It has, and continues to be, a point of contention between Muslim and Christian, whether or not Jesus was Crucified, and whether or not He died on the Cross.
The following is largely distilled from
"The Muslim Jesus: Dead or Alive?" by Gabriel Said Reynolds, in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 72, No. 2 (2009), pp. 237-258 (22 pages), Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Gabriel Said Reynolds is Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology and Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
I have omitted extensive references and footnotes, but will happily supply if wanted.
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It is Reynold's contention that the strong line on the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ emerged during a period of struggle between the emerging Islamic orthodoxy and its Christian and Jewish neighbours.
This first part is my own observation – a comment on
Sura al-Ma’ida Chapter 5 of the Qur'an, in which a dialogue between Allah and Jesus takes place:
"And when Allah will say, 'O Jesus, son of Mary, didst thou say to men, "Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah?'", he will answer, 'Holy art Thou. I could never say that to which I had no right. If I had said it, Thou wouldst have surely known it. Thou knowest what is in my mind and I know not what is in Thy mind. It is only Thou Who art the Knower of hidden things." (5:116)
This is of interest, because if Jesus never said it, why does Allah accuse Him of it? There is nowhere in the Bible, nor in the writings of the Fathers nor, I think, in apocryphal texts, where Jesus asks the community to regard Mary as Divine.
What this text perhaps points to is a polemical view within the Christian Church at the time. After the Arab conquest of Persia (637), the caliphate recognised Persian Church, which had separated from the broader Orthodox Church, granting it legal protection. Nestorian scholars played a prominent role in the formation of Arab culture, and patriarchs occasionally gained influence with rulers.
The Prophet would not only be familiar with Nestorian doctrines, he would be informed by them. According to the account of his third wife Aisha, when the Prophet came down from the mountain:
"The Prophet returned to Khadija (first wife) while his heart was beating rapidly. She took him to Waraqa bin Naufal who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospel in Arabic. Waraqa asked (the Prophet), 'What do you see?' When he told him, Waraqa said, 'That is the same angel whom Allah sent to the Prophet Moses. Should I live till you receive the Divine Message, I will support you strongly."
Waraqa elsewhere is described as 'a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as God wished him to write' which suggests a scholar, if not a monk. He was most likely a Nestorian, and was regarded as an authority on spiritual matters.
Waraqa, if indeed Netorian, would regard the doctrine of the Incarnation as blasphemous. The suggestion that God would have a mother (Theotokos) was a distortion of the actual orthodox doctrine, but by now had become an accusation of the Nestorian church against orthodoxy, and the only place, and most likely place, for the idea that Mary be regarded as a God might arise.
The
Sura al-Ma’ida continues:
"I said nothing to them except that which Thou didst command me – "Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." And I was a witness over them as long as I remained among them, but since Thou didst cause me to die (
tawaffaytani), Thou hast been the Watcher over them; and Thou art Witness over all things.'" (5:117)
The verb
tawaffa causes significant problems among Muslim exegetes.
Tawaffa appears in 25 passages in the Qur'an, twice in relation to Jesus (5.117 and 3.55). For the other 23, the standard and common definition is understood – separating the soul from the body, making someone die.
For the two verses where
tawaffa applies to Jesus however, exegetes generally apply a secondary meaning of the term, 'to sleep' or even 'to take up', so reconciling these verses with the denial of the crucifixion. However, tawaffa means to die, and it takes some nuanced exegesis to make it say otherwise – it could be said that such a theological 'sleight of hand' is just the kind of thing Christian exegetes are accused of – reading 'young woman' to mean 'virgin' is an obvious example.
This points to the exegete’s desire to prove that the verb
tawaffa can be reconciled with the received doctrine that Jesus did not die, that he was taken body and soul into heaven, whence he will return. The only difference is how that reconciliation is achieved. One group associates with Jesus falling asleep before he ascended to heaven, another with the ascension itself.
Thus 3.55: "God said, 'O Jesus, I will make you die (sleep), raise you up to me, purify you from those who disbelieved, and lift those who have followed you above the disbelievers until the Day of Resurrection, then you will all return to me.'" According to this sequence, God raises Jesus to heaven, but only after He first causes Him to die (sleep).
Surat al-nisa' (4.157-8), denies that the Jews killed Christ. Verse I58 says
rafa’ahu Allahu ilayhi: "God raised him to Himself." The same as
Surat al Imran (3.55) implies: God –
and not the Jews – has Jesus die, and then raises Him to heaven.
