The Gospel According to Islam · Chapter 6, Arrest, Trial and Aftermath · Section 26

The trial, Barabbas and the raising of Jesus. 22 verses. With the Qur’an: 4:157-158.

1And the chief priests and all the council sought evidence against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. 2For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together. 3And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? 4But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, Art thou the Messiah? 5And Jesus said, Thou sayest it. Nevertheless, the One Living God has annointed me to be His messenger to the children of Israel. If they would have received me, He would have given to them a kingdom like He gave unto David.

6But ye had indeed rejected faith: so pursue your plans, and God will execute His plan; and He is the best of planners. 7Then some of those in the council rose up, and said, What need we any further evidence? 8Ye have heard that he setteth himself up as a King and the Messiah, and he did earlier enter into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, pretending to be the King of the Jews. 9Deliver him therefore to Pilate that he may crucify him for setting himself up as a King besides Caesar.¹ 10And in the morning they brought him before Pontius Pilate, the governor, and said, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.

11And Pilate asked him, Knowest thou what thy people witness against thee? Art thou the King of the Jews.² 12Jesus answered, My kingdom is not like thy kingdom: if my kingdom was like thine, then would I have soldiers to fight that I should not be delivered to thee by my people: but my kingdom is not like thine. 13Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king of thy people then? 14And Jesus answering said unto him, How wouldst thou call a messenger to his people from the King of kings? 15Then the Jews who brought Jesus to Pilate said unto him, He hath said it; and thou knowest that whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.

16Then Pilate brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgement seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.³ 17Now at that feast Pilate was wont to release unto the people one prisoner, whomsoever they desired;⁴ and they asked for Barabbas,⁵ a notable prisoner⁶ who had made an insurrection, and Pilate released Barabbas unto them. 18And he pronounced sentence upon Jesus, that he should go upon the cross, and delivered him to be flogged.⁷

19And when they led him away to crucify him, God took Jesus up unto Himself; and they killed him not, nor crucified him, but it was made to appear so unto them.⁸ 20For the likeness of Jesus was cast upon another, and they crucified him whom they took for Jesus; and the soldiers, and the people that stood by, and the women that watched afar off, all supposed that it was he.⁹ 21And the chief priests boasted, saying, We have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of God; but they killed him not: and they that argue about it unto this day are in doubt about it, and have no knowledge of it, but follow conjecture.¹⁰ 22Thus the unbelievers plotted, and God planned, and God is the best of planners: He purified Jesus from those who disbelieved, and set those who follow him above those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection.¹¹

Jesus Was Neither Killed nor Crucified

4:157And for boasting, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.” But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so.¹² Even those who argue for this crucifixion are in doubt. They have no knowledge whatsoever—only making assumptions. They certainly did not kill him. 4:158Rather, God raised him up to Himself. And God is Almighty, All-Wise.¹³

Mark 14:53-65. ↩
Luke 23:2-3. ↩
John 18:36-37; 19:12-13. ↩
Cf. Mark 15:6-15; Matt. 27:15-26; Luke 23:16-25, John 18:39-40. This was not a normal practice of Roman governors but a special measure adopted recently by Pilate to improve his relations with his Jewish subjects. The governor felt the need for such improvement of relations since he had some trouble with Rome because of the disturbances resulting from his flouting of Jewish customs. ↩
This is the name given in some of the oldest manuscripts of the canonical gospels known to Origen (Matt., Sermon 121). (See Marcello Craveri, The Life of Jesus, Evergreen Black Cat Books, 1970, pp. 404-405.) ↩
Matt. 27:16. Barabbas was not a robber, as John makes him in order to emphasize the unfairness of the Jews who preferred a robber over Jesus, but a notable prisoner, like Jesus himself, who was accused of insurrectional activities. ↩
Up to this point the narrative follows the gospels, and most historians accept their outline of the arrest and the hearing before Pilate. Here the accounts part. The gospels say that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, and that the tomb was found empty; the Qur’an says that they did not kill him and did not crucify him, that it was made to appear so to them, and that God raised him to Himself (4:157-158). This narrative follows the Qur’an, as the measure requires, and the end of his earthly mission sets out the verses, the commentators and the historical question. Shafaat’s 1985 text proposed instead that a namesake, Jesus Barabbas, was crucified by a clerical error and that Jesus, released, died of illness on the road to Galilee; that reconstruction has been replaced here, and the change is recorded on the composition page. ↩
Qur’an 4:157-158; 3:55. The verse answers the boast of those who said they had killed him: they did not, whatever they believed. “It was made to appear so to them” (shubbiha lahum) is the Qur’an’s whole statement of how. What follows in the text is the reading of the classical commentators from al-Ṭabarī onwards, given in full in the commentaries folded below: God raised Jesus alive, and another was seen in his likeness. ↩
The Qur’an names no one, the ḥadīth names no one, and this narrative names no one. The earliest reports preserved by al-Ṭabarī on 4:157 make the substitute a disciple who offered to take his likeness; a second set make him the man sent in to seize Jesus; the Gospel of Barnabas makes him Judas; and Basilides, in the second century, Simon of Cyrene, a witness given at the end of this section. All agree on what the Qur’an states and differ on what it leaves unsaid. From the sentence onward the gospel narratives report what the bystanders saw, and what they saw was, by the Qur’an’s word, an appearance. ↩
Qur’an 4:157: “those who differ about it are in doubt about it; they have no knowledge of it, only the following of conjecture.” The disagreement is on record in the gospels themselves. The hour of the crucifixion, the words from the cross, the women at the tomb, what they found and whom Jesus is said to have appeared to differ from one gospel to the next; see the crucifixion and the resurrection accounts set side by side. ↩
Qur’an 3:54-55. ↩
Qur’an 3:55; 4:158; 5:117. “I will take you” (mutawaffīka) is read by the majority of the commentators as God’s taking him up alive, as 4:158 states, and by others as a sleep, or as a death that lies in the future; the eight commentaries on 3:55 and on 4:157-159, folded beneath this section and section 25, give every reading with its chain. ↩
Qur’an 4:159; 43:61; the ḥadīth of the descent of Jesus (al-Bukhārī 3448; Muslim 155). “There is none of the People of the Book but will believe in him before his death” is read by most commentators of the death of Jesus after his return, when all will know him as he is; the other reading, “before the death of each of them”, is also recorded, and the commentaries give both. ↩

From the Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas has no account of an arrest, a trial or a crucifixion, so it neither confirms nor contradicts Qur’an 4:157.

Sayings of Thomas that are not used are listed, each with its reason, on the page of sayings set aside.

Early Christian witnesses to the substitution

The Qur’an says that those who claimed to have killed the Messiah did not kill him and did not crucify him, “but it was made to appear so to them” (4:157). Three Christian texts from within two centuries of the crucifixion say the same, and two of them name the man who carried the cross. They are set here at the point in the story where the gospels have Simon of Cyrene pressed into service, each read against the Qur’an as the measure, with what is kept and what is set aside stated in its note.

The Gospel of Basilides

The Gospel of Basilides is lost. Basilides taught in Alexandria under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, about 120 to 140 CE, the earliest of the Alexandrian Gnostics; he claimed to have been taught by Glaucias, an interpreter of Peter, and by the apostle Matthias. Origen, in his first homily on Luke, says he dared to write “a Gospel according to Basilides”, and Jerome repeats it in the prologue to his commentary on Matthew; he also wrote twenty-four books of commentary on the gospel, of which fragments survive in Clement of Alexandria. The one early work written against him, by Agrippa Castor, is lost, and his followers were still to be found in the Nile Delta at the end of the fourth century. What he taught about the crucifixion is known only from Irenaeus of Lyons, who reported it around 180 CE to condemn it, and from the later heresiologists who copied Irenaeus.¹⁴

Agrees Basilides, on the crucifixion. When they led him out to crucify him, Simon of Cyrene was pressed to carry the cross; and Simon was changed into the likeness of Jesus, and Jesus into the likeness of Simon, so that they crucified Simon in ignorance and error, supposing him to be Jesus; and Jesus himself was not crucified, but departed to Him who had sent him.¹⁵

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

A Coptic text of the third century, copied in the fourth and found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, in which the risen Christ speaks in the first person. Most of it is Gnostic teaching that the Qur’an rejects, and the note says so. One passage records the same tradition as Basilides, and it is given here in the website’s own words.

Agrees The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, on the crucifixion. They devised their plan against me, but I did not succumb to it as they intended, and I was not afflicted. I did not die in reality but in appearance. It was another who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. It was another whom they struck with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder; it was another on whom they set the crown of thorns. They nailed their own man to their death, and they did not see me, for they were deaf and blind.¹⁶

The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter

A Coptic text of the third century from the same Nag Hammadi codex as the Second Treatise, in which Peter is shown the crucifixion and asks what he is seeing. It is a Gnostic work throughout, and the note says what is set aside. Its answer to Peter’s question is given here in the website’s own words.

Agrees The Apocalypse of Peter, on the crucifixion. I saw him seemingly seized by them, and I said, “What do I see, Lord? Is it you yourself they take? Or who is this one on the tree, and is it another whose hands and feet they strike?” The Saviour said to me, “The one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is the substitute, one who came into being in his likeness. The living one stands near him, whom they seized and released. See how they do not know what they are doing: they have put to shame the son of their own glory in place of my servant.”¹⁷

These are the oldest Christian records of the belief the Qur’an states, older than any surviving Muslim commentary by five centuries. What the Qur’an affirms, that the matter was made to appear otherwise to them, some Christians had taught from the beginning; what those Christians built around it, a Christ without a real body who held the cross in contempt, the Qur’an rejects as firmly as the church did. See the end of his earthly mission.

From the commentaries on 4:157

What the classical commentators wrote on the verses this section rests on, each given in full and folded away until opened. The same texts, with the other passages, are on the classical commentaries.

al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān (d. 310 AH / 923 CE), about 4,260 words

On 4:157

On the interpretation of His words: and their saying, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them (4:157)

Abū Jaʿfar said: By this, Majestic is His praise, He means: and for their saying, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” Then God gave them the lie in their saying, and said: and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them, meaning: they did not kill Jesus, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them.

The people of interpretation differed as to the nature of the semblance (tashbīh) that was made to appear to the Jews in the matter of Jesus.

Some of them said: When the Jews surrounded him and his companions, they surrounded them while unable to identify Jesus himself with certainty, for all of them had been transformed into the form of Jesus, so that it became confused for those who wished to kill Jesus which of them was Jesus and which was not; and one of those who had been in the house with Jesus went out to them, and they killed him, thinking him to be Jesus.

Those who said this

(10779) Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Yaʿqūb al-Qummī related to us, from Hārūn ibn ʿAntarah, from Wahb ibn Munabbih, who said: Jesus was come upon while seventeen of the disciples were with him in a house, and they surrounded them. When they came in upon them, God made all of them in the form of Jesus, and they said to them: “You have bewitched us! Either you bring out Jesus to us, or we shall kill you all!” So Jesus said to his companions: “Which of you will sell his soul today for Paradise?” A man among them said: “I!” So he went out to them and said: “I am Jesus” — and God had made him in the form of Jesus — and they seized him, killed him and crucified him. Hence it was made to appear so to them, and they thought that they had killed Jesus; and the Christians likewise thought that it was Jesus; and God raised Jesus up on that very day.

Something other than this opinion has been related from Wahb ibn Munabbih, namely what:

(10780) al-Muthannā related to me: Isḥāq related to us: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm related to us: ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Maʿqil related to me that he heard Wahb say: When God informed Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) that he was to depart from this world, he was distressed at death and it weighed heavily upon him, so he called the disciples and made food for them and said: “Attend upon me tonight, for I have need of you.” When they had gathered to him in the night, he gave them supper and rose to serve them. When they had finished the food, he began to wash their hands and to perform their ablutions with his own hand, and to wipe their hands with his garments. They thought this too great a thing and disliked it, so he said: “Whoever rejects anything that I do tonight is not of me, nor am I of him!” So they let him be, until, when he had finished that, he said: “As for what I have done with you tonight, serving you at the meal and washing your hands with my own hand, let it be for you an example from me; for you consider that I am the best of you, so let none of you exalt himself over another, and let each of you give himself for the other, as I have given myself for you. As for my need in which I sought your help, it is that you pray to God for me and strive in prayer that He defer my appointed term.” When they set themselves to pray and wished to strive, sleep overcame them, so that they were unable to pray. He began to rouse them, saying: “Glory be to God! Can you not bear with me a single night in which to help me?” They said: “By God, we do not know what is the matter with us! We used to keep vigil in talk and would talk long into the night, yet tonight we cannot keep vigil at all, and whenever we wish to pray we are prevented from it!” He said: “The shepherd is taken away and the sheep are scattered!” And he began to utter words of this kind, lamenting his own death. Then he said: “Truly, one of you will deny me before the cock crows three times, and one of you will sell me for a few dirhams and will eat my price!” So they went out and dispersed; and the Jews were seeking him. They seized Simon, one of the disciples, and said: “This one is of his companions!” But he denied it and said: “I am not his companion!” So they let him go; then others seized him and he denied it in the same way. Then he heard the voice of a cock, and he wept and it grieved him. When morning came, one of the disciples went to the Jews and said: “What will you give me if I lead you to the Messiah?” They set for him thirty dirhams, and he took them and led them to him. Now it had already been made to appear so to them before that, and they seized him and bound him securely and tied him with a rope, and began to lead him along, saying to him: “You used to raise the dead, rebuke Satan, and heal the possessed; can you not save yourself from this rope?” And they spat upon him and cast thorns upon him, until they brought him to the beam on which they wished to crucify him. Then God raised him to Himself, and they crucified what had been made to appear so to them, and he remained thus for seven days.

Then his mother and the woman whom Jesus used to treat, and whom God had healed of madness, came weeping at the place of the crucified one; and Jesus came to them and said: “For what are you weeping?” They said: “For you!” He said: “God has raised me to Himself, and nothing but good has befallen me; this is a thing that was made to appear so to them. Bid the disciples to meet me at such-and-such a place.” So eleven met him at that place. He missed the one who had sold him and led the Jews to him, and he asked his companions about him, and they said: “He repented of what he had done, and hanged himself and killed himself.” He said: “Had he repented, God would have turned to him in forgiveness!” Then he asked them about a young man who used to follow them, called Yuḥannā¹⁸, and he said: “He is with you. So go forth, for every man among you shall wake speaking the tongue of a people; let him warn them and call them.”

