They Killed Him Not”: The Crucifixion in Shi‘a Isma‘ili Islam
wa-mā qatalūhu wa-mā salabūhu wa-lākin shubbiha lahum
“They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them.”
(Holy Qur’an 4:157)
As observed by millions of Christians around the world, Good Friday marks the day when Jesus Christ was crucified. For Christians, this event is the climax of sacred history: the death of Christ on the Cross is believed to have redeemed and cleansed the sin of humanity. Indeed, the efficacy of the entire Christian doctrine – adhered to by the largest number of people in the world – depends upon the event of the Crucifixion. Interestingly, the faith of Islam, the second largest religion in the world after Christianity, seems to offer a completely different understanding of this event – it appears to deny the Crucifixion altogether. The only verse of the Holy Qur’an which speaks of the Crucifixion is 4:157 quoted above.
Over the history of Islam, most Muslim commentators have come to deny that Jesus was ever crucified at all, with many holding that a substitute was crucified in his place1. But does this view accurately reflect the Qur’anic position? It is necessary to examine the full context of the above verse – a verse which is too often referred to only in isolation. The group of verses which immediately precede the verse in question discuss the misdeeds of the People of the Book (ahl al-kitab):
In that they broke their covenant; that they rejected the signs of God. That they slew the Messengers in defiance of right; that they said, "Our hearts are the wrappings (which preserve God’s Word; We need no more)";- Nay, God hath set the seal on their hearts for their blasphemy, and little is it they believe;- That they rejected Faith; that they uttered against Mary a grave false charge; That they said (in boast), “We killed the Messiah, Jesus the Son of Mary, the Messenger of God.”;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- Nay, God raised him up unto Himself; and God is Exalted in Power, Wise.
- Holy Quran 4:155-157
The Qur’anic denial of the crucifixion must be understood in its proper context: the Qur’an is only denying that the People of the Book crucified Jesus – and this appears to be in response to their boasting to have done so. A neutral reader may easily conclude that the Qur’an intends to say that the death of Jesus was ultimately due to God’s will and not the desires of those who may have actually killed him. One then wonders: how did the view that Jesus was not crucified take root in the Islamic world?
Interestingly, the earliest textual evidence stating that Muslims deny the historical event of the crucifixion is not actually Muslim at all - it comes from the writings of the Christian Church Father, St. John of Damascus.2 He made the statement to his Christian flock in the eight century, asserting that the Qur’an denied Christ’s crucifixion for his own polemical purposes of refuting the early success of Islam. While it is true that most
1 See Todd Lawson, The Crucifixion and the Qur’an: A Study in the History of Muslim Thought, (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 1-5.
2 Ibid., 7.
Qur’anic commentators came to deny the crucifixion of Jesus, this view is not actually rooted in the Qur’anic verses but comes from tafsir which rely on other material from extra-biblical Judeo-Christian sources3. But the denial of the historical crucifixion was only one view among others on the subject to emerge from the Islamic world. There have been alternate interpretations of the same Qur’anic verses which collectively offer a range of perspectives on the crucifixion – from total denial to actually asserting that the crucifixion did take place historically. Todd Lawson explains that:
John of Damascus’s interpretation of the Qur’anic account is, in fact, unjustifiable. The Qur’an itself only asserts that the Jews did not crucify Jesus. This is obviously different from saying that Jesus was not crucified. The point is that both John of Damascus and many Qur’an exegetes (Arabic mufassirūn), though not the Qur’an, deny the crucifixion. The Qur’anic exegesis of verse 4:157 is by no means uniform; the interpretations range from an outright denial of the crucifixion of Jesus to a simple affirmation of the historicity of the event.4
The false presumption that the Qur’an flatly denies the crucifixion of Christ has served as a great obstacle and roadblock in Christian-Muslim dialogue. If all Muslims and the Qur’an unanimously denied the crucifixion then this would indicate a point of great divergence between Christianity and Islam. For this reason, many Christians and Westerners easily dismiss the Qur’an as ‘fiction’ because they believe it denies a clear historical event. After all, how could a religious text be so misinformed about a fact of history? But, if the Qur’an does not actually deny the Crucifixion, then this changes the mode of interfaith dialogue completely.
One of the schools of Islamic thought and philosophy which actually affirmed the historicity of the Crucifixion on a Qur’anic basis and, in fact, glorified it, is the tradition of Shi‘a Isma‘ili Islam. Isma‘ili Islam, a branch of Shi’a Islam, recognizes the spiritual and religious authority of a living Imam in every age who is directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad through his cousin and son-in-law, Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and his wife Bibi Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. The present Imam of Shi‘a Isma‘ili Islam is His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV who is the 49th hereditary Imam. Under the leadership of their Imams, the Isma‘ili Muslims take an esoteric and intellectual approach in understanding the Qur’an and the practice of Islam. Over the centuries, the intellectual thinkers and philosophers of Isma‘ili Islam developed an elaborate metaphysics, philosophy, cosmology and esoteric exegesis (ta’wil) – including specific material concerning the life, spiritual function, and crucifixion of Jesus.
The Isma‘ili Muslim philosophers of the tenth and eleventh century were able to achieve a remarkable reconciliation and rapprochement between the Qur’anic and Christian views of the Crucifixion. While affirming the historicity of the event (in common with Christians), the Isma‘ili philosophers were still able to deny Christ’s death from a more spiritual perspective which they saw reflected in the Qur’anic verses:
The Isma‘ili scholars of the tenth and eleventh centuries saw perfect harmony between this Qur’anic verse and the Gospels, as for example when Jesus instructed his followers to fear not the one who can kill the body but fear the one who can kill both the body and the soul. Thus it is equally possible to state that these Muslim exegetes may also have been ‘correct’.
3 Lawson, The Crucifixion, 12.
4 Ibid., 12.
5 Ibid., 6.
In fact, some of the Isma‘ili philosophers actually emphasized the importance of Christ’s death on the Cross from an esoteric perspective and saw in it an immense eschatological meaning. Finally, the Isma‘ili thinkers, relying on the method of ta’wil (esoteric exegesis), perceived great spiritual truths hidden in the symbolism of the Cross – the same truths which they saw symbolized in the words of the Islamic testimony of faith known as the Shahada.
This article explains the Isma‘ili Muslim understanding of the Qur’anic verses on the Crucifixion, the meaning of the Crucifixion in Isma‘ili eschatology and the esoteric exegesis (ta’wil) of the Cross, according to the Isma‘ili philosophers. These Isma‘ili Muslim perspectives were articulated in the tenth and eleventh century when Isma‘ili philosophy underwent a great flowering. But there is reason to believe that such perspectives, due to their pluralistic, ecumenical and esoteric outlook, can play a great role in the modern age towards opening further doors of understanding and recognition between the faiths of Christianity and Islam.
