Chapter Two

Containing Evidence from the Holy Quran and Authentic Ahadith which relates to Jesus being Saved from the Cross

The arguments which I am now going to set down might seem to all intents and purposes of little use to the Christians, because they are not bound by what the Holy Quran and the Hadith have to say on the subject. But I still mention them because I wish to inform the Christians of a miracle of the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet(sa); I want them to know that the truths which have now been discovered after hundreds of years have already been disclosed by our Holy Prophet(sa) and the Holy Quran. I am now going to mention some of them. God says in the Holy Quran:

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It means the Jews neither murdered Jesus, nor did they kill him on the cross; they were merely labouring under the misconception that Jesus had died on the cross; they did not have evidence enough to convince and satisfy them that Jesus had really died on the cross.

In these verses God Almighty says that though it is true that Jesus was apparently placed on the cross, and that the intention was to kill him; yet it was wrong for the Jews and Christians to suppose that Jesus actually died on the cross. What happened was that God caused things to happen which saved Jesus from death on the cross. Justice demands that we acknowledge the truth of what the Holy Quran has said, as opposed to the Jewish and Christian beliefs. Highly qualified modern researchers have proved that Jesus had actually been saved from death on the cross. A study of the records shows that the Jews have never been able to answer the question as to how Jesus died within two or three hours of being put on the cross even when his bones had not been broken? This has led the Jews to invent another plea: that they killed Jesus by the sword, but the ancient history of the Jews does not show that Jesus was killed by the sword. In order to save Jesus, divine power and majesty intervened and caused darkness to prevail, which was followed by an earthquake. Pilate’s wife saw a dream. The Sabbath night during which it was illegal to let a crucified body remain on the cross was drawing close. The magistrate, because of the terrible dream, became disposed towards the release of Jesus. All this was simultaneously brought about by God to save Jesus, and Jesus himself was made to go into a swoon so that he might be taken for dead. Through terrible signs like the earthquake, the Jews panicked and became fearful of heavenly punishment. They were also afraid lest the corpses should remain on their crosses during the night of Sabbath. They thought that Jesus was dead when, in fact, he was in a coma. It was dark and there was an earthquake and great turmoil. They also became anxious about their homes and what their children must be passing through in the darkness and the earthquake. There was terror in their hearts that if this man was a liar and an apostate, as they thought he was, why were mighty signs manifested at the moment of his suffering, signs which had not been manifested before? They were so upset that they were no longer in a position to find out for themselves whether Jesus had really died, or what exactly his condition was? What had come about, however, was a Divine design to save Jesus, to which the verse that is, ’the Jews did not kill Jesus; but it was God who made them believe that they had killed him,’ refers. It is these circumstances which encourage the righteous to place great trust in God, and to believe that God can save His servants as He pleases.

The Holy Quran also says concerning the Messiah, son of Mary:

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This means that not only will Jesus have honour and eminence, and enjoy greatness in the people’s eyes in this world, but also in the hereafter. It is evident that Jesus was not honoured in the land of Herod and Pilate. On the contrary, he suffered great disgrace and insult. That he would be honoured during his second coming to this earth is a groundless delusion, which is diametrically opposed to the Scriptures and God’s eternal law of nature. The truth is that Jesus, having escaped from those accursed people, graced the land of the Punjab with his presence, where he met the ten lost tribes of Israel and God blessed him with great honour and eminence. It seems that most of them had adopted Buddhism and some had degenerated into idolatry of a very low kind. But with the coming here of Jesus, most of them returned to the right path, and since the teaching of Jesus contained the exhortation to believe in the coming of another prophet, all the ten tribes who came to be known in this land as Afghans and Kashmiris ultimately became Muslims. Jesus was accorded great esteem and respect in this land. Recently a coin has been discovered in the Punjab, which bears the name of Jesus in Pali characters. This coin goes back to the time of Jesus, and it clearly shows that he came to this land and was given royal reception, and the coin must have been issued by a king who had become his follower. Another coin displays the figure of an Israelite male. It appears that this too is the figure of Jesus. The Holy Quran also contains a verse which says that Jesus was blessed by God wherever he went.3 And these coins show that he received great blessings from God, and that he did not die until he was honoured like a king.

