire to deceive the disbelieving Jews of Jesus’ time and punish a traitor rather
than help His holy prophet maintain His honor and glory through the prevention of His
crucifixion and death. Should we consider the theory of substitution true, we have to admit that
the god of the Qur’an is not concerned with Jesus’ honor and glory because the way he chooses
to punish the unbelievers and sinners is inevitably bound to Jesus’ humiliation and defamation.
This also illustrates how the god of the Qur’an makes Jesus (through the abuse of His face and
voice) a sacrifice to his aspiration to beguile the Jews.

The other Islamic supposition that one of Jesus’ apostles volunteered to assume His image and
endure the crucifixion for the sake of a place in Heaven only adds a piece of heroism into Jesus’
story, but falls short of dissociating Jesus from the image of a defamed and murdered prophet of
God since the unbelieving Jews still see and believe with no doubt that the person crucified as a
criminal is Jesus. Further, the allegation that one of Jesus’ apostles was substituted for Him
betrays the notion of justice since it teaches that a righteous believer had to die for Jesus
although the supposed illusion made that innocent death meaningless and useless.

Since the tenets of the Ahmadiyya19 denies the crucifixion only partly and claims that what saved
Jesus from death on the cross was His passing out rather than a miracle of replacement, it is not
possible to say that this modern Islamic approach to Jesus’ crucifixion has anything to do with
the notions of divine justice or the punishment of the disbelievers. Nonetheless, this innovated
theory accepts from the start that Jesus actually suffered a in the hands of His adversaries,
enduring torture and humiliation. The admittance of this fact entails that the god of the Qur’an
failed to rescue Jesus from physical pain and the accusations of being a sinner/criminal. No
matter how much aversion this Islamic sect has to the notion of a holy prophet’s experiencing a
cursed death, its assertions lead one to the conclusion that the Jews were convinced of Jesus’
cursed death since they declared Him dead.

Finally, another Islamic theory that strives to explain the historical reality of Jesus’ crucifixion
and death through the alleged invention of a story needs special examination, for it goes against
the other Islamic theories that are essentially bound to the admittance of the crucifixion as a real
tragic incident befalling someone else than Jesus. According to this theory of the invention of a
legend, which is nothing more than a legend invented by Muhammad Asad, Jesus’ crucifixion is
a fabricated story that Christians embraced long after Jesus’ prophetic ministry and even the
Jews acknowledged to present Jesus as a murdered criminal20. Asad’s view is problematic not
only because it ignores the fact that the Qur’an verse does not accuse Jesus’ adversaries of
acknowledging a lie and contributing to its dissemination, but also because it denies that in the
same verse only the disbelieving Jews are claimed to be the people giving credence to an
appearance (so it appeared to THEM). Further, Asad’s theory, which owes its existence to the
supposed invention of a legend concerning only Jesus’ crucifixion, serves to declare indulgence
for the Jews through the mitigation of their guilt. This, however, is not compatible with the
several verses of the Qur’an that identify the Jews as murderers of Allah’s prophets (Surah 2:61,
Surah 5:70, etc) as well as with the specific verses that bind the Jews’ plot to kill Jesus to their
disbelief:

But when Isa perceived unbelief on their part, he said Who will be my helpers in Allah's way?
The disciples said: We are helpers (in the way) of Allah: We believe in Allah and bear witness
that we are submitting ones. Our Lord! we believe in what Thou hast revealed and we follow the
apostle, so write us down with those who bear witness. And they planned and Allah (also)
planned, and Allah is the best of planners. (Surah 3:52-54)

If Jesus’ passion is an illusion in the sense that it is a fabrication, it is not reasonable to talk of
Jesus’ rescue from His enemies as it is not reasonable to claim that the Jews attempted to murder
Jesus. Muhammad Asad’s argument encourages one to consider the possibility that even the
Jewish attempt to kill Jesus was an indispensable part of the invented legend. Allah presumably
denied the crucifixion not because the Jews really tried to crucify His Messiah, but because he
mistook a legend for a true historical incident! It is high time Asad answered the questions why
and how Jesus was rescued from His disbelieving enemies and how the disbelieving Jews tried to
murder Him.

In addition, Asad’s theory would definitely not get the appraisal of the Jews no matter how it
makes diligent efforts to save them from being the victims of an illusion. This is because the
same theory, as a matter of paradox, would offend the Jews through the allegation that they
became eager to comply with Christians in the authorization of this supposed legend despite the
risk of authorizing the purely Christian tenet of salvation through Jesus’ sacrificial death.

Even the admittance of Asad’s theory cannot save Jesus from being a persecuted and murdered
criminal in the sight of His adversaries because it proves that the allegedly invented story was
successful to the point of fooling everyone until the appearance of this verse in the Islamic
scripture. Apparently, the only benefit Asad’s view aims to grant Islam is the salvation of the god
of the Qur’an from being a beguiling deity. Once more Jesus’ honor and glory are disregarded so
that the god of the Qur’an can be indicted.

CONCLUSION

Since the Qur’an denies Jesus’ passion and death with no overt theological reason and fails to
provide adequate information on this issue, Muslim commentators feel themselves obliged to
derive new solutions to the problematic verse of the Qur’an, running the risk of having
conflictive theories. They constantly try to work out new solutions to the remarkable problem of
their scripture with regard to Jesus’ death only because they know the bitter truth that their
scripture is both theologically and linguistically incompetent in terms of distorting the basic
Christian tenet of salvation through the cross.

One wonders why the Qur’an cannot remove the cross out of Jesus’ life altogether and claim that
Jesus was never associated with the cross during His prophetic ministry. The authors of the
Qur’an astonishingly make the crucifixion an indispensable part of Jesus’ life and mission
through their denial of the event by clinging to a theory of illusion. All the Islamic theories that
try to negate Jesus’ crucifixion and death eventually converge in the assertion that Jesus had to
APPEAR to have been suffered and murdered by people who opposed His teachings and hated
Him. The god of the Qur’an surprisingly needs an illusion to deny Jesus’ death on the cross,
being unable to wipe the cross off the historical and secular accounts concerning Jesus.

What actually drove the authors of the Qur’an to explain the image of a crucified Messiah with
the help of an illusion or appearance was their familiarity with the fact that the historical reality
of Jesus’ passion cannot be ignored. Since the testimonies of both Jewish and non-Jewish
eyewitnesses made the removal and deletion of the cross from Jesus’ life improbable, the
removal of Jesus from the scene of crucifixion was tried as a remedy. This cunning strategy
resulted in the depiction of the god of the Qur’an as a deceptive and unreliable deity that
concealed the truth about Jesus until Muhammad’s advent. Consequently, the Messiah of the
Qur’an was condemned by Muhammad to death only in appearance for the punishment of His
adversaries unlike the true Messiah of the New Testament, who died in reality for the salvation
of sinful mankind. The New Testament proclaims the crucified Messiah and saved humanity
whereas the Qur’an promotes the saved Messiah and punished humanity.