Others said: Rather, Jesus asked those who were with him in the house that his likeness be cast upon one of them, and a man volunteered for it; his likeness was cast upon him, that man was killed, and Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) was raised up.

Those who said this

(10781) Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us: Yazīd related to us: Saʿīd related to us, from Qatādah, concerning His words “We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him up to His words and God is ever Mighty, Wise (4:157–158): Those enemies of God, the Jews, conspired to kill Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God, and claimed that they had killed him and crucified him. It was mentioned to us that the Prophet of God, Jesus son of Mary, said to his companions: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him, for he will be killed?” A man among his companions said: “I, O Prophet of God!” So that man was killed, and God protected His Prophet and raised him to Himself.

(10782) al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us: Maʿmar informed us, from Qatādah, concerning His words and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them: he said: His likeness was cast upon a man among the disciples and he was killed. Jesus son of Mary had put that before them, saying: “Upon which of you shall my likeness be cast, and Paradise be his?” A man said: “Upon me.”

(10783) Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us: Asbāṭ related to us, from al-Suddī: The Children of Israel besieged Jesus and nineteen men of the disciples in a house, and Jesus said to his companions: “Who will take my form and be killed, and Paradise shall be his?” A man among them took it, and Jesus was taken up to heaven. When the disciples came out, they saw them to be nineteen, and the disciples informed them that Jesus (peace be upon him) had been taken up to heaven. So they began to count the people, and found them one man short of the number, and saw the form of Jesus among them, and so they were in doubt about him. Notwithstanding, they killed the man, considering him to be Jesus, and crucified him. That is the saying of God, Blessed and Exalted: and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them up to His words and God is ever Mighty, Wise (4:157–158).

(10784) al-Muthannā related to us: Abū Ḥudhayfah related to us: Shibl related to us, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from al-Qāsim ibn Abī Bazzah: Jesus son of Mary said: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him and be killed in my place?” A man among his companions said: “I, O Messenger of God!” So his likeness was cast upon him and they killed him. That is His saying: and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them.

(10785) Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Salamah related to us, from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: The name of the king of the Children of Israel who sent against Jesus to kill him was a man among them called David (Dāwūd). When they resolved upon that against him, no servant among the servants of God — so it was mentioned to me — ever found death so terrible as he found it, nor was any so distressed at it as he was, nor did any pray to God to avert it from him as he prayed, so that he even said, as they allege: “O God, if You are going to avert this cup from any one of Your creatures, then avert it from me!” — and so that his skin, from the anguish of that, poured forth blood. Then he entered the place where they had agreed to come in upon him to kill him, he and his companions, and they were thirteen including Jesus. When he was certain that they were about to come in upon him, he said to his companions among the disciples — now they were twelve men: Peter (Fuṭrus), James son of Zebedee (Yaʿqūb ibn Zabdī), John the brother of James (Yuḥannis), Andrew (Andrāyīs), Philip (Fīlibs), Bartholomew (Abrathulmā), Matthew (Mattā), Thomas (Tūmās), James son of Alphaeus (Yaʿqūb ibn Ḥalfiyā), Thaddaeus (Tadāwusīs), Qanāniyā¹⁹, and Judas Zechariah Iscariot (Yūdas Zakariyyā Yūṭā)²⁰.

Ibn Ḥumayd said: Salamah said: Ibn Isḥāq said: And there was among them, so it was mentioned to me, a man whose name was Sergius (Sarjis), so that they were thirteen men apart from Jesus; the Christians have denied him, because he is the one who was made to appear to the Jews in the place of Jesus. He said: I do not know what he was — whether he was one of these twelve, or was a thirteenth whom they denied when they affirmed to the Jews the crucifixion of Jesus and disbelieved in the report of him that Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) brought. If they were thirteen, then when they entered that place they were fourteen with Jesus; and if they were twelve, then when they entered that place they were thirteen with Jesus.

Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Salamah related to us, from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: a man who had been a Christian and had then embraced Islam related to me: When there came to Jesus from God, I am going to take you and raise you to Myself (3:55), he said: “O company of disciples, which of you would like to be my companion in Paradise, on condition that he be made to appear to the people in my form, so that they kill him in my place?” Sergius said: “I, O Spirit of God!” He said: “Then sit in my seat.”

So he sat in it, and Jesus (the blessings of God be upon him) was raised up. They came in upon him and seized him and crucified him; so it was he whom they crucified, and through him it was made to appear so to them. Their number when they went in with Jesus had been known, for they had seen them and counted their number. When they came in upon him to seize him, they found — as they supposed — Jesus and his companions, but they missed one man of the number, and he was the one about whom they differed. They did not know Jesus, so that they had set for Judas Zechariah Iscariot thirty dirhams on condition that he lead them to him and point him out to them, and he said to them: “When you go in to him, I shall kiss him; the one I kiss, seize him.” When they came in upon him, Jesus having already been raised up, he saw Sergius in the form of Jesus and did not doubt that he was Jesus, so he bent over him and kissed him, and they seized him and crucified him. Then Judas Zechariah Iscariot repented of what he had done, and hanged himself with a rope until he had killed himself. He is accursed among the Christians, though he had been one of those counted among his companions. Some of the Christians allege that Judas Zechariah Iscariot was the one who was made to appear to them, and that they crucified him while he was saying: “I am not your man! I am the one who led you to him!” And God knows best which of these it was.

(10786) al-Qāsim related to us: al-Ḥusayn related to us: Ḥajjāj related to me: Ibn Jurayj said: It has reached us that Jesus son of Mary said to his companions: “Which of you will volunteer to have my likeness cast upon him and be killed?” A man among his companions said: “I, O Prophet of God.” So his likeness was cast upon him and he was killed, and God raised His Prophet to Himself.

(10787) Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to us: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us: ʿĪsā related to us, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid, concerning His words it was made to appear so to them: he said: They crucified a man other than Jesus, thinking him to be him.

(10788) al-Muthannā related to me: Abū Ḥudhayfah related to us: Shibl related to us, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid: but it was made to appear so to them, and he mentioned the like of it.

(10789) al-Qāsim related to us: al-Ḥusayn related to us: Ḥajjāj related to me, from Ibn Jurayj, from Mujāhid, who said: They crucified a man whom they took for Jesus, thinking him to be him, and God raised Jesus to Himself alive.

Abū Jaʿfar said: The most correct of these opinions is one of the two opinions we have related from Wahb ibn Munabbih: that the likeness of Jesus was cast upon all who were in the house with Jesus when he and they were surrounded, without Jesus asking that of them, but rather so that God might thereby humiliate the Jews, deliver His Prophet (peace be upon him) thereby from the harm of the killing they intended against him, and thereby try those of His servants whom He wished to try in what they said about Jesus and in the truthfulness of the report concerning his affair; or else the opinion that ʿAbd al-Ṣamad related from him.

We have said that this is the more correct of the two opinions only because those of the disciples who were present with Jesus, had they, at the time when Jesus was raised up and his likeness was cast upon the one upon whom it was cast, witnessed him as he was being raised from among them, and recognised the one upon whom his likeness was cast, and seen him transformed into his form after the form of his own self that he had had, in their very presence — then nothing of the affair of Jesus and of the one upon whom his likeness was cast would have been hidden from them, given that they witnessed all of that; it would not have been confused or obscure to them, even if it was obscure to others among their enemies the Jews, that the one killed and crucified was other than Jesus, and that Jesus had been raised from among them alive.

And how could that have been obscure to them, when they had heard from Jesus his words, “Who will have my likeness cast upon him and be my companion in Paradise?” — if indeed he said that to them — and had heard the answer of the one among them who answered him, “I”, and had witnessed the transformation of the answerer into the form of Jesus immediately after his answer? Rather, that was — God willing — in the manner Wahb ibn Munabbih described: either the people who were with Jesus in the house from which he was raised, from among his disciples, were all transformed by God into the form of Jesus when God wished to raise him, so that they could not identify Jesus himself with certainty from any other because of the resemblance of all their forms, and the Jews killed whom they killed of them while they saw him in the form of Jesus and took him to be him, for they had known him before that; and those who were in the house with Jesus thought the same as the Jews thought, because they could not distinguish the person of Jesus from the person of another, owing to the resemblance between his person and the persons of the others who were with him in the house. So all of them — that is, the Jews and the Christians — agreed on that account that the one killed was Jesus, whereas it was not he, but it was made to appear so to them, as God, Majestic is His praise, said: and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them.

Or else the matter was in the manner related by ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Maʿqil from Wahb ibn Munabbih: that the people who were with Jesus in the house dispersed from him before the Jews came in upon him, and Jesus remained, and his likeness was cast upon one of his companions who had been with him in the house, after the people other than Jesus and other than the one upon whom his likeness was cast had dispersed; and Jesus was raised up, and the one of his companions who had been transformed into the form of Jesus was killed; and his companions and the Jews thought that the one who was killed and crucified was Jesus, because of the resemblance to him that they saw in him and because the affair of Jesus was hidden from them. For his being raised, and the transformation of the one killed into his form, took place after his companions had dispersed from him; and they had heard Jesus during the night lamenting his own death and grieving over the death that he thought was about to befall him; so they related what in their view was true, while the matter in reality, with God, was otherwise than what they related. Thus those of his disciples who related that did not deserve to be called liars, since they related what was true in their view outwardly, even though the matter in reality, with God, was otherwise than what they related.

On the interpretation of His words: Indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it; they have no knowledge of it except the following of conjecture; and they did not kill him for certain (4:157)

Abū Jaʿfar said: By His words Indeed, those who differ over it, Majestic is His praise, He means the Jews who surrounded Jesus and his companions when they wished to kill him. That is because they had known the number of those in the house before they entered, according to what has been mentioned; and when they came in upon them, they missed one of them, and the affair of Jesus became confused for them by their missing one of the number they had counted, and they killed whom they killed while in doubt about the affair of Jesus.

This interpretation is according to the opinion of those who said: the disciples did not part from Jesus until he was raised up and the Jews came in upon them.

As for its interpretation according to the opinion of those who said that they dispersed from him during the night, it is: Indeed, those who differ over Jesus — as to whether he was the one who remained in the house among them after those who went out had gone out from the number that had been in it, or not — are in doubt about it, meaning: about killing him, because when they entered the house they had counted a greater number than those who went out of it and those who were found in it, and so they doubted about the one they had killed: was he Jesus or not? — because they missed those whom they missed from the number they had counted; but they said, “We killed Jesus,” because of the resemblance of the one killed to Jesus in form. God, Majestic is His praise, says: they have no knowledge of it, meaning: they killed the one they killed while in doubt and disagreement about him, as to whether he was Jesus or someone else, without their having any knowledge of the one they killed, as to who he was — was he Jesus, or was he someone else? — except the following of conjecture: He means, Majestic is His praise: they had no knowledge of the one they killed, but they followed their conjecture and killed him, conjecturing that he was Jesus and that he was the one they wished to kill, whereas it was not he; and they did not kill him for certain: He says: and they did not kill it — this conjecture that they followed regarding the slain man whom they killed while thinking him to be Jesus — with certainty that he was Jesus, nor that he was someone else; rather, they were in conjecture and doubt about him.

This is like a man saying to another: “I have not killed this matter with knowledge, nor have I killed it with certainty” (mā qataltu hādhā al-amra ʿilman, wa-mā qataltuhu yaqīnan), when he speaks about it by conjecture without certainty of knowledge. So the pronoun hāʾ²¹ in His words and they did not kill him refers back to “conjecture”.

The people of interpretation said the like of what we have said about this.

Those who said this

(10790) al-Muthannā related to me: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us: Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ related to me, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His words and they did not kill him for certain: he said: It means they did not kill their conjecture with certainty.

(10791) al-Muthannā related to me: Isḥāq related to us: Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd related to us, from Juwaybir, concerning His words and they did not kill him for certain: he said: They did not kill their conjecture with certainty.

Al-Suddī said about this what:

(10792) Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us: Aḥmad ibn Mufaḍḍal related to us: Asbāṭ related to us, from al-Suddī: and they did not kill him for certain: they did not kill his affair with certainty, namely that the man was Jesus; rather, God raised him to Himself (4:158).

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al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-tanzīl (d. 516 AH / 1122 CE), about 590 words

On 4:155-157

His words, Exalted: And We raised over them the Mount for their covenant, and We said to them, “Enter the gate prostrating,” and We said to them, “Do not transgress on the Sabbath” (4:154). The people of Medina read with the dāl doubled and the ʿayn given fatḥa (taʿaddū), Nāfiʿ in the transmission of Warsh, while the others read it with the ʿayn unvowelled (taʿdū). Its meaning is: do not transgress and do not do wrong by catching fish on it. And We took from them a solemn covenant.

His words, Exalted: So for their breaking of their covenant (4:155), that is, because of their breaking it; mā is a connective particle, as in His words, Exalted: So by mercy from God (fa-bimā raḥmatin, 3:159), and the like. And their disbelief in the signs of God, and their killing of the prophets without right, and their saying, “Our hearts are wrapped.” Rather, God has sealed them because of their disbelief, that is, set a seal upon them, so they do not believe except a few, meaning of those who denied the messengers, not of those whose hearts were sealed, because whoever God has sealed his heart never believes. By “a few” He meant ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām and his companions. And it was said: its meaning is, they do not believe, neither a little nor much.

And for their disbelief and their uttering against Mary a tremendous slander (4:156), when they accused her of fornication.

And their saying, “Indeed we killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” But they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him (4:157).

That is because God, Exalted, cast the likeness of Jesus (peace be upon him) upon the one who led the Jews to him. And it was said: they confined Jesus (peace be upon him) in a house and set a guard over him, and God, Exalted, cast the likeness of Jesus (peace be upon him) upon the guard, and they killed him. And other things were said, as we mentioned in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān.

