al-Saʿdī on Neither killed nor crucified (4:155-159)

Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr kalām al-Mannān, by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Nāṣir al-Saʿdī (d. 1376 AH / 1956 CE). A modern commentary in plain Arabic that states the sense of each verse and the lesson drawn from it, without chains or digressions.

The complete commentary on Neither killed nor crucified (4:155-159), covering 4:155-158 to 4:159.

On 4:155-158

When He had mentioned their corrupt objection, He informed that it was nothing strange in their conduct; rather there had gone before from them ugly precedents greater than the course they took with the Messenger in whom they claim to believe: their asking him to see God openly with their eyes; their taking the calf as a god to worship after they had seen with their own eyes signs that no one else had seen; their refusal to accept the rulings of their scripture, the Torah, until the Mount was raised above their heads and they were threatened that if they did not believe it would be dropped upon them, whereupon they accepted it with reluctance and with a faith resembling forced faith; their refusal to enter the gates of the town which they were commanded to enter prostrating and seeking forgiveness, so that they went against it in word and deed; the transgression of those among them who transgressed on the Sabbath, for which God punished them with that hideous punishment; the taking of the firm covenant from them, which they cast behind their backs, disbelieving in the signs of God and killing His messengers without right; their saying that they killed the Messiah, Jesus, and crucified him, when in fact they neither killed him nor crucified him, but another was made to appear to them in his likeness, so that they killed and crucified someone else; their claim that their hearts are wrapped and do not grasp or understand what you say to them; their turning people away from the path of God, so that they turned them away from the truth and called them to the error and misguidance they themselves were upon; and their taking of unlawful gain and usury despite God’s prohibition of it to them and His severity concerning it. Those who did these deeds, then, cannot be thought strange for asking the Messenger Muḥammad to bring down upon them a book from heaven.

This method is one of the best methods for disputing with an opponent who is in the wrong: when a false objection issues from him which he makes into a doubt for himself and for others in rejecting the truth, there is laid bare of his vile condition and his hideous deeds what is among the ugliest things that have issued from him, so that everyone may know that this objection is from that same base valley, and that it has precedents alongside which this one is to be placed. Likewise every objection they raise against the prophethood of Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) can be met with its like, or with something stronger than it, concerning the prophethood of the one in whom they claim to believe, so that by this their evil is held in check and their falsehood is suppressed; and every argument they follow in establishing the prophethood of the one in whom they believe, it and its counterpart and what is stronger than it indicate and establish the prophethood of Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

Since the purpose of enumerating those of their abominations which God enumerated was this confrontation, He did not expound them at length in this place, but alluded to them and referred to the places where they occur; He has expounded them elsewhere, in the place fitting for their exposition.

On 4:159

And His words: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death. It is possible that the pronoun here in His words before his death refers back to the People of the Book, in which case every person of the Book whom death attends and who witnesses the matter in reality will believe in Jesus (peace be upon him), but with a faith that does not benefit, a faith of compulsion. The purport of this would then be a threat and a warning to them not to persist in this condition which they will regret before their deaths; so how will their condition be on the day of their gathering and their rising?! And it is possible that the pronoun in His words before his death refers to Jesus (peace be upon him), in which case the meaning is: there is no one of the People of the Book but will surely believe in the Messiah (peace be upon him) before the death of the Messiah; and that will be when the Hour draws near and its great signs appear, for the sound ḥadīths have multiplied concerning his descent (peace be upon him) at the end of this community: he will kill the Antichrist (al-Dajjāl), abolish the poll-tax, and the People of the Book will believe in him together with the believers. And on the Day of Resurrection Jesus will be a witness against them, testifying against them concerning their deeds, whether they were in accordance with God’s law or not. At that time he will testify to nothing but the falsity of everything they were upon that contradicts the law of the Qur’an and what Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) called them to. We know this because of our knowledge of the perfect justice of the Messiah (peace be upon him) and his truthfulness, and that he testifies only to the truth; and the truth is none other than that what Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) brought is the truth, and whatever is besides it is error and falsehood.

About this text

This is a complete English rendering of Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr kalām al-Mannān on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=saadi). Nothing is abridged: every opinion, every report with its chain of transmission, every verse of poetry and every grammatical note is translated. Qur’anic quotations are in bold; the translator’s own notes are confined to the numbered footnotes and identify names, terms and variant readings only. The modern editors’ apparatus is not part of the classical text and is left untranslated; a second translator has not checked the rendering, and the Arabic is linked so that any passage can be compared.

Neither killed nor crucified (4:155-159): all commentaries · The classical commentaries