Saturday, March 17, 2012

Death of Jesus in Quran - 5 Evidences BY 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 out Evidence #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.

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