His words, Blessed and Exalted: And indeed those who differed over him, over his killing, are in doubt about it, that is, about his killing. Al-Kalbī said: their differing over him is that the Jews said “we killed him”, and a party of the Christians said “we killed him”, while a party of them said “neither these nor those killed him; rather, God raised him up to heaven while we were looking at him”. And it was said: God, Exalted, had cast the likeness of the face of Jesus (peace be upon him) upon the face of Ṣaṭyāfūs²², but had not cast it upon his body, so they differed over him: some of them said “we killed Jesus, for the face is the face of Jesus (peace be upon him)”, and some of them said “we did not kill him, because his body is not the body of Jesus (peace be upon him)”; so they differed. Al-Suddī said: their differing arose from their saying: “If this is Jesus, then where is our companion? And if this is our companion, then where is Jesus?” God, Exalted, said: They have no knowledge of it, of the reality of whether he was killed or not killed, except the following of conjecture; rather, they follow conjecture regarding his killing. God, Majestic is His majesty, said: and they did not kill him for certain, that is, they did not kill Jesus for certain.

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al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE), about 840 words

On 4:157-158

His words, Exalted: and their saying: We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary (4:157). Inna is given a kasrah because it begins a sentence after the verb of saying; giving it a fatḥah is a dialectal usage. The derivation of the word “Messiah” has already been discussed in Āl ʿImrān.

the Messenger of God: a substitute (badal), or if you wish, in the sense of “I mean”.

And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him: a refutation of their claim.

but it was made to appear so to them, that is, his likeness was cast upon someone else, as has already been discussed in Āl ʿImrān. And it has been said: they did not know him by sight, and they killed the one they killed while in doubt about him, as He, Exalted, said: And truly those who differ concerning him are in doubt about him. The report, it has been said, is about all of them; and it has been said that only their common people differed about him, and that the meaning of their differing is that some of them said he was a god, and some of them that he was the son of God; al-Ḥasan said this. And it has been said that their differing was that their common people said: We have killed Jesus, while those who witnessed his being raised to heaven said: We did not kill him. And it has been said that their differing was that the Nestorians among the Christians said: Jesus was crucified in respect of his humanity, not in respect of his divinity; while the Melkites said: The crucifixion and the killing befell the Messiah in his entirety, his humanity and his divinity. And it has been said that their differing was that they said: If this is our companion, then where is Jesus? And if this is Jesus, then where is our companion? And it has been said that their differing was that the Jews said: We killed him, because Judas, the chief of the Jews, was the one who worked to have him killed; and a party of the Christians said: Rather, it was we who killed him; and another party of them said: Rather, God raised him to heaven while we were looking on at him.

They have no knowledge of it: min is redundant, and the sentence is complete. Then He, Mighty and Majestic, said: except the following of conjecture: a discontinuous exception (istithnāʾ laysa min al-awwal) in the position of the accusative; it may also be in the position of the nominative as a substitute, that is: they have no knowledge of it except the following of conjecture. Sībawayh recited:

Many a land in which there is no companion

except the young gazelles and except the white antelopes.

His words, Exalted: And they did not kill him for certain. Ibn ʿAbbās and al-Suddī said: the meaning is that they did not kill their conjecture with certainty, as when you say “I killed it with knowledge” (qataltuhu ʿilman) when you know a thing completely; so the pronoun refers back to the conjecture. Abū ʿUbayd said: Had the meaning been “they did not kill Jesus for certain”, He would have said only “and they did not kill him”. And it has been said: the meaning is that they did not kill for certain the one who was made to appear to them as Jesus; on this view the pause is at for certain. And it has been said: the meaning is “they did not kill Jesus”, with the pause at and they did not kill him, and for certain is the attribute of an elided verbal noun, and in this there are two construals. One is: that is, they said this as a certain saying; or God said this as a certain saying. The other view is that the meaning be “and they did not know it with certain knowledge”. Al-Naḥḥās: If you construe the meaning as “rather God raised him to Himself for certain”, that is an error, because what comes after bal does not govern what comes before it, owing to its weakness. Ibn al-Anbārī allowed the pause at and they did not kill him on the basis that for certain is in the accusative by an implied verb which is the complement of an oath, its implied sense being: and you have indeed spoken the truth for certain, that is, a certain truth.

Rather, God raised him to Himself (4:158): the beginning of a fresh sentence; that is, to heaven, for God, Exalted, is far exalted above place. The manner of his being raised has already been discussed in Āl ʿImrān.

And God is Mighty, that is, strong in taking vengeance on the Jews, for He gave power over them to Petrus son of Astīsānūs the Roman²³, who slew them in a great slaughter.

Wise: He decreed upon them the curse and the wrath.

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Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm (d. 774 AH / 1373 CE), about 14,400 words

On 4:155-159

This is among the sins which they committed, and which brought upon them their being cursed, driven away and removed far from guidance: namely, their breaking of the covenants and pledges that had been taken from them, and their disbelief in the signs of God, that is, His proofs and demonstrations and the miracles which they witnessed at the hands of the prophets (peace be upon them).

His words and their killing of the prophets without right (4:155): that was because of the abundance of their crimes and their audacity against the prophets of God, for they killed a vast multitude of the prophets (peace be upon them) without right.

And their saying, “Our hearts are wrapped” (4:155): Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿIkrimah, al-Suddī, Qatādah and more than one other said: that is, in a covering. This is like the saying of the polytheists: And they said, “Our hearts are in coverings against that to which you call us, and in our ears is a heaviness, and between us and you is a veil; so work, indeed we too are working” (41:5). It was also said that its meaning is that they claimed their hearts were ghulf for knowledge, that is, vessels of knowledge which had already contained it and acquired it. This was related by al-Kalbī, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās. The like of this has already been discussed in Sūrat al-Baqarah.

God Exalted said: Rather, God has set a seal upon them for their disbelief (4:155). On the first opinion, it is as though they were excusing themselves to him on the ground that their hearts did not retain what he said, because they were in wrappings and coverings; so God Exalted said: rather, they are sealed on account of their disbelief. On the second opinion, He turned back upon them what they claimed from every angle. Discussion of the like of this has already been given in Sūrat al-Baqarah.

So they do not believe except a few (4:155): that is, their hearts became hardened in disbelief, transgression and paucity of faith.

And for their disbelief and their uttering against Mary a tremendous slander (4:156): ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥah said, from Ibn ʿAbbās: “It means that they accused her of fornication.” Likewise said al-Suddī, Juwaybir, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq and more than one other. This is evident from the verse: that they accused her and her son of enormities, making her out to be a fornicatress who had conceived her child by that means; some of them added, “while she was menstruating”. So upon them be the successive curses of God until the Day of Resurrection.

And their saying, “Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God” (4:157): that is, this man who claims this rank for himself, we have killed him. This on their part is by way of mockery and derision, like the saying of the polytheists: O you upon whom the Reminder has been sent down, indeed you are mad (15:6).

Part of the story of the Jews (upon them be the curses of God, His displeasure, His wrath and His punishment) is that when God sent Jesus son of Mary with the clear proofs and guidance, they envied him for what God had given him of prophethood and dazzling miracles, by which he healed the blind and the leper and raised the dead by God’s leave, and fashioned from clay the form of a bird and then breathed into it, and it became a bird whose flight was witnessed, by the leave of God, Mighty and Majestic, and other miracles besides these with which God honoured him and which He caused to run at his hands. Yet despite this they denied him and opposed him, and strove to harm him by every means in their power, until God’s prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) would no longer dwell among them in any one town, but he and his mother (peace be upon them both) travelled much from place to place. Even that did not satisfy them, until they went to the king of Damascus in that age, who was a polytheist, one of the worshippers of the stars, and the people of his religion were called the Greeks (al-Yūnān), and they reported to him that there was a man in Jerusalem who was seducing the people, leading them astray and corrupting the king’s subjects against him. The king was angered by this and wrote to his deputy in Jerusalem to take precautions against this man who had been mentioned, to crucify him, to place thorns upon his head and to put a stop to his harming of the people. When the letter arrived, the governor of Jerusalem complied with it, and he went with a party of the Jews to the house in which Jesus (peace be upon him) was, he being in a company of his companions, twelve or thirteen, or, as it was said, seventeen persons. That was on Friday after the afternoon prayer, on the eve of the Sabbath, and they besieged him there. When he sensed them, and that there was no escaping either their coming in upon him or his going out to them, he said to his companions: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him, and he shall be my companion in Paradise?” A young man among them volunteered for that, but it was as though he considered him too young for it, so he repeated the question a second and a third time, and each time none volunteered but that same young man. So he said: “You are he.” And God cast upon him the likeness of Jesus, until it was as if he were he himself. A skylight was opened in the roof of the house, and a slumber of sleep overtook Jesus (peace be upon him), and he was raised to heaven in that state, as God Exalted said: When God said, “O Jesus, indeed I will take you and raise you to Myself and purify you from those who disbelieve” to the end of the verse (3:55).

When he had been raised, those persons went out, and when the others saw that young man they thought that he was Jesus, so they seized him in the night and crucified him, and they placed the thorns upon his head. The Jews then made it known that they had striven to crucify him, and they boasted of that; and groups of the Christians conceded that to them, out of their ignorance and the smallness of their understanding, except for those who had been in the house with the Messiah, for they witnessed his being raised. As for the rest, they supposed, as the Jews supposed, that the one crucified was the Messiah son of Mary, so much so that they mentioned that Mary sat beneath that crucified man and wept, and it is said that he addressed her; and God knows best.

All of this is part of God’s testing of His servants, for the far-reaching wisdom He has in that. God has made the matter plain, revealed it, clarified it and made it manifest in the Mighty Qurʾān which He sent down upon His noble Messenger, who was supported with miracles, clear proofs and manifest evidences. So He said, Exalted, and He is the most truthful of speakers, the Lord of the worlds, Who is acquainted with secrets and inner thoughts, Who knows the hidden in the heavens and the earth, the Knower of what was and what will be, and of what has not been, how it would be were it to be: and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them (4:157), that is, they saw his likeness and supposed it to be him. For this reason He said: And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of conjecture, and they did not kill him for certain; rather, God raised him to Himself (4:157-158). By this He means those of the Jews who claimed to have killed him and those of the ignorant Christians who conceded it to them: all of them are in doubt about that, and in bewilderment, error and frenzy. For this reason He said: and they did not kill him for certain (4:157), that is, they did not kill him while certain that it was he; rather, they were doubting and imagining. Rather, God raised him to Himself. And God is ever Mighty and Wise (4:158), that is, inaccessible in His majesty, His majesty cannot be assailed, nor is anyone wronged who takes refuge at His door; Wise, that is, in all that He ordains and decrees of the affairs which He creates, and His is the far-reaching wisdom, the crushing proof, the mighty authority and the eternal command.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: Aḥmad ibn Sinān related to us: Abū Muʿāwiyah related to us, from al-Aʿmash, from al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: When God wished to raise Jesus to heaven, he came out to his companions, and in the house were twelve men of the disciples; that is, he came out to them from a spring in the house, with his head dripping water, and he said: “Among you is one who will disbelieve in me twelve times after having believed in me.” Then he said: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him, so that he is killed in my place and is with me in my rank?” A young man, one of the youngest of them in age, stood up, and he said to him: “Sit down.” Then he repeated it to them, and that young man stood up, and he said: “Sit down.” Then he repeated it to them, and the young man stood up and said: “I.” He said: “You are that one.” So the likeness of Jesus was cast upon him, and Jesus was raised from a skylight in the house to heaven. He said: The search party from the Jews came, and they seized the likeness and killed him, and then crucified him; and some of them disbelieved in him twelve times after having believed in him. They split into three sects. One group said: “God was among us for as long as He willed, then He ascended to heaven”; these are the Jacobites. Another sect said: “The son of God was among us for as long as he willed, then God raised him to Himself”; these are the Nestorians. And another sect said: “The servant of God and His Messenger was among us for as long as he willed, then God raised him to Himself”; these are the Muslims. The two unbelieving sects then joined together against the Muslim one and killed it, and Islam remained obliterated until God sent Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

This is a sound chain of transmission (isnād) to Ibn ʿAbbās. Al-Nasāʾī related it from Abū Kurayb, from Abū Muʿāwiyah, with a similar text. Likewise more than one of the early generations (salaf) mentioned that he said to them: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him, so that he is killed in my place, and he shall be my companion in Paradise?”

Ibn Jarīr said: Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Yaʿqūb al-Qummī related to us, from Hārūn ibn ʿAntarah, from Wahb ibn Munabbih, who said: Jesus was come upon while seventeen of the disciples were with him in a house, and they surrounded them. When they came in upon him, God, Mighty and Majestic, fashioned all of them in the form of Jesus, and they said to them: “You have bewitched us! Either Jesus comes out to us, or we shall kill you all.” Jesus said to his companions: “Which of you will sell his soul today for Paradise?” A man among them said: “I.” So he went out to them and said: “I am Jesus”, God having fashioned him in the form of Jesus, and they seized him, killed him and crucified him. Hence it was made to appear so to them, and they supposed that they had killed Jesus, and the Christians likewise supposed that it was Jesus; and God raised Jesus on that very day. This is an exceedingly strange (gharīb) account.

