TOWARDS CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM UNDERSTANDING-Part 2

This should set at rest the oft-repeated plea of our Christian friends that the Qur’an itself upholds the Divinity of Jesus by teaching that he is above the reach of death and has been alive all these two thousand years up in heaven. The greatest living authority in the world of Islamic scholarship, as quoted above, describes this as an “outrage” on the plain meanings of the Qur’anic verses. He emphatically declares that according to the Qur’an, Jesus was saved from death on the Cross, that after being saved, he enjoyed the rest of his span of life, and after completing that span, he died a natural death.

The conclusion is perfectly obvious that the hidden pronoun in the Qur’anic word Shubbiha (made to seem so) refers not to the person but to the death of Jesus on the Cross. It was a seeming death – not real one.

It is surprising, that our Christian friends should so stubbornly refuse to see this most natural and sensible interpretation of the event of crucifixion, which is a perfectly natural sequence of events, inasmuch as Jesus, the central figure and hero of the drama, in person goes through the ordeal of suffering to its uttermost extremity, and at the last moment Divine intervention comes to his help.

Church view of crucifixion

The Church interpretation that Jesus came to earth in human form under an express plan to suffer the tortures of crucifixion, to suffer death by crucifixion, and on the third day rise from the dead, takes the whole substance out of the whole show, reducing it to a mere stage acting. According to this story Jesus was not in reality human. And since he was not human, his sufferings were not really sufferings in

terms of human sensitivity. The death itself was to him not the dreaded something which it is to common mortals, since he knew all the time that he was about to rise on the third day. The whole moral significance of the world’s greatest example of supreme self-sacrifice in the cause of Truth is thus completely washed off by the suggestion that Jesus was only “playing” an assigned part on the world stage. Where is the difference, so far as the underlying moral is concerned, between this Church view and the view that some double of Jesus was put on the Cross? In this case Jesus becomes his own double, his outer human form being a mere mask for his real Divine self. The real thing which lends point to the whole theme of the Cross, viz. going through the extreme agony of suffering in the cause of Truth – is missing in both cases. Dr. Cragg rightly calls the first view an anti-climax. Why can’t he see a similar situation arising by making Jesus immune to suffering, which, by virtue of his being considered Divine, he does become?

There is a yet worse implication of the Church view that Jesus died on the Cross.

It marks the triumph of evil over good, which is a most dismal picture of life, a total defeat of moral values, a blot on the ultimate goodness of Divine dispensation. That actually was the immediate impression created on the minds of the disciples. They thought the end of the Master was the end of the whole story. The Resurrection story was but an afterthought, to absorb the same tremendous moral shock which the death story of Jesus on the Cross connoted.

The other big snag in the Church version is Jesus’ own unwillingness to die on the Cross. He prays and prays most fervently, prostrating himself on the ground, to be saved from crucifixion. That hardly looks like the reaction of one who knows he has come with the express mission to die on the Cross for the sins of mankind. Those who subsequently read this meaning into the Cross must have been wiser than Jesus himself, who described the Cross as a bitter cup, which he dreaded and prayed to be saved from.

Snags in the resurrection story

The Church story of the resurrection also bristles with anomalies. The very fact that his disciples were taken aback on finding the stone rolled away and the tomb empty shows that not one of them was anticipating such an event, which in turn shows that Jesus himself knew nothing about it, or he would not have kept everybody in the dark about this greatest miracle of his life – indeed, the greatest miracle of all history.

Upon the fact of resurrection rests, according to the Church, the whole salvation or eternal damnation of the whole of mankind. That Jesus should have kept back that greatest significance of his mission from his disciples is unthinkable. The conclusion is that he knew nothing about any such event happening.

Jesus, while in the flesh, performed so many of his most startling miracles in broad daylight for everybody to behold. There could be no point in hiding this greatest of his miracles. Immediately on rising from the dead he should have made a public appearance for everybody to behold what he had done. He should have straightaway gone to the Sanhedrin to prove to the Rabbis that he was really the Son of God. He should have sought an interview with Pilate himself, who would have been delighted to see him back from the dead.

The rolling away of the stone should have been unnecessary for a miraculous emergence.

Subsequent incidents also make it difficult for a Muslim to swallow the story of Resurrection. Where was the need for the disguising in the gardener’s clothes, and taking good care to see that his identity was not known, except to a few very trusted disciples? These were understandable human precautions against betrayal and re-arrest. Once before he had been betrayed by one of his own disciples, and landed on the Cross He did not want that story to repeat itself.

Hunger, and asking for something to eat, and eating fish – these infirmities of the flesh ill-go with one who was about to ascend to heaven with the same body with which he had emerged. Life in heaven is presumably free from these wants, and if he was to manage without food there, why not down below during his brief sojourn with a resurrected body?

All these things present difficulties to a Muslim mind. The usual explanation that all this is a mystery will not do.

Recovery rather than Resurrection

As a Muslim looks at it, it was not a resurrection, but a recovery from the injury of crucifixion, that the emergence from the tomb was with his usual human body, that the rolling of the stone, the gardener’s dress to serve as a disguise, the secret meeting behind closed doors, and ultimately making good his escape – all these were links in the chain of a prearranged plan. And as such, each piece fits perfectly into the pattern.