Elsewhere the Holy Quran says:

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Meaning that, ‘0 Jesus! I shall clear thee of these charges; I shall prove thy innocence and shall clear thee of all accusations levelled against thee by the Jews and the Christians.’ This was indeed a great prophecy. The Jews alleged that Jesus, having been crucified, became accursed (God forbid), and thus forfeited the love of God, that Jesus’ heart, as the word ‘curse’ applies, was estranged and alienated from God, that his heart became enveloped in a thick veil of darkness, came to love evil and hate virtue, broke away from God and was brought under the sway of the Satan and that there was real animosity between him and God! The same charge of his being accursed, was brought by Christians too, who have so naively tried to combine two contradictory views. On the one hand, they say that Jesus was the Son of God, and on the other, they call him accursed. What is more, they admit that one who is accursed is the son of Darkness and of the Devil, rather he is the Devil himself. So, these were the foul charges brought against Jesus. The prophecy of the Holy Quran, however, points out that a time would come when God would clear Jesus of these charges and this indeed is the time when this was to happen.

The testimony of the Holy Prophet(sa) has no doubt established the innocence of Jesus in the eyes of thoughtful people, for the Holy Prophet(sa) and the Holy Quran have both testified that the charges brought against Jesus are all unfounded. But this evidence was too subtle and difficult for the common man to understand. Divine justice, therefore, required that just as the crucifixion of Jesus was a known, objective and tangible event, so should his innocence and exoneration be demonstrated objectively. And this is what has actually come to pass. The innocence of Jesus has not only been proved a priori but also a posteriori. For hundreds of thousands of people have, with their own eyes, seen that the tomb of Jesus lies in Srinagar,5 Kashmir. As Jesus was crucified at Golgotha or the site of the Skull, his tomb too has been found at the site of the Skull i.e. Srinagar. That the word Sri (Skull) should occur in the names of both the places is a strange coincidence indeed. The place where Jesus was crucified was called Gilgit (Golgotha) or Sri (Skull), and the place where in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the tomb of Jesus has been discovered is also called Gilgit, or Sri. It appears that the place called Gilgit, Kashmir, also suggests the term Sri. This town was probably founded in the time of Jesus, and as a local memorial to the crucifixion, it was named Gilgit, or Sri; similarly Lhasa, which means the ‘city of one worthy of worship’; is of Hebrew origin, and Lhasa too was founded in the time of Jesus.

Reliable reports in the Ahadith show that the Holy Prophet(sa) said that Jesus lived to an advanced age of 125. Besides, all the sects of Islam believe that Jesus had two unique characteristics as are not to be found in any other prophet:

1. He lived to the ripe old age of 125 years.

2. He extensively travelled in many parts of the world and was therefore called the ‘travelling prophet’.

It is evident that had he been raised to the skies at 33, the report that he lived for 125 years could not be true, nor could he have managed to travel so widely when he was a mere 33. Not only is this report found in the old and reliable collections of Ahadith, it is not possible to think of a report which is more widely known and so consistently accepted among all the sects of Islam.

Kanz-ul-Ummal, which is a comprehensive collection of Ahadith, contains this Hadith, in volume 2 page 34, from Abu Huraira(ra):

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God revealed to Jesus thus: ‘0 Jesus! Keep on moving from one place to another’, go from one country to another lest thou shouldst be recognised and persecuted.

Again, in the same Book (volume 2 page 71) Jaabir(ra) reports:

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Jesus continuously travelled from one country to another, wherever he happened to be at nightfall, he would partake of the vegetables of the jungle and drink fresh water.

And in the same book (volume 6 page 51) Abdullah bin Umar(ra) reports:

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The Holy Prophet(sa) said: ‘The people most favoured in the sight of God are the Ghareeb.’ When asked, what was meant by the term Ghareeb, he replied ‘They are the people who, like Jesus, the Messiah, have to flee from their country to save their faith?’