Ibn Jarīr said: Something like this opinion has been related from Wahb, and it is what al-Muthannā related to me: Isḥāq related to us: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm related to us: ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Maʿqil related to me that he heard Wahb say: When God informed Jesus son of Mary that he was departing from this world, he was distressed at death and it weighed heavily upon him, so he summoned the disciples and prepared food for them, and said: “Be present with me tonight, for I have a need of you.” When they had gathered to him in the night, he gave them supper and stood serving them. When they had finished the food, he began to wash their hands and perform their ablutions for them with his own hand, and to wipe their hands with his garments. They considered that too great a thing and were averse to it, but he said: “Behold, whoever refuses me anything tonight of what I do, he is not of me and I am not of him.” So they allowed him, until, when he had finished that, he said: “As for what I have done with you tonight, in serving you at the meal and washing your hands with my own hand, let it be an example for you from me; for you see that I am the best of you, so let none of you exalt himself over another, and let each of you give himself up for the others, as I have given myself up for you. As for my need of you tonight, in which I seek your help, it is that you pray to God for me, and that you strive in supplication that my appointed term be deferred.” But when they set themselves to supplication and wished to strive in it, sleep overtook them, so that they were unable to pray. He began to wake them, saying: “Glory be to God! Will you not bear with me a single night in which you help me?” They said: “By God, we do not know what has come over us. We used to stay up conversing at night and would converse at length, yet tonight we cannot manage any conversation, and whenever we wish to pray a barrier is placed between us and it.” He said: “The shepherd is taken away and the sheep are scattered.” And he began to utter words like this, lamenting his own death. Then he said: “Truly, one of you will deny me three times before the cock crows, and one of you will sell me for a few dirhams, and will devour my price.” Then they went out and dispersed. The Jews were seeking him, and they seized Simon (Shamʿūn), one of the disciples, and said: “This is one of his companions.” But he denied it and said: “I am not his companion”, so they let him go. Then others seized him, and he denied it likewise. Then he heard the voice of a cock, and he wept, and it grieved him. When morning came, one of the disciples came to the Jews and said: “What will you give me if I lead you to the Messiah?” They assigned him thirty dirhams, and he took them and led them to him, and it had been made to appear so to them before that. So they seized him and bound him securely, and tied him with the rope, and began to lead him along, saying to him: “You used to raise the dead, rebuke Satan and heal the possessed; can you not save yourself from this rope?” And they spat upon him and cast thorns upon him, until they brought him to the piece of wood upon which they wished to crucify him. Then God raised him to Himself, and they crucified what was made to appear to them, and it remained for seven days.

Then his mother and the woman whom Jesus (peace be upon him) had been treating, and whom God had cured of madness, came weeping to where the crucified man was. Jesus came to them and said: “For what are you weeping?” They said: “For you.” He said: “God has raised me to Himself, and nothing but good has befallen me; and this one was made to appear so to them. So bid the disciples to meet me at such-and-such a place.” So eleven of them met him at that place. They missed the one who had sold him and led the Jews to him, and he asked his companions about him, and one said: “He regretted what he had done, so he hanged himself and killed himself.” He said: “Had he repented, God would have accepted his repentance.” Then he asked them about a lad who used to follow them, called John (Yaḥyā), and said: “He is with you. So go forth, for every one of you shall in the morning speak in the tongue of a people; let him warn them and call them.” An exceedingly strange account.

Then Ibn Jarīr said: Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Salamah related to us, from Ibn Isḥāq, who said: The name of the king of the Children of Israel who sent to Jesus in order to kill him was a man among them called David (Dāwūd). When they had resolved upon that against him, no servant among the servants of God was ever, so far as has been mentioned to me, so appalled at death as he was appalled at it, nor so distressed by it as he was distressed, nor did any supplicate God to turn it away from him as he supplicated, so that he said, as they claim: “O God, if You are going to turn this cup away from any one of Your creatures, then turn it away from me”, and so that his skin, from the anguish of that, streamed with blood. Then he entered the place of entry in which they had resolved to come in upon him to kill him, he and his companions, they being thirteen including Jesus (peace be upon him). When he was certain that they were coming in upon him, he said to his companions among the disciples, who were twelve men: Peter (Fuṭrus), James son of Zebedee (Yaʿqūb ibn Zabdī), John (Yuḥannas) the brother of James, Andrew (Andarābīs), Philip (Fīlibs), Bartholomew (Abrathulmā), Matthew (Minnā), Thomas (Tūmās), James son of Alphaeus (Yaʿqūb ibn Ḥalfiyā), Thaddaeus (Tadāwsīs), Simon the Zealot (Qathāniyā) and Judas Iscariot (Yūdis Zakariyyā Yūṭā).

Ibn Ḥumayd said: Salamah said: Ibn Isḥāq said: There was among them, according to what has been mentioned to me, a man whose name was Sergius (Sirjis), so they were thirteen men apart from Jesus (peace be upon him). The Christians have denied him, and that is because he is the one who was made to resemble Jesus (peace be upon him) in the eyes of the Jews, in his place. He said: So I do not know what he was: whether he was one of these twelve, or was a thirteenth. They denied him when they conceded to the Jews the crucifixion of Jesus, and disbelieved in the report of him which Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) brought. If they were thirteen, then they entered the place of entry, when they entered, being fourteen with Jesus; and if they were twelve, then they entered the place of entry, when they entered, being thirteen.

Ibn Isḥāq said: A man who had been a Christian and became a Muslim related to me that when there came to Jesus from God indeed I will take you and raise you to Myself (3:55), he said: “O company of disciples, which of you would like to be my companion in Paradise, on condition that he be made to appear to the people in my form, so that they kill him in my place?” Sergius said: “I, O Spirit of God.” He said: “Then sit in my seat.” So he sat in it, and Jesus (peace be upon him) was raised. Then they came in upon him and seized him and crucified him; so he was the one whom they crucified and who was made to appear to them as him. Their number when they went in with Jesus was known, for they had seen them and counted their number. When they came in upon him to seize him, they found Jesus, as they supposed, and his companions, but they missed one man from the number; and he is the one about whom they differed. They did not know Jesus, so that they assigned to Judas Iscariot thirty dirhams on condition that he lead them to him and point him out to them. He said to them: “When you go in to him, I shall kiss him; and the one I kiss, he is the one, so seize him.” When they went in, Jesus had already been raised, and he saw Sergius in the form of Jesus, and did not doubt that he was Jesus, so he bent over him and kissed him, and they seized him and crucified him.

Then Judas Iscariot regretted what he had done, and hanged himself with a rope until he killed himself. He is accursed among the Christians, though he had been one of those counted among his companions. Some of the Christians claim that Judas Iscariot was the one who was made to appear to them as him, and that they crucified him while he was saying: “I am not your man. I am the one who led you to him.” And God knows best which of these it was.

Ibn Jarīr said, from Mujāhid: They crucified a man whom they took to resemble Jesus, and God, Mighty and Majestic, raised Jesus to heaven alive.

Ibn Jarīr preferred the view that the likeness of Jesus was cast upon all of his companions.

His words, Exalted: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159)

Ibn Jarīr said: The people of interpretation differed concerning the meaning of that.

Some of them said: the meaning of that is: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him, meaning in Jesus, before his death, meaning before the death of Jesus. He directed that to the sense that all of them will affirm him when he descends to kill the Antichrist (al-Dajjāl), so that all the religions become one, namely the upright (ḥanīfiyyah) religion of Islam, the religion of Abraham (peace be upon him).

Those who said this

Ibn Bashshār related to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to us: Sufyān related to us, from Abū Ḥuṣayn, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: before the death of Jesus son of Mary. Al-ʿAwfī said the like of that, from Ibn ʿAbbās.

Abū Mālik said concerning His words but will surely believe in him before his death: That is at the descent of Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him); not one of the People of the Book will remain but will believe in him.

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said, from Ibn ʿAbbās: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death, meaning the Jews in particular. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī said: meaning the Negus (al-Najāshī) and his companions. Both of these were related by Ibn Abī Ḥātim.

Ibn Jarīr said: Yaʿqūb related to me: Ibn ʿUlayyah related to us: Abū Rajāʾ related to us, from al-Ḥasan: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: before the death of Jesus. By God, he is now alive with God, but when he descends they will all believe in him.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: My father related to us: ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Lāḥiqī related to us: Juwayriyah ibn Bishr related to us, saying: I heard a man say to al-Ḥasan: “O Abū Saʿīd, the words of God, Mighty and Majestic, And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death?” He said: “Before the death of Jesus. God raised Jesus to Himself, and He will send him forth before the Day of Resurrection in a station in which the righteous and the wicked alike will believe in him.”

Likewise said Qatādah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam and more than one other. This opinion is the truth, as we shall make clear hereafter with decisive proof, God willing; in Him is our trust and upon Him our reliance.

Ibn Jarīr said:

Others said: the meaning of that is: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before the death of the person of the Book. He mentioned those who directed that to the sense that when one sees with his own eyes he knows the truth from falsehood, because everyone upon whom death descends, his soul does not depart until the truth becomes distinct for him from falsehood in his religion.

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥah said, from Ibn ʿAbbās, on His words And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: No Jew dies until he believes in Jesus.

Al-Muthannā related to me: Abū Ḥudhayfah related to us: Shibl related to us, from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid, on His words but will surely believe in him before his death: Every possessor of a Book believes in Jesus before his death, that is, before the death of the possessor of the Book. And Ibn ʿAbbās said: Were you to strike off his neck, his soul would not depart until he believed in Jesus.

Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Abū Numaylah Yaḥyā ibn Wāḍiḥ related to us: Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid related to us, from Yazīd al-Naḥwī, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: The Jew does not die until he bears witness that Jesus is the servant of God and His Messenger, even if he is hastened to death by the sword.

Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥabīb ibn al-Shahīd related to me: ʿAttāb ibn Bashīr related to us, from Khuṣayf, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: In the reading of Ubayy it is before their death²⁴: there is no Jew who ever dies until he believes in Jesus. It was said to Ibn ʿAbbās: “What if he falls from the top of a house?” He said: “He utters it as he falls.” It was said: “What if the neck of one of them is struck off?” He said: “His tongue stammers it out.”

Likewise Sufyān al-Thawrī related from Khuṣayf, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: No Jew dies until he believes in Jesus (peace be upon him); if he is struck with the sword he utters it; and he said: if he falls, he utters it as he is falling.

Likewise Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī related from Shuʿbah, from Abū Hārūn al-Ghanawī, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās. All these are sound chains of transmission to Ibn ʿAbbās, and it is likewise soundly transmitted from Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah and Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk, Juwaybir and al-Suddī held this view, and he reported it from Ibn ʿAbbās and transmitted the reading of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: “before their death”.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq said, from Isrāʾīl, from Furāt al-Qazzāz, from al-Ḥasan, on His words but will surely believe in him before his death; he said: Not one of them dies until he believes in Jesus before he dies.

This may possibly mean that al-Ḥasan intended what was previously cited from him, or it may be that he intended what these others intended.

Ibn Jarīr said:

Others said: the meaning of that is: and there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) before the death of the person of the Book.

Those who said this

Ibn al-Muthannā related to me: al-Ḥajjāj ibn Minhāl related to us: Ḥammād related to us, from Ḥumayd, who said: ʿIkrimah said: Neither the Christian nor the Jew dies until he believes in Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him), concerning His words And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death.

Then Ibn Jarīr said: The most worthy of these opinions to be correct is the first opinion, namely that not one of the People of the Book will remain after the descent of Jesus (peace be upon him) but will believe in him before his death, that is, before the death of Jesus (peace be upon him). There is no doubt that this which Ibn Jarīr (may God have mercy on him) said is the correct view, because it is what is intended by the sequence of the verses in establishing the falsity of what the Jews claimed regarding the killing of Jesus and his crucifixion, and the concession of that to them by those ignorant Christians who conceded it. God informed that the matter was not so; rather, it was made to appear so to them, and they killed the one who resembled him while not discerning that. Then He raised him to Himself, and he remains alive, and he will descend before the Day of Resurrection, as the mass-transmitted (mutawātir) ḥadīths indicate, which we shall cite shortly, God willing, and he will kill the Messiah of misguidance, break the cross, kill the swine and abolish the poll tax (jizyah), meaning he will not accept it from anyone of the people of the various religions, but will accept nothing but Islam or the sword. This noble verse thus informs that all the People of the Book will believe in him at that time, and not one of them will hold back from affirming him. For this reason He said: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death, that is, before the death of Jesus, whom the Jews and those Christians who agreed with them claimed had been killed and crucified.

And on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159): that is, to their deeds which he witnessed from them before his being raised to heaven and after his descent to the earth. As for those who interpreted this verse as meaning that every person of the Book does not die until he believes in Jesus or in Muḥammad (blessings and peace be upon them both), this is indeed what actually happens, for every person at the moment of his dying has revealed to him that of which he was ignorant, and so he believes in it; but that is not a faith which benefits him, since he has already seen the angel, as God Exalted said at the beginning of this sūrah: But repentance is not for those who do evil deeds until, when death comes to one of them, he says, “Indeed, I repent now”, nor for those who die while they are disbelievers to the end of the verse (4:18); and God Exalted said: And when they saw Our punishment, they said, “We believe in God alone, and we disbelieve in that which we used to associate with Him.” But their faith did not benefit them once they saw Our punishment, the two verses (40:84-85). This shows the weakness of what Ibn Jarīr argued in refuting this opinion, where he said: “Were this the meaning of this verse, then everyone who believed in Muḥammad or in the Messiah, among those who had disbelieved in them, would be upon their religion, and in that case his relatives of his own religion would not inherit from him, because the Truthful One has informed that he believes in him before his death.” This is not sound, for it does not follow from his believing in a state in which his faith does not benefit him that he thereby becomes a Muslim. Do you not see the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās: “Even were he to fall from a height, or be struck with a sword, or be torn by a beast of prey, he must inevitably believe in Jesus”? So faith in such states as these is of no benefit, and does not transfer its possessor out of his disbelief, for the reason we have set out; and God knows best.

Whoever considers this well and looks closely into it, it will become clear to him that this, even though it is what actually happens, does not entail that it is what is meant by this verse. Rather, what is meant by it is what we have mentioned: the affirmation of the existence of Jesus (peace be upon him), the continuance of his life in heaven, and that he will descend to the earth before the Day of Resurrection in order to give the lie to both these and those among the Jews and the Christians, whose sayings about him have diverged, opposed one another, contradicted and conflicted with one another, and are devoid of the truth. These Jews fell short and these Christians went to excess: the Jews disparaged him with the enormities of which they accused him and his mother, while the Christians extolled him to the point of claiming for him what is not in him, raising him, in opposition to the former, from the station of prophethood to the station of lordship. Exalted is God far above the saying of both these and those, and sanctified and holy is He; there is no god but He.