That Jesus in person mounted the Cross, that in person he as a human went through all that torture and agony, that in that hour of dire distress God came to his rescue by so arranging things through the manipulation of human factors that he was taken down while yet alive, and placed in friendly hands who could take good care of him – all this is in perfect accord with the pattern of Divine intervention in the case of all prophets in their fight against the forces of evil. In the beginning Truth seems to be overwhelmed, so much so that prophets had to utter the cry of distress:

mata nasr-ullah – “When, O God, will Thy succour come?”

أَمْ حَسِبْتُمْ أَن تَدْخُلُوا۟ ٱلْجَنَّةَ وَلَمَّا يَأْتِكُم مَّثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ خَلَوْا۟ مِن قَبْلِكُم ۖ مَّسَّتْهُمُ ٱلْبَأْسَآءُ وَٱلضَّرَّآءُ وَزُلْزِلُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ يَقُولَ ٱلرَّسُولُ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مَعَهُۥ مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ ۗ أَلَآ إِنَّ نَصْرَ ٱللَّهِ قَرِيبٌۭ

[But] do you think that you could enter paradise without having suffered like those [believers] who passed away before you?  Misfortune and hardship befell them, and so shaken were they that the apostle, and the believers with him, would exclaim, ’When will God’s succour come?’  Oh, verily, God’s succour is [always] near!

Al-Baqara (The Cow) 2:214

But just at the moment when all seemed lost God’s help did come, saving His messengers, routing the forces of opposition, and visiting them with dire calamities.

That was exactly how things shaped themselves in the case of Jesus Christ. He never for one moment lost hope of God’s hand coming to his rescue. He prayed and prayed that this cup might pass from him. It is unthinkable that his prayer should have gone unanswered. Even, right on the Cross, he never lost hope. Like every other prophet similarly placed, he was expecting God’s help to turn up any moment. That was the significance of his words: “My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?” It was no cry of despair; it was an expression of unfaltering faith in God’s help.

Rescue from Cross in keeping with pattern of Divine help

The fact that human factors were brought into play does not in any way detract from the rescue as a Divine intervention. That is exactly how God fulfil Himself. In the case of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, it was a mere spider which helped the execution of the Divine plan to save the Prophet ﷺ from his pursuers standing at the mouth of the cave he was hiding in, by making it weave there and then its web. That a mere spider’s web served as an iron curtain to prevent the pursuers’ hands reaching the Prophet ﷺ – that is the way Divine intervention invariably takes. That is how it worked in the case of Jesus. The Jews made designs of their own to take his life; God made a counter-design to thwart the Jews’ attempt. This was something quite in accord with the general pattern of Divine help in the case of all prophets. The Qur’an describes the designing and counter-designing in the words:

وَمَكَرُوا۟ وَمَكَرَ ٱللَّهُۖ وَٱللَّهُ خَیۡرُ ٱلۡمَـٰكِرِینَ

“And they (the Jews) planned, and God (also) planned, And God is the best of planners.”

(Al-Imran 3:54)

The situation as depicted in this verse was that the Jews on the one hand were plotting to have Jesus executed on the Cross, and God, on the other, wanted to save his life through a subtle planning of His own. The pre-crucifixion Ascension cannot be called a subtle planning. That is exactly the view the same authority, Professor Mahmud Shaltut, takes of this point. To quote again from his fatwa:

“When the people of Jesus became hostile to him, he, like other prophets, turned towards God, and He saved him by His power and wisdom, and frustrated the plans of his enemies. The same point has been elaborated in the following verse:

`When Jesus perceived unbelief on their part, he said: Who will be my helpers in Allah’s way… i.e. in this verse God says that His plans were more subtle and effective than the plans of the disbelievers, … These verses which relate to the fate of Jesus at the hands of his people will invariably yield this meaning to their reader provided he knows the practice of Allah to which He resorts for the protection of His prophets at the time of the aggression of enemies, and provided his mind is free from all those fictitious reports that can in no case be placed as an authority over the Holy Qur’an. Now, I cannot understand how the snatching of Jesus from the hands of his enemies and lifting him up to the heavens can be called a subtle plan and a better one when neither was it in their power nor in the power of anybody else to counter it. In fact, there can be one ’plan’ (makr) as against another plan when it is contrived in a parallel manner not deviating from the natural course of Allah in such matters.” (Al-Risalah of Cairo, Vol-10, No.462, p.515)

The Cross as seen by Islam a beacon of light

The Quranic view that Jesus was just a human, and as such he braved the united fury of Jewry, and the might of Rome, that as a human, he went through all the ignominy, agony and torture for the love of God, makes the Cross of Christ the greatest symbol of glory humanity can rise to. This, moreover, makes the only befitting climax to the story of Jesus as a hero in the struggle of right against wrong, the hero rising to the fullest heights of heroism in facing death. In clinging to faith in that supreme moment of agony, and out of the depths of his anguished heart calling to God with words full of love and hope and faith, “My God! My God!” lies his true conquest over death. As such the Cross will undoubtedly stand as a beacon of light beckoning to a sinning, doubting, groping humanity, sending out signals of faith, hope and cheer. That way lies its significance for mankind blazing the only true path to salvation.

Jesus the human, nailed to the Cross, yet clinging fast to the bosom of the Father in Heaven, as depicted in the Qur’an, is a pillar of light illuminating this dark and dismal life, dispelling doubt, hate and fear. Jesus the super-human, immune to suffering, as depicted by the Church, robs the Cross of all glory, resulting in the complete fizzling out of that greatest drama of heroism in the cause of Truth.       

(Concluded)