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As
@Grandad points out, there are different and contradictory traditions born of exegetical speculation in the interpretation of the Qur'an. The betrayer tradition – that Judas was made to look like Jesus and arrested and crucified in His place – goes on to explain 4.157: "Those who dispute over it are covered in doubt." Once the betrayer was taken away, the story goes on: "Some of (the disciples) said, 'He is a God and it was not right to kill him'. Some of them said, 'He was killed and crucified.' Some of them said, 'If that was Jesus then where is our companion?' and 'If that was our companion then where is Jesus?'’ Some of them said, 'He was raised to heaven.' Some of them said, 'The face was the face of Jesus but the body the body of our companion.' It is the disciples who fall into confusion.
A further commentary divides the disciples into three groups: "One group said, 'God was among us and then ascended to heaven.' These are the Jacobites. One group said, 'The son of God was among us and then God raised him to Himself.' These are the Nestorians. One group said, 'A servant of God and His messenger was among us and then God raised him to Himself.' These are the Muslims. The two unbelieving sects prevailed against the Muslims and killed them. Islam was eradicated until God sent Muhammad – God’s blessing and peace be upon him.”
This commentary counters the two Christian sects in the medieval Islamic world. At the same time the exegesis renders Jesus and His disciples as Muslim, but the Christians exterminated the Muslim disciples of Jesus.
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The universality of the view that Jesus will return goes some way to explain the necessary rejection of his death, and the lengths commentaries go to explain it or, as some might say, explain it away. There can hardly be any other reason to argue that
tawaffa refers to death in 23 appearances in the Qur'an, but not in the case of the two references to Jesus.
The ambiguous language of
Surat al-nisa’ 4.157-8, in denying the Jews killed Jesus and affirms that God raised him to heaven, leads exegetes to speculate freely on what actually happened.
The Qur'an hardly speaks of Jesus in eschatological terms.
Surat al-nisa’ 4.159 refers to his role as witness on the Day of Resurrection, while
surat al-zukhruf 43.61 seems to describe Him as knowledge, or a Sign of the Hour or, if a minor emendation to the Cairo text might be entertained, knowing the Hour. Still both of these verses allude to Jesus’ place in the apocalyptic Hour (that is, in the Final Judgement), but
not the End Time that will precede it. None of the events which Jesus is said by the exegetes to accomplish in the End Time – the killing al-Dajjal (the Deceiver), leading believers in prayer, breaking crosses, killing swine (and Christians) – are mentioned in the Qur'an.
Then why these traditions? Because in the sectarian milieu in which they emerged, they are useful in two different ways.
First, they have a distinctly anti-Christian tenor. Jesus, after descending to earth, will not only break all crosses and kill all swine, but also, according to one tradition reported by lbn Kathir (d c 1373), He will compel all Christians to become Muslims, under penalty of the sword. This suggests that eschatology became an arena in which Muslim-Christian competition was played out. Jesus was the central figure in Christian eschatology, and Christians had long before developed a detailed narrative of His feats in the End Time. Indeed much of the material in Islamic exegetical tradition is a development of this Christian narrative.
For example, the name of the Islamic anti-Christ, al-Dajjal, never appears in the Qur'an, it derives from the Syriac
daggala, an adjective used for the anti-Christ by Ephraem (d 373AD) and Pseudo-Methodius, the latter writing in the 7th century (attributed to the 4th century bishop, martyr and saint).
Meanwhile, the new Muslim rulers order the removal Christian symbolism, and build the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The inscriptions on the Dome are taken from the Qur'an, asserting monotheism as a response to a belief in the Trinity and the reverence of the Virgin Mary and the saints, which Muslims saw as polytheistic.
Second, by having Jesus so prominent in these traditions an anti-Shii effect is also achieved. At the heart of a developing Shii doctrine was the role of the Twelfth lmam, al-qa’im bi-l-sayf, as the Mahdi in the end times. This does not mean that Jesus finds no role at all in Shii eschatology. The Shii exegete Qummi acknowledges Jesus, but comments that at the time of universal prayer of Jesus descended upon Jerusalem, “He will pray behind the Mahdi.” Other Shii traditions describe how the Imam/Mahdi will exact vengeance on the Sunnis for their crimes against the Prophet’s family. In response Sunni eschatological traditions increasingly emphasised the role of Jesus in the eschaton. Indeed, some Sunni traditions insist that there would be no other Mahdi but Jesus himself.
Thus Jesus became the Sunni answer to the Shii, and his preservation from death was accordingly emphasised. In other words, the doctrine that Jesus was saved from death (at the hands of the evil Jews) developed in the same way as the Shii doctrine that the Twelfth Imam was saved from death (at the hands of the evil Sunnis). In both cases the point is eschatology. Jesus and the Imam are saved from death for the sake of their role in the End Time.
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Thus the motivations of the classical commentaries in denying the death of Jesus are understandable, while the elusive nature of the Qur'an itself allows for an interpretation which is entirely in line with orthodox Christian belief.
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