The ḥadīths transmitted concerning the descent of Jesus son of Mary from heaven to the earth at the end of time before the Day of Resurrection, and that he will call to the worship of God alone, Who has no partner

Al-Bukhārī (may God have mercy on him) said in the Book of the Mention of the Prophets, in his Ṣaḥīḥ which has been received with acceptance, under “The descent of Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him)”: Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm related to us: Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm related to us: my father related to us, from Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn Shihāb, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “By Him in Whose hand is my soul, the son of Mary is surely about to descend among you as a just judge. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish the poll tax, and wealth will overflow until no one will accept it, until a single prostration will be better than this world and all that is in it.” Then Abū Hurayrah would say: Recite if you wish: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159).

Muslim likewise related it from al-Ḥasan al-Ḥulwānī and ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, both from Yaʿqūb, with this chain. Al-Bukhārī and Muslim also recorded it from the ḥadīth of Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from al-Zuhrī, with this chain. And they both recorded it by way of al-Layth, from al-Zuhrī, with this chain. Ibn Mardawayh related it by way of Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥafṣah, from al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The son of Mary is about to be among you as a just judge. He will kill the Antichrist, kill the swine, break the cross and abolish the poll tax, and wealth will overflow, and prostration will be one, to God, the Lord of the worlds.” Abū Hurayrah said: Recite if you wish: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before the death of Jesus son of Mary. Then Abū Hurayrah would repeat it three times.

Another route from Abū Hurayrah: Imām Aḥmad said: Rawḥ related to us: Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥafṣah related to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Ḥanẓalah ibn ʿAlī al-Aslamī, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Jesus son of Mary will surely raise the cry of talbiyah at the pass of al-Rawḥāʾ²⁵ for the pilgrimage (ḥajj) or the lesser pilgrimage (ʿumrah), or he will surely combine them both together.”

Muslim likewise related it, alone in recording it, from the ḥadīth of Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, al-Layth ibn Saʿd and Yūnus ibn Yazīd, all three from al-Zuhrī, with this chain.

Aḥmad said: Yazīd related to us: Sufyān, that is Ibn Ḥusayn, related to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Ḥanẓalah, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Jesus son of Mary will descend and kill the swine, and efface the cross, and the prayer will be gathered for him, and he will give out wealth until it is no longer accepted, and he will abolish the land tax (kharāj), and he will come down to al-Rawḥāʾ and perform the pilgrimage from there, or the lesser pilgrimage, or combine them both.” He said: And Abū Hurayrah recited: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159). Ḥanẓalah claimed that Abū Hurayrah said: “he will believe in him before the death of Jesus”; so I do not know whether all this is the ḥadīth of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) or something which Abū Hurayrah said.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim likewise related it from his father, from Abū Mūsā Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, from Yazīd ibn Hārūn, from Sufyān ibn Ḥusayn, from al-Zuhrī, with this chain.

Another route: al-Bukhārī said: Ibn Bukayr related to us: al-Layth related to us, from Yūnus, from Ibn Shihāb, from Nāfiʿ the client of Abū Qatādah al-Anṣārī, that Abū Hurayrah said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “How will you be when the Messiah son of Mary descends among you, and your leader (imām) is from among you?” ʿUqayl and al-Awzāʿī followed him in it.

Imām Aḥmad related it thus from ʿAbd al-Razzāq, from Maʿmar, and from ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar, from Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, both from al-Zuhrī, with this chain. Muslim recorded it from the transmission of Yūnus, al-Awzāʿī and Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, with this chain.

Another route: Imām Aḥmad said: ʿAffān related to us: Hammām related to us: Qatādah informed us, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The prophets are brothers from one father with different mothers; their mothers are various but their religion is one. I am the closest of people to Jesus son of Mary, because there was no prophet between me and him. He will descend, and when you see him, recognise him: a man of medium build, tending to redness and whiteness, wearing two garments dyed light yellow, his head as if dripping though no wetness has touched it. He will smash the cross, kill the swine, abolish the poll tax and call the people to Islam. In his time God will destroy all the religions except Islam, and in his time God will destroy the Messiah the Antichrist. Then security will settle upon the earth, so that lions will graze with camels, leopards with cattle and wolves with sheep, and children will play with snakes without their harming them. He will remain forty years, then he will die, and the Muslims will pray over him.”

Abū Dāwūd likewise related it from Hudbah ibn Khālid, from Hammām ibn Yaḥyā. Ibn Jarīr related it, and he cited no other ḥadīth than this at this verse, from Bishr ibn Muʿādh, from Yazīd ibn Hārūn, from Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, both of them from Qatādah, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ādam, who is the client of Umm Burthun, the keeper of the drinking-place, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and he mentioned the like of it, and said: “and he will fight the people for the sake of Islam.”

Al-Bukhārī related from Abū al-Yamān, from Shuʿayb, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: I heard the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) say: “I am the closest of people to Jesus son of Mary; the prophets are children of one father with different mothers, and there is no prophet between me and him.”

Then he related from Muḥammad ibn Sinān, from Fulayḥ ibn Sulaymān, from Hilāl ibn ʿAlī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿAmrah, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “I am the closest of people to Jesus son of Mary in this world and the Hereafter. The prophets are brothers from one father with different mothers; their mothers are various but their religion is one.” And Ibrāhīm ibn Ṭahmān said, from Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, from Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said, and he mentioned it.

Another ḥadīth: Muslim said in his Ṣaḥīḥ: Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb related to me: Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr related to us: Sulaymān ibn Bilāl related to us: Suhayl related to us, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The Hour will not come until the Romans (al-Rūm) encamp at al-Aʿmāq, or at Dābiq²⁶. An army will go out to them from Medina, of the best people of the earth on that day. When they have drawn up in ranks, the Romans will say: ‘Leave us alone with those who took captives from among us, that we may fight them.’ The Muslims will say: ‘No, by God, we will not leave you alone with our brothers.’ So they will fight them, and a third will be routed, whose repentance God will never accept; a third will be killed, the best of martyrs with God, Mighty and Majestic; and a third will conquer, who will never be put to trial, and they will conquer Constantinople. While they are dividing the spoils, having hung their swords upon the olive trees, Satan will cry out among them: ‘The Messiah has taken your place among your families!’ So they will go out, and that is false. When they come to Syria, he will come forth. While they are preparing for battle, straightening the ranks, the prayer will be called, and Jesus son of Mary will descend and lead them. When the enemy of God sees him, he will melt as salt melts in water, and were he to leave him he would melt away until he perished; but God will kill him by his hand, and he will show them his blood upon his spear.”

Another ḥadīth: Imām Aḥmad said: Hushaym related to us, from al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab, from Jabalah ibn Suḥaym, from Muʾaththir ibn ʿAfāzah, from Ibn Masʿūd, from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), who said: “On the night on which I was taken on the night journey I met Abraham, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them), and they discussed together the matter of the Hour. They referred their matter to Abraham, and he said: ‘I have no knowledge of it.’ So they referred their matter to Moses, and he said: ‘I have no knowledge of it.’ So they referred their matter to Jesus, and he said: ‘As for the moment of its coming, no one knows it but God; but among what my Lord, Mighty and Majestic, has entrusted to me is that the Antichrist will come forth.’ He said: ‘And I shall have with me two rods, and when he sees me he will melt as lead melts.’ He said: ‘God will destroy him when he sees me, so that even the stone and the tree will say: “O Muslim, beneath me is an unbeliever, so come and kill him.”‘ He said: ‘So God will destroy them. Then the people will return to their lands and their homelands, and at that point Gog and Magog will come forth, and they, from every elevation, will swarm down. They will trample their lands, and they will not come upon anything without destroying it, nor pass by any water without drinking it.’ He said: ‘Then the people will return to me complaining of them, and I shall pray to God against them, and He will destroy them and cause them to die, until the earth stinks with the stench of their odour. Then God will send down the rain, and it will sweep away their bodies until it casts them into the sea. Among what my Lord, Mighty and Majestic, has entrusted to me is that when that has come to pass, the Hour will be like a woman at full term in her pregnancy, whose household do not know when she will surprise them with her delivery, by night or by day.’”

Ibn Mājah related it from Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, from Yazīd ibn Hārūn, from al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab, with this chain, with a similar text.

Another ḥadīth: Imām Aḥmad said: Yazīd ibn Hārūn related to us: Ḥammād ibn Salamah informed us, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from Abū Naḍrah, who said: We came to ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ on a Friday, in order to compare a copy of the Qurʾān (muṣḥaf) of ours with his copy. When the time of the Friday prayer came, he ordered us and we performed the major ablution; then we were brought perfume and we perfumed ourselves; then we came to the mosque and sat with a man, who spoke to us about the Antichrist. Then ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ came, and we rose for him, and then we sat, and he said: I heard the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) say: “The Muslims will have three garrison towns: a town at the meeting-place of the two seas, a town at al-Ḥīrah and a town in Syria. The people will be struck with three panics, and the Antichrist will come forth among the fringes of the people, and he will be routed from the direction of the east. The first town he comes to will be the town at the meeting-place of the two seas, and its people will become three parties: a party that stays, saying, ‘We will test him and see what he is’; a party that joins the Bedouin; and a party that joins the town next to them. With the Antichrist will be seventy thousand wearing green cloaks (sījān), and most of those with him will be the Jews and women. Then he will come to the town next to it, and its people will become three parties: a party that says, ‘We will test him and see what he is’; a party that joins the Bedouin; and a party that joins the town next to them in the west of Syria. The Muslims will withdraw to the pass of Afīq²⁷, and they will send out their grazing animals, and their animals will be seized, and that will weigh heavily upon them, and severe famine and severe hardship will afflict them, so that one of them will burn the string of his bow and eat it. While they are in that state, a caller will call out at dawn: ‘O people, relief has come to you!’ three times. They will say to one another: ‘This is surely the voice of a well-fed man.’ And Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) will descend at the time of the dawn prayer. Their commander will say to him: ‘O Spirit of God, step forward and lead the prayer.’ But he will say: ‘This community are commanders, one over another.’ So their commander will step forward and lead the prayer, and when he has finished his prayer, Jesus will take his spear and go towards the Antichrist. When the Antichrist sees him he will melt as lead melts, and he will set his spear between his breasts and kill him, and his companions will be routed. On that day there will be nothing to conceal anyone, so that even the tree will say: ‘O believer, here is an unbeliever’, and the stone will say: ‘O believer, here is an unbeliever.’” Aḥmad alone related it by this route.

Another ḥadīth: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yazīd ibn Mājah said in his well-known Sunan: ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad related to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muḥāribī related to us, from Ismāʿīl ibn Rāfiʿ Abū Rāfiʿ, from Abū Zurʿah al-Shaybānī Yaḥyā ibn Abī ʿAmr, from Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) addressed us, and the greater part of his address was a discourse he gave us about the Antichrist, warning us against him. Among what he said was:

“There has been no tribulation on the earth, since God scattered abroad the progeny of Adam (peace be upon him), greater than the tribulation of the Antichrist. God has not sent a prophet but that he warned his community against the Antichrist. I am the last of the prophets, and you are the last of the communities, and he will without doubt come forth among you. If he comes forth while I am among you, then I am the advocate of every Muslim; and if he comes forth after me, then every man is his own advocate, and God is my deputy over every Muslim. He will come forth from a gap between Syria and Iraq, and he will wreak havoc to the right and wreak havoc to the left.

“O servants of God, O people, stand firm! I shall describe him to you with a description with which no prophet before me has described him. He will begin by saying, ‘I am a prophet’, but there is no prophet after me. Then he will say a second time, ‘I am your Lord’, but you will not see your Lord until you die. He is one-eyed, and your Lord, Mighty and Majestic, is not one-eyed. Between his eyes is written ‘unbeliever’ (kāfir), which every believer will read, whether literate or illiterate. Part of his tribulation is that he will have with him a garden and a fire; but his fire is a garden and his garden is a fire. Whoever is tried with his fire, let him seek help from God and recite the opening verses of al-Kahf, and it will be coolness and peace for him, as the fire was for Abraham (peace be upon him). Part of his tribulation is that he will say to a Bedouin: ‘Tell me, if I raise your father and your mother for you, will you bear witness that I am your Lord?’ He will say: ‘Yes.’ Then two devils will appear to him in the form of his father and his mother, and they will say: ‘My son, follow him, for he is your Lord.’ Part of his tribulation is that he will be given power over a single soul, and he will kill it and saw it in two with a saw, until it is cast down in two halves; then he will say: ‘Look at this servant of mine, for I shall now raise him, and then he will claim that he has a Lord other than me.’ God will raise him, and the foul one will say to him: ‘Who is your Lord?’ He will say: ‘My Lord is God, and you are the enemy of God, the Antichrist. By God, I was never more clear-sighted about you than I am today.’” Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṭanāfisī said: al-Muḥāribī related to us: ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Walīd al-Waṣṣāfī related to us, from ʿAṭiyyah, from Abū Saʿīd, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “That man will be the highest of my community in rank in Paradise.”

He said: Abū Saʿīd said: By God, we did not think that man to be anyone other than ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, until he passed on his way.

Al-Muḥāribī said: Then we return to the ḥadīth of Abū Rāfiʿ. He said: “Part of his tribulation is that he will command the sky to rain, and it will rain, and command the earth to bring forth vegetation, and it will bring it forth. Part of his tribulation is that he will pass by a tribe and they will disbelieve him, and not one of their grazing animals will remain but will perish. And part of his tribulation is that he will pass by a tribe and they will believe him, and he will command the sky to rain, and it will rain, and command the earth to bring forth vegetation, and it will bring it forth, so that their livestock will return in the evening of that very day fatter than they ever were and larger, with their flanks fuller and their udders more flowing with milk. There will remain nothing of the earth but that he will tread upon it and prevail over it, except Mecca and Medina, for he will not approach them by any one of their mountain passes but that the angels will meet him with drawn swords, until he comes to a halt at the Red Hillock, where the salt marsh ends. Then Medina will quake with its people three quakings, and no hypocrite, man or woman, will remain but will go out to him, and so it will cast out its dross as the bellows cast out the dross of iron, and that day will be called the Day of Deliverance.”

Umm Sharīk bint Abī al-ʿAkar said: “O Messenger of God, where will the Arabs be on that day?” He said: “They will be few, and most of them will be in Jerusalem, and their leader will be a righteous man. While their leader has stepped forward to lead them in the dawn prayer, Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) will descend upon them at dawn. That leader will draw back, retreating and walking backwards, so that Jesus may step forward to lead the people in prayer; but Jesus (peace be upon him) will place his hand between his shoulders and then say: ‘Step forward and pray, for it was called for you.’ So their leader will lead them in prayer, and when he has finished, Jesus (peace be upon him) will say: ‘Open the gate.’ It will be opened, and behind it will be the Antichrist, with him seventy thousand Jews, each of them bearing an ornamented sword and wearing a green cloak. When the Antichrist looks at him, he will melt as salt melts in water, and will set off in flight, and Jesus (peace be upon him) will say: ‘I have a blow in store for you which you shall not escape.’ He will overtake him at the eastern gate of Ludd²⁸ and kill him, and God will rout the Jews, and nothing will remain of what God Exalted has created behind which a Jew hides but that God will make that thing speak, neither stone nor tree nor wall nor beast, except the gharqad tree, for it is one of their trees and will not speak, saying: ‘O servant of God, O Muslim, here is a Jew, so come and kill him.’”

The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “His days will be forty years: a year like half a year, a year like a month, a month like a week, and the last of his days like a spark; one of you will rise in the morning at one gate of the city and will not reach its other gate before evening falls.” It was said to him: “O Prophet of God, how shall we pray in those short days?” He said: “You will estimate the prayer in them as you estimate it in these long days, and then pray.”

The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Then Jesus son of Mary will be in my community a just judge and an equitable leader. He will smash the cross, kill the swine, abolish the poll tax and leave off the alms tax, so that no collector will be sent out after sheep or camel. Rancour and mutual hatred will be lifted, and the venom of every venomous creature will be drawn out, so that the infant will put his hand into the mouth of the snake and it will not harm him, and the little girl will chase away the lion and it will not harm her, and the wolf will be among the sheep as though it were their dog. The earth will be filled with peace as a vessel is filled with water, and the word will be one, so that none will be worshipped but God, and war will lay down its burdens, and Quraysh will be stripped of their kingship. The earth will be like a platter of silver, bringing forth its vegetation as in the days of Adam, so that a group of people will gather around a single bunch of grapes and it will satisfy them, and a group will gather around a single pomegranate and it will satisfy them. An ox will be worth such-and-such an amount of money, and a horse will be worth a few paltry dirhams.”

It was said: “O Messenger of God, what will make the horse so cheap?” He said: “It will never again be ridden for war.” It was said to him: “Then what will make the ox so dear?” He said: “The whole earth will be ploughed.”

“Before the coming forth of the Antichrist there will be three hard years, in which severe hunger will afflict the people. In the first year God will command the sky to withhold a third of its rain, and He will command the earth and it will withhold a third of its vegetation. Then in the second year He will command the sky and it will withhold two thirds of its rain, and He will command the earth and it will withhold two thirds of its vegetation. Then in the third year God will command the sky and it will withhold all its rain, so that not a drop falls, and He will command the earth to withhold all its vegetation, so that nothing green grows, and no cloven-hoofed animal will remain but will perish, except what God wills.”

It was said: “Then what will keep the people alive in that time?” He said: “Declaring God’s oneness, magnifying Him, glorifying Him and praising Him; and that will serve them in place of food.”

Ibn Mājah said: I heard Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṭanāfisī say: I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muḥāribī say: This ḥadīth ought to be handed over to the schoolmaster, so that he may teach it to the boys in the school.

This is an exceedingly strange ḥadīth by this route, though parts of it have corroborating witnesses in other ḥadīths. Let us mention here the ḥadīth of al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān, because of its resemblance in its narrative to this ḥadīth. Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj said in his Ṣaḥīḥ:

Abū Khaythamah Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb related to us: al-Walīd ibn Muslim related to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir related to me: Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Ṭāʾī, the judge of Ḥimṣ, related to me: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr related to me, from his father Jubayr ibn Nufayr al-Ḥaḍramī, that he heard al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān al-Kilābī; and (by another chain) Muḥammad ibn Mihrān al-Rāzī related to us: al-Walīd ibn Muslim related to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir related to us, from Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Ṭāʾī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr, from his father Jubayr ibn Nufayr, from al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned the Antichrist one morning, and he lowered his voice and raised it in speaking of him, until we thought him to be in the cluster of palm trees. When we went to him, he perceived that in us, and said: “What is the matter with you?” We said: “O Messenger of God, you mentioned the Antichrist this morning, and you lowered your voice and raised it in speaking of him, until we thought him to be in the cluster of palm trees.” He said: “It is other than the Antichrist that I fear most for you. If he comes forth while I am among you, I shall be his adversary on your behalf; and if he comes forth while I am not among you, then each man is his own advocate, and God is my deputy over every Muslim. He is a young man with tightly curled hair, his eye protruding; it is as though I liken him to ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Qaṭan. Whoever of you reaches him, let him recite against him the opening verses of Sūrat al-Kahf. He will come forth from a gap between Syria and Iraq, and he will wreak havoc to the right and wreak havoc to the left. O servants of God, stand firm!” We said: “O Messenger of God, and how long will he remain on the earth?” He said: “Forty days: a day like a year, a day like a month, a day like a week, and the rest of his days like your days.”

We said: “O Messenger of God, that day which is like a year, will the prayer of a single day suffice us in it?” He said: “No; estimate for it its due measure.” We said: “O Messenger of God, and how swift will he be upon the earth?” He said: “Like rain driven on by the wind. He will come to a people and call them, and they will believe in him and respond to him, and he will command the sky and it will rain, and the earth and it will bring forth vegetation, and their grazing animals will return to them in the evening with their humps taller than ever they were, their udders fullest and their flanks most distended. Then he will come to a people and call them, and they will reject his word, and he will turn away from them, and in the morning they will be stricken with drought, with nothing of their wealth left in their hands. He will pass by a ruin and say to it: ‘Bring forth your treasures’, and its treasures will follow him like swarms of bees. Then he will summon a man in the fullness of youth and strike him with the sword, cutting him into two pieces the distance of a target’s throw; then he will call him, and he will come forward with his face beaming and laughing. While he is thus, God will send the Messiah son of Mary (peace be upon him), and he will descend at the white minaret in the east of Damascus, between two garments dyed with saffron, placing his palms upon the wings of two angels. When he lowers his head it drips, and when he raises it there fall from it beads like pearls. No unbeliever who catches the scent of his breath but will die, and his breath will reach as far as his sight reaches. He will pursue him until he overtakes him at the gate of Ludd and kills him.

“Then Jesus (peace be upon him) will come to a people whom God has protected from him, and he will wipe their faces and tell them of their ranks in Paradise. While he is thus, God, Mighty and Majestic, will reveal to Jesus: ‘I have brought forth servants of Mine against whom no one has the power to fight; so take My servants to safety at the Mount (al-Ṭūr).’

“God will send Gog and Magog, and they, from every elevation, will swarm down. The first of them will pass by the lake of Tiberias and drink what is in it, and the last of them will pass by and say: ‘There was once water in this.’ God’s prophet Jesus and his companions will be besieged, until the head of an ox will be better for one of them than a hundred dinars for one of you today. Then God’s prophet Jesus and his companions will beseech God, and God will send upon them worms in their necks, and in the morning they will be dead, perished like the death of a single soul.

“Then God’s prophet Jesus and his companions will come down to the earth, and they will not find on the earth the space of a hand’s breadth but that it is filled with their grease and their stench. Then God’s prophet Jesus and his companions will beseech God, and God will send birds with necks like those of Bactrian camels, which will carry them off and cast them wherever God wills.

“Then God will send rain from which no house of clay or of hair will be sheltered, and it will wash the earth until it leaves it like a mirror. Then it will be said to the earth: ‘Bring forth your fruit and restore your blessing.’ On that day a company of people will eat from a single pomegranate and shelter in the shade of its rind, and God will bless the milk, so that a single milch camel will suffice a large group of people, a milch cow will suffice a tribe of people and a milch ewe will suffice a clan of people. While they are thus, God will send a pleasant wind, which will take them beneath their armpits, and God will take the soul of every believer and every Muslim, and the worst of people will remain, copulating openly in it like the copulating of asses; and upon them the Hour will come.”

Imām Aḥmad and the authors of the Sunan related it from the ḥadīth of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir, with this chain. We shall also cite it by way of Aḥmad at His words, Exalted, in Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ: Until, when Gog and Magog are let loose, and they, from every elevation, swarm down (21:96).

Another ḥadīth: Muslim also said in his Ṣaḥīḥ: ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh al-ʿAnbarī related to us: my father related to us: Shuʿbah related to us, from al-Nuʿmān ibn Sālim, who said: I heard Yaʿqūb ibn ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd al-Thaqafī say: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, when a man came to him and said: “What is this ḥadīth which you relate, saying that the Hour will come at such-and-such a time?” He said: “Glory be to God!” or “There is no god but God”, or some such expression. “I had resolved never to relate anything to anyone ever again. I only said: you will shortly see a tremendous matter: the House will be burned, and such-and-such will happen.” Then he said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The Antichrist will come forth in my community and will remain forty; I do not know whether forty days, or forty months, or forty years. Then God Exalted will send Jesus son of Mary, as though he were ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd, and he will seek him out and destroy him. Then the people will remain seven years with no enmity between any two. Then God will send a cold wind from the direction of Syria, and no one will remain on the face of the earth with the weight of an atom of good, or of faith, in his heart but it will take him, so that even if one of you were to enter into the heart of a mountain it would enter in upon him until it took him.” He said: I heard it from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him). He said: “Then the worst of people will remain, with the lightness of birds and the instincts of beasts of prey, knowing no good and disapproving of no evil. Satan will appear to them and say: ‘Will you not respond?’ They will say: ‘What do you command us?’ He will command them to worship idols, and in that state their provision will be flowing and their livelihood will be good. Then the Trumpet will be blown, and no one will hear it but will bend his neck to one side and raise it to the other.” He said: “The first to hear it will be a man plastering the water-trough of his camels.” He said: “He will fall down senseless, and the people will fall down senseless. Then God will send, or he said: God will send down, rain like dew, or he said: like shade (al-Nuʿmān was the one in doubt), and from it the bodies of people will grow. Then it will be blown a second time, and behold, they will be standing, looking on. Then it will be said: ‘O people, come to your Lord’, and stop them, for they are to be questioned (37:24).” He said: “Then it will be said: ‘Bring out the contingent of the Fire.’ It will be said: ‘Out of how many?’ It will be said: ‘Out of every thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.’” He said: “That is the day that will make the children grey-haired (73:17), and that is the Day when the shin will be uncovered (68:42).”

Then Muslim and al-Nasāʾī, in his Tafsīr, both related it from Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, from Ghundar, from Shuʿbah, from al-Nuʿmān ibn Sālim, with this chain.

Another ḥadīth: Imām Aḥmad said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq related to us: Maʿmar informed us, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Thaʿlabah al-Anṣārī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd al-Anṣārī, from Mujammiʿ ibn Jāriyah, who said: I heard the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) say: “The son of Mary will kill the Messiah the Antichrist at the gate of Ludd”, or “beside Ludd”.

Aḥmad also related it from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, and from the ḥadīth of al-Layth and al-Awzāʿī, all three from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Thaʿlabah, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd, from his paternal uncle Mujammiʿ ibn Jāriyah, from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), who said: “The son of Mary will kill the Antichrist at the gate of Ludd.”

Al-Tirmidhī likewise related it from Qutaybah, from al-Layth, with this chain, and he said: This is a sound ḥadīth. He said: On this subject there are reports from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, Nāfiʿ ibn ʿUtbah, Abū Barzah, Ḥudhayfah ibn Usayd, Abū Hurayrah, Kaysān, ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ, Jābir, Abū Umāmah, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, Samurah ibn Jundub, al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān, ʿAmr ibn ʿAwf and Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān (may God be pleased with them).

What he means by the transmission of these is what contains mention of the Antichrist and the killing of him by Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him). As for the ḥadīths which mention the Antichrist alone, they are exceedingly numerous, and more than can be encompassed, because of their wide diffusion and the great number of their transmitters in the sound collections, the good collections, the musnad works and elsewhere.

Another ḥadīth: Imām Aḥmad said: Sufyān related to us, from Furāt, from Abū al-Ṭufayl, from Ḥudhayfah ibn Usayd al-Ghifārī, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) looked down upon us from an upper room while we were discussing the Hour, and he said: “The Hour will not come until you see ten signs: the rising of the sun from its place of setting, the smoke, the beast, the coming forth of Gog and Magog, the descent of Jesus son of Mary, the Antichrist, three sinkings of the earth, a sinking in the east, a sinking in the west and a sinking in the Arabian peninsula, and a fire that will come forth from the depths of Aden, driving, or gathering, the people, passing the night with them wherever they pass the night, and resting at midday with them wherever they rest at midday.”

Muslim and the authors of the Sunan related it thus from the ḥadīth of Furāt al-Qazzāz, with this chain. Muslim also related it from the transmission of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Rufayʿ, from Abū al-Ṭufayl, from Abū Sarīḥah Ḥudhayfah ibn Usayd al-Ghifārī, as a halted report (mawqūf); and God knows best.

These, then, are mass-transmitted ḥadīths from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), from the transmission of Abū Hurayrah, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ, Abū Umāmah, al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, Mujammiʿ ibn Jāriyah, and Abū Sarīḥah Ḥudhayfah ibn Usayd (may God be pleased with them).

In them is an indication of the manner of his descent and its place: that it will be in Syria, indeed in Damascus, at the eastern minaret, and that it will be at the time when the call to commence the dawn prayer is given. In these present times, in the year seven hundred and forty-one, a white minaret was built for the Umayyad Mosque, of hewn stone, in place of the minaret which was demolished on account of the fire attributed to the doing of the Christians, upon them be the successive curses of God until the Day of Resurrection; and the greater part of its construction was paid for from their wealth. Conjectures have grown strong that this is the one upon which the Messiah Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) will descend, and he will kill the swine, break the cross and abolish the poll tax, accepting nothing but Islam, as has been set out above from the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections. This is a report from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) of that, and an affirmation, a legislation and an authorisation for him to do that in that time, when their pretexts will be dispelled and their doubts removed from their own souls. For this reason all of them will enter the religion of Islam in following Jesus (peace be upon him) and at his hands. For this reason He said, Exalted: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159).

This verse is like His words, Exalted: And indeed, he is a sign of knowledge of the Hour (43:61), and it has been read ʿalam²⁹, with the vowel on the middle letter, that is, an indication and a proof of the nearness of the Hour. That is because he will descend after the coming forth of the Messiah the Antichrist, and God will kill him at his hands, as is established in the Ṣaḥīḥ: “God has not created any disease without sending down a cure for it.” In his days God will send forth Gog and Magog, and God will destroy them through him, by the blessing of his supplication; and God Exalted has said: Until, when Gog and Magog are let loose, and they, from every elevation, swarm down, and the true promise draws near to the end of the verse (21:96-97).

The description of Jesus (peace be upon him)

There has already been cited, in the ḥadīth of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ādam, from Abū Hurayrah (may God be pleased with him): “When you see him, recognise him: a man of medium build, tending to redness and whiteness, wearing two garments dyed light yellow, his head as if dripping though no wetness has touched it.” And in the ḥadīth of al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān: “He will descend at the white minaret in the east of Damascus, between two garments dyed with saffron, placing his palms upon the wings of two angels. When he lowers his head it drips, and when he raises it there fall from it the like of beads of pearl. No unbeliever who catches the scent of his breath but will die, and his breath will reach as far as his sight reaches.”

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim related, by way of al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “On the night on which I was taken on the night journey I met Moses.” He said: And he described him: “And behold, he was a man”, I think he said, “lean, with wavy hair, as though he were one of the men of Shanūʾah.” He said: “And I met Jesus”, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) described him, saying: “Of medium height, ruddy, as though he had just come out of a dīmās“, meaning a bath-house. “And I saw Abraham, and I am the one of his descendants who most resembles him”, to the end of the ḥadīth.

Al-Bukhārī related, from the ḥadīth of Mujāhid, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “I saw Moses, Jesus and Abraham. As for Jesus, he was ruddy, with curly hair and a broad chest; and as for Moses, he was dark-skinned, large-bodied, with lank hair, as though he were one of the men of the Zuṭṭ.”³⁰

He and Muslim have, by way of Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, from Nāfiʿ, who said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar said: One day the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned the Messiah the Antichrist in the midst of the people, and said: “God is not one-eyed. Behold, the Messiah the Antichrist is blind in the right eye, his eye as though it were a floating grape. And God showed me, in a dream, near the Kaʿbah, a dark-skinned man, the finest of dark-skinned men you could see, his locks falling between his shoulders, with wavy hair, his head dripping water, placing his hands upon the shoulders of two men while he circumambulated the House. I said: ‘Who is this?’ They said: ‘The Messiah son of Mary.’ Then I saw behind him a man with tightly curled hair, blind in the right eye, the one I have seen who most resembles Ibn Qaṭan, placing his hands upon the shoulders of a man while he circumambulated the House. I said: ‘Who is this?’ They said: ‘The Messiah the Antichrist.’” ʿUbayd Allāh followed him in it, from Nāfiʿ.

Then al-Bukhārī related it from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Makkī, from Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, from al-Zuhrī, from Sālim, from his father, who said: No, by God, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not say of Jesus (peace be upon him) “ruddy”; rather, he said: “While I was asleep, circumambulating the Kaʿbah, behold, there was a dark-skinned man with lank hair, walking supported between two men, his head dripping water, or his head streaming with water. I said: ‘Who is this?’ They said: ‘The son of Mary.’ Then I went to turn round, and behold, there was a ruddy, large-bodied man, with curly hair, blind in his right eye, his eye as though it were a floating grape. I said: ‘Who is this?’ They said: ‘The Antichrist.’ And the person who most resembles him is Ibn Qaṭan.” Al-Zuhrī said: a man of Khuzāʿah who perished in the time of pagan ignorance (al-jāhiliyyah).

All these are the wordings of al-Bukhārī (may God have mercy on him). There has already been cited, in the ḥadīth of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ādam from Abū Hurayrah, that Jesus (peace be upon him) will remain on the earth after his descent for forty years, then he will die and the Muslims will pray over him.

In the ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr in Muslim it is that he will remain seven years. It is possible, and God knows best, that what is meant by his remaining on the earth forty years is the sum of his residence in it before his being raised and after his descent, for according to the sound view he was raised at the age of thirty-three years. That has come in a ḥadīth on the description of the people of Paradise: that they will be in the form of Adam and at the age of Jesus, thirty-three years. As for what Ibn ʿAsākir reported from some of them, that he was raised at the age of one hundred and fifty years, it is anomalous, strange and far-fetched. The ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim ibn ʿAsākir mentioned, in the biographical notice of Jesus son of Mary in his History, from some of the early generations, that he will be buried with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his chamber; and God knows best.

His words, Exalted: and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159): Qatādah said: He will bear witness against them that he conveyed to them the message from God and acknowledged his servanthood to God, Mighty and Majestic. This is like His words, Exalted, at the end of Sūrat al-Māʾidah: And when God will say, “O Jesus son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods besides God’?” He will say, “Glory be to You! It was not for me to say that to which I had no right. If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within Yourself. Indeed, it is You Who are the Knower of the unseen. I said to them nothing except what You commanded me: to worship God, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them as long as I was among them; but when You took me up, You were the Observer over them, and You are, over all things, Witness. If You punish them, they are Your servants; but if You forgive them, indeed it is You Who are the Mighty, the Wise” (5:116-118).

Read this commentary with the other passages on its own page.

Tanwīr al-Miqbās, Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās (d. compiler d. 817 AH / 1414 CE), about 410 words

On 4:155-159

4:155. So for their breaking: so because of their breaking; of their covenant: We did to them what We did; and their disbelief in the signs of God: and for their disbelief in Muḥammad and the Qur’an, the poll-tax (jizya) was imposed upon them; and their killing: and for their killing; of the prophets without right: without any crime, We destroyed them; and their saying: and for their saying; Our hearts are wrapped: receptacles for every knowledge, yet they do not take in your speech and your knowledge; rather, God has set a seal upon them: rather, it is not as they said, but God has sealed their hearts; for their disbelief: in Muḥammad and the Qur’an; so they do not believe: in Muḥammad and the Qur’an; except a few: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām and his companions.

4:156. And for their disbelief: in Jesus and the Gospel; and their saying: and for their saying; against Mary a tremendous calumny: and that is the false accusation; We made them swine.

4:157. And their saying: and for their saying; Indeed we killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God: God destroyed their companion Ṭaṭyānūs³¹; and they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them: the likeness of Jesus was cast upon Ṭaṭyānūs, and they killed him in place of Jesus; and indeed those who differ concerning him: concerning his killing; are in doubt about it: about his killing; they have no: concerning his killing; knowledge of it, except the following of conjecture: and not even conjecture; and they did not kill him for certain: that is, for certain they did not kill him.

4:158. Rather, God raised him up to Himself: to heaven; and God is Mighty: in vengeance upon His enemies; Wise: in granting victory to His friends: He saved His prophet and destroyed their companion.

4:159. And there is none of: and there is not of; the People of the Book: the Jews and the Christians, anyone; but will surely believe in him: in Jesus, that he was not a sorcerer, nor God, nor His son, nor His partner; before his death: before his soul departs, after the descent of Jesus; then he dies after every Jew who is alive in their time; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be: Jesus; a witness against them: to the conveying of the message.

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al-Jalālayn, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (d. 864 AH / 1459 CE and 911 AH / 1505 CE), about 200 words

On 4:157

And their saying (4:157), boastfully, We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the messenger of God – according to their claim; that is, on account of the sum of all this We punished them. He, Exalted, said, giving them the lie: And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them: the one killed and crucified – who was one of their own – was made to resemble Jesus, that is, God cast upon him his likeness, so that they thought it was he. And truly those who differ concerning him, that is, concerning Jesus, are in doubt about it, about his killing, for some of them said, when they saw the one who had been killed: The face is the face of Jesus, but the body is not his body, so it is not he; while others said: No, it is he. They have no knowledge of it, of his killing, except the following of conjecture – a disjunctive exception (istithnāʾ munqaṭiʿ), that is, “but they follow in this the conjecture that they imagined” – and they did not kill him for certain: a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl) confirming the negation of the killing.

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al-Durr al-Manthūr, al-Durr al-manthūr fī al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr (d. 911 AH / 1505 CE), about 3,330 words

On 4:157

His words, Exalted: and their saying: We killed the Messiah (4:157), the verse.

ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim and Ibn Mardawayh recorded from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: When God wished to raise Jesus to heaven, he went out to his companions, and in the house were twelve men of the disciples. He came out to them from a spring in the house, his head dripping with water, and said: “There are among you some who will disbelieve in me twelve times after having believed in me.” Then he said: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him, and be killed in my place, and be with me in my rank?” A young man, one of the youngest of them, stood up, and he said to him: “Sit down.” Then he repeated it to them, and the young man stood up, and he said: “Sit down.” Then he repeated it to them, and the young man stood up and said: “I.” He said: “You are the one.” So the likeness of Jesus was cast upon him, and Jesus was raised from a skylight in the house to heaven. He said: The pursuers from among the Jews came, and they seized the one who bore the likeness and killed him, then crucified him. Some of them disbelieved in him twelve times after having believed in him, and they split into three sects. One party said: “God was among us as long as He willed, then He ascended to heaven”—these are the Jacobites. Another sect said: “The son of God was among us as long as he willed, then God raised him to Himself”—these are the Nestorians. And another sect said: “The servant of God and His messenger was among us”—these are the Muslims. The two unbelieving sects joined together against the Muslim one and killed it, and Islam remained effaced until God sent Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Then God sent down: So a party of the Children of Israel believed (61:14), meaning the party that believed in the time of Jesus; and a party disbelieved (61:14), the one that disbelieved in the time of Jesus; so We supported those who believed (61:14), in the time of Jesus, by Muḥammad making their religion prevail over the religion of the unbelievers.

ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, Ibn Jarīr and Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Qatādah: and their saying: We killed the Messiah (4:157), the verse. He said: Those are the enemies of God, the Jews; they boasted of killing Jesus and claimed that they had killed him and crucified him. And it was mentioned to us that he said to his companions: “Which of you will have my likeness cast upon him? For he will be killed.” A man from among his companions said: “I, O Prophet of God.” So that man was killed, and God protected His prophet and raised him to Himself.

ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd, Ibn Jarīr and Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Mujāhid concerning His words: it was made to appear so to them (4:157). He said: They crucified a man other than Jesus, whom they took to be Jesus, thinking him to be he; and God raised Jesus to Himself alive.

Ibn Jarīr recorded from Ibn ʿAbbās: and they did not kill him for certain (4:157). He said: meaning, they did not slay their conjecture with certainty³².

Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Mujāhid concerning the verse. He said: They did not slay their conjecture with certainty.

Ibn Jarīr recorded the like of it from Juwaybir and al-Suddī.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Aḥmad in al-Zuhd, and Ibn ʿAsākir recorded, by way of Thābit al-Bunānī, from Abū Rāfiʿ, who said: Jesus son of Mary was raised wearing a woollen tunic, a shepherd’s two boots, and a sling with which he used to pelt the birds.

Aḥmad in al-Zuhd, Abū Nuʿaym and Ibn ʿAsākir recorded, by way of Thābit al-Bunānī, from Abū al-ʿĀliyah, who said: Jesus son of Mary left nothing behind when he was raised save a tunic of wool, a shepherd’s two boots, and a sling with which he used to pelt the birds.

Ibn ʿAsākir recorded from ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Salmān, who said: Jesus son of Mary turned to his companions on the night he was raised and said to them: “Do not eat by means of the Book of God, for if you do not do so, God will seat you upon pulpits a single stone of which is better than this world and all that is in it.” ʿAbd al-Jabbār said: These are the seats which God mentioned in the Qurʾān: in a seat of truth, with a King All-Powerful (54:55). And he (peace be upon him) was raised.

ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd and Ibn Jarīr recorded from Wahb ibn Munabbih, who said: When God informed Jesus that he was to depart from this world, he was distressed at death and it weighed heavily upon him. So he called the disciples and made food for them, and said: “Attend me tonight, for I have need of you.” When they gathered to him in the night, he gave them supper and stood serving them, and when they had finished the food he began to wash their hands and to perform the ablution for them with his own hand, wiping their hands on his garments. They thought this too great a thing and disliked it, and he said: “Whoever refuses me anything tonight of what I do is not of me, nor am I of him.” So they let him be, until, when he had finished that, he said: “As for what I have done with you tonight in serving you: let none of you exalt himself over another, and let each of you give himself for the other as I have given myself for you. As for my need in which I have sought your help: it is that you pray to God for me, and strive in supplication that He defer my appointed term.” But when they set themselves to supplication and wished to strive in it, sleep overcame them so that they were unable to pray. He began to wake them, saying: “Glory be to God! Can you not bear with me a single night in which to help me?” They said: “By God, we do not know what has come over us. We used to stay up talking at night and talk long, but tonight we cannot manage to stay awake, and no sooner do we wish to pray than we are held back from it.” He said: “The shepherd is taken away and the sheep are scattered,” and he went on uttering words of this sort, announcing his own death. Then he said: “Truly, one of you will deny me before the cock crows, three times; and one of you will sell me for a few dirhams and will eat my price.” They went out and dispersed. The Jews were seeking him, and they seized Simon (Shamʿūn), one of the disciples, and said: “This is one of his companions.” He denied it and said: “I am not his companion,” and they let him go. Then others seized him, and he denied likewise. Then he heard the crowing of a cock, and he wept and it grieved him. When morning came, one of the disciples went to the Jews and said: “What will you give me if I lead you to the Messiah?” They set thirty dirhams for him, and he took them and led them to him. But the semblance had already been made to confuse them before that, and they seized him and bound him securely and tied him with a rope, and began leading him along and saying: “You used to give life to the dead and heal the possessed; can you not save yourself from this rope?” They spat upon him and cast thorns upon him, until they brought him to the piece of wood on which they wished to crucify him. Then God raised him to Himself, and they crucified the one who had been made to appear so to them, and he remained seven days. Then his mother and the woman whom Jesus had been treating, whom God had healed of madness, came weeping at the place of the crucified one; and Jesus came to them and said: “For what do you weep?” They said: “For you.” He said: “God has raised me to Himself, and nothing but good has befallen me; and this is a thing that was made to appear so to them. So bid the disciples meet me at such-and-such a place.” Eleven of them met him at that place, and the one who had sold him and led the Jews to him was missing. He asked his companions about him, and they said: “He regretted what he had done, and strangled himself and killed himself.” He said: “Had he repented, God would have accepted his repentance.” Then he asked them about a lad who used to follow them, called Yuḥannā³³, and he said: “He is with you. So go, for every one of you will wake tomorrow speaking the tongue of a people; so let him warn them and call them.”

Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Wahb ibn Munabbih, who said: Jesus (peace be upon him) was a wanderer. He passed by a woman drawing water and said: “Give me to drink of your water, of which whoever drinks dies, and I will give you to drink of my water, of which whoever drinks lives.” He said: And he had chanced upon a wise woman, and she said to him: “Does your water, of which whoever drinks lives, not suffice you, so that you need not my water, of which whoever drinks dies?” He said: “Your water is of the present, and my water is of the hereafter.” She said: “Perhaps you are the man who is called Jesus son of Mary?” He said: “I am he, and I call you to the worship of God and to the abandoning of what you worship apart from God, Mighty and Majestic.” She said: “Then bring me a proof of what you say.” He said: “The proof of it is that you will return to your husband and he will divorce you.” She said: “In that there would indeed be a clear sign, for there is no woman among the Children of Israel more honoured by her husband than I; and if it is as you say, I shall know that you are truthful.” He said: So she returned to her husband, and her husband was a jealous young man, and he said: “What delayed you?” She said: “A man passed by me”—and she wished to tell him about Jesus, but jealousy carried him away and he divorced her. She said: “My companion has told me the truth,” and she went out following Jesus, having believed in him. Then Jesus came, with twenty-seven of the disciples with him, into a house, and they surrounded them and came in upon them; and God had formed them all in the form of Jesus. They said: “You have bewitched us! Either you bring out Jesus to us, or we shall kill you all.” Jesus said to his companions: “Which of you will buy for himself Paradise with his own soul?” A man from among the company said: “I.” So they took him and killed him and crucified him; and from this it was made to appear so to them, and they thought that they had killed Jesus and crucified him, and the Christians thought the same. And God raised Jesus on that very day. News reached the woman that Jesus had been killed and crucified, and she came and built a place of prayer at the foot of his tree, and began to pray and to weep for Jesus. Then she heard a voice from above her, the voice of Jesus, which she did not fail to recognise: “O so-and-so, by God they did not kill me, nor did they crucify me, but it was made to appear so to them; and the sign of it is that the disciples will gather tonight in your house and will divide into twelve bands, each band of them calling a people to the religion of God.” When evening came they gathered in her house, and she said to them: “Tonight I heard something which I shall tell you, and perhaps you will call me a liar, though it is the truth. I heard the voice of Jesus saying: ‘O so-and-so, by God I was not killed, nor was I crucified; and the sign of it is that you will gather tonight in my house and divide into twelve bands.’” They said: “What you heard is just as you heard it; Jesus was not killed, nor was he crucified; it was only so-and-so who was killed and crucified. And we have gathered in your house only for what he said: we intend to go out as callers throughout the earth.” Among those who set out towards the Romans were Nasṭūr and two companions of his. His two companions went out, but Nasṭūr was detained by some business of his, and he said to them: “Be gentle and do not be rash, and do not think me slow in anything.” When the two arrived at the district they were making for, they arrived on the day of their festival, when their king had come out and the people of his kingdom had come out with him. The two men came to him and stood before him and said to him: “Fear God, for you are committing acts of disobedience to God and violating the sanctities of God”—together with whatever else God willed that they should say. He said: The king was angered and intended to kill them, but a group of the people of his kingdom rose and went to him and said: “This is a day on which we do not shed blood; and you have your two men in your power, so if you would like to imprison them until our festival has passed, and then decide about them as you see fit, do so.” So he ordered them imprisoned; then forgetfulness of them was struck upon his ear, until Nasṭūr arrived and asked about them. He was told of their situation and that they were held in prison, and he went in to them and said: “Did I not say to you: be gentle and do not be rash, and do not think me slow in anything? Do you know what your likeness is? Your likeness is that of a woman who bore no child until she was advanced in years, and then, after she was advanced in years, she bore a child, and she wished to hasten his growing up so that she might have benefit of him, so she loaded his stomach with more than it could bear and killed him.” Then he said to them: “And now, do not think me slow in anything.” Then he went out and proceeded until he came to the king’s gate. Now when the people sat in session, the king’s couch would be set down and the people would sit in rows before him; and whenever they were faced with a question of the lawful or the unlawful they would raise it to him, and he would look into it, then ask the one next to him in his assembly about it, and the people would ask one another until the question reached the farthest end of the assembly. Nasṭūr came and sat at the farthest end of the company, and when they returned to the king the answer of each who had answered him, and returned to him the answer of Nasṭūr, he heard something upon which there was light and which was sweet in his ears. He said: “Who is the author of this saying?” It was said: “The man at the farthest end of the company.” He said: “Bring him to me.” He said: “Are you the one who said such-and-such?” He said: “Yes.” He said: “Then what do you say about such-and-such?” He said: “Such-and-such.” And he went on asking him about nothing but he explained it to him. He said: “You possess this knowledge, and you sit at the end of the company! Set him a seat by my couch.” Then he said: “If my son comes to you, do not rise from it for him.” Then he turned his attention to Nasṭūr and left the people. When he knew that his position had been firmly established, he said: “I shall surely visit them.” He said: “O king, I am a man whose home is far away and whose estate is far away; so if you would see fit to take what you need of me and give me leave, I shall return to my family.” He said: “O Nasṭūr, there is no way to that; but if you would like to bring your family to us, you shall have fair provision, and if you would like to take from the treasury what you need and send it to your family, do so.” Nasṭūr fell silent. Then he watched for a day on which one of them died, and he said: “O king, it has reached me that two men came to you finding fault with your religion.” He said: And he reminded him of them, and he sent for them, and said: “O Nasṭūr, you are the judge between me and them; whatever you say, I am content.” He said: “Yes, O king. Here is a dead man who has died among the Children of Israel; so command the two of them to call upon their Lord that He may bring him to life for them, for in that there is a clear sign.” He said: So the dead man was brought and set down before him, and the two stood and performed ablution and called upon their Lord, and He restored his spirit to him, and he spoke. He said: “O king, in this sign there is clear evidence; but command them to something other than it. Gather the people of your kingdom, then speak to your gods: if they are able to harm these two, then their affair is nothing; but if these two are able to harm your gods, then their affair is strong.” So the king gathered the people of his kingdom and went into the house in which the gods were, and he fell down prostrate, he and those of the people of his kingdom who were with him; and Nasṭūr fell down prostrate and said: “O God, I prostrate to You, and I plot against these gods, that they may not be worshipped apart from You.” Then the king raised his head and said: “These two wish to change your religion and call to a god other than yours; so put out their eyes, or cut off their limbs, or paralyse them.” But the gods returned him no answer. Now Nasṭūr had commanded his two companions to carry an axe with them, and he said: “O king, say to these two: Are you able to harm your gods?” He said: “Are you two able to harm our gods?” They said: “Leave us alone with them.” So they advanced upon them and broke them. Nasṭūr said: “As for me, I believe in the Lord of these two.” And the king said: “And I believe in the Lord of these two.” And all the people said: “We believe in the Lord of these two.” Then Nasṭūr said to his two companions: “Such is gentleness.”

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al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr kalām al-Mannān (d. 1376 AH / 1956 CE), about 570 words

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.

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Notes

J. Arendzen, “Basilides”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1907), drawing on Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24; Clement, Stromata 4.12; Hippolytus, Refutation 7; Origen, Homilies on Luke 1; Jerome, prologue to the Commentary on Matthew; Eusebius, Church History 4.7.6-8; Epiphanius, Panarion 24. Irenaeus and Hippolytus give accounts of his system so different that they are hard to reconcile; the report of the crucifixion is Irenaeus’ and is the one the later writers repeat. ↩
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24.4, in paraphrase; for Simon of Cyrene see Mark 15:21, Matthew 27:32 and Luke 23:26. Agrees with Qur’an 4:157, “they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them”, and with the reading of the classical commentators, that another was made to resemble him. They did not name Simon of Cyrene: in the reports al-Ṭabarī preserves, the substitute is a disciple who volunteered to take his likeness, or the man sent into the house to seize him. The identification with Simon is Christian, from Basilides, and entered Muslim writing only in modern times; see the end of his earthly mission. Irenaeus adds that Jesus stood by and laughed at those who thought they held him. That detail belongs to the Gnostic contempt for the body and for those bound to it; it has no place in the Qur’anic portrait of a messenger of mercy, and it is set aside. Irenaeus is a hostile witness. That Basilides wrote a gospel is attested by Origen and Jerome; whether this account stood in it, or in his twenty-four books of commentary, or was a tradition he handed on, is not known. The writer known as Pseudo-Tertullian adds that the Basilidians drew the conclusion that martyrdom for the Crucified was pointless, since it would be dying for Simon of Cyrene and not for Christ (Against All Heresies 1); that conclusion the Qur’an does not draw, for it honours those slain in God’s way (3:169). On the sources: see Bart D. Ehrman, “The Lost Gospel of Basilides”, The Bart Ehrman Blog, 1 July 2023. ↩
Nag Hammadi Codex VII, 2, 55-56, in the website’s own words after the translation of Roger A. Bullard and Joseph A. Gibbons in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson, 3rd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988). The passage agrees with Qur’an 4:157 on the one point for which it is used: that the crucifixion was made to appear otherwise to those who carried it out, and that another was taken for him. Everything around that point is set aside, and the reader should know what. The speaker says he was laughing at their ignorance, which the Qur’an’s messenger of mercy does not do. He denies that he had a real body at all, where the Qur’an says that he and his mother ate food (5:75). And the treatise calls Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Moses and the prophets “laughingstocks” and derides the God who says “I am God and there is no other beside me” as an ignorant lesser power, where the Qur’an honours every one of those prophets and makes that very sentence its first truth (2:163; 47:19). As a whole the work conflicts with the Qur’an and is not a source for this gospel. It is kept here as a witness, not as a teaching: evidence that some Christians, within two centuries of the event, held that the one on the cross was not he. ↩
Nag Hammadi Codex VII, 3, 81-82, in the website’s own words after the translation of James Brashler and Roger A. Bullard in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson, 3rd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988). The passage agrees with Qur’an 4:157 on the one point for which it is used: that the one nailed to the cross was another, made in his likeness, and that those who did it did not know. Set aside, and said so: the text has the living Jesus “glad and laughing on the tree” and laughing again at their lack of perception, which the Qur’an’s messenger of mercy does not do; it explains the substitute as his “fleshly part” and the living one as an “incorporeal body” and “intellectual Spirit”, a docetism the Qur’an rejects, since he and his mother ate food (5:75); and it divides humanity into immortal souls and souls made for destruction, and calls those who “name themselves bishop and deacons” dry canals, which is its quarrel with the Great Church and no concern of the measure. Like the Second Treatise, the work as a whole conflicts with the Qur’an and is not a source for this gospel. It is kept here as a witness, not as a teaching. ↩
That is, John; al-Ṭabarī’s History reads “Yaḥyā” here. ↩
Simon the Cananaean, that is, Simon the Zealot. ↩
Ibn Isḥāq’s form of the name of Judas Iscariot. ↩
The suffixed pronoun “him/it” in qatalūhu. ↩
The name of the man crucified in Jesus’s place is given in various forms in the sources; above, in the commentary on 3:54, he is called Ṭaṭyānūs. ↩
Some manuscripts read “Ṭīṭūs son of Astīnānūs”, that is, Titus son of Vespasian, who destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. ↩
A variant reading (qirāʾa) attributed to Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, qabla mawtihim, “before their death”, making the pronoun refer to the People of the Book rather than to Jesus. ↩
A valley on the road between Medina and Mecca, about two days’ journey from Medina. ↩
Two places in northern Syria near Aleppo. ↩
A pass on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, on the road from the Golan down to the Jordan valley. ↩
Lydda, in Palestine. ↩
A variant reading (qirāʾa) of 43:61, la-ʿalamun li-l-sāʿa, “a sign of the Hour”, in place of la-ʿilmun, “a knowledge of the Hour”. ↩
The Zuṭṭ were a people of Indian origin settled in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region, known for their dark complexion and tall stature. ↩
The name given in this commentary to the man upon whom the likeness of Jesus was cast and who was killed in his place; it is spelt variously in the manuscripts (Ṭaṭyānūs, Qaṭyānūs). ↩
the Arabic idiom “to kill a thing with knowledge” means to master it thoroughly; the sense is that they never turned their supposition into certain knowledge ↩
John ↩

Section 26: The trial, Barabbas and the raising of Jesus

Jesus Was Neither Killed nor Crucified

From the Gospel of Thomas

Early Christian witnesses to the substitution

The Gospel of Basilides

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter

From the commentaries on 4:157

On 4:157

On the interpretation of His words: and their saying, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God.” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them (4:157)

Those who said this

Those who said this

On the interpretation of His words: Indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it; they have no knowledge of it except the following of conjecture; and they did not kill him for certain (4:157)

Those who said this

On 4:155-157

On 4:157-158

On 4:155-159

His words, Exalted: And there is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them (4:159)

Those who said this

Those who said this

The ḥadīths transmitted concerning the descent of Jesus son of Mary from heaven to the earth at the end of time before the Day of Resurrection, and that he will call to the worship of God alone, Who has no partner

The description of Jesus (peace be upon him)

On 4:155-159

On 4:157

On 4:157

On 4:155-158

Notes