reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

356 Suleiman A. Mouradaccusation. The context of verses 4:157-58 therefore shows that the Qur'iin isdenying the actuality of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, but rather engaging ·their implications.ConclusionReading verses 4:157-58 in light of their immediate context as well as3:55, 5:117 and 19:33 leads us to the conclusion that the Qur'iin affirmsdeath on the cross, followed by his resurrection. Indeed, stories about andences to Jesus's physical death as an event that occurred in the past arethroughout Islamic scholarship, even in works by authors who affirmed otherwise.· •.For instance, the chronicler and exegete Tabari (d. 31 0/922) relates in his Historythat a group of people from Medina say that Jesus's grave is located on topal-Jammii' mountain, south of Medina; strangely, this story dates Jesus's timeearth to the period when the Persians ruled western Arabia (fourth centurysince, as the story indicates, Jesus's tomb inscriptions were in old Persian. 21irrespective of its apparent anachronicity, it .is clear that 1) Tabari '"""""'s"believes that Jesus did not die, as is attested in his exegesis of the Qur'iin, 222) the report is not related on the authority of Christians or converts fromanity, or for that matter the authority of Jews, but rather on the authority ofMuslim - a certain Ibn Sulaym al-An~iiri al-Zuraqi - who must have livedMedina shortly after the time of Mubammad. Iii. another instance, themystic al-Niibulusi (d. 1143/1731), contrasting al-mawt al-ikhtiyarr (facingwillingly) and al-mawt al-i{i{irarr (being taken by death), uses the exampleJesus as someone who readily gave himself to death. 23I am not, however, arguing that most Muslims, especially exegetes, wereincompetent, and that they could not determine the meaning of verses 4:157-58. I.am not suggesting either that the text is simple. In my view, the reason this texthas been misconstrued,. despite the best efforts of scholars, is that the setassumptions that were brought to bear on such issues in the Qur'iin made it inevitablethat the meaning would be missed. The Qur'iin reflects the insistence of theearly Mul;tammad movement that the crucifixion of Jesus does not represent adefeat of God. In other words, this movement could not accept, as a matter ofbasic belief, that Jesus's career ended on the cross, with God unable to intervene.For what would that mean about God's commitment to protecting them? Thusthey argue that God was the ultimate victor because He could do something thosewho crucified Jesus could not: He could annul Jesus's death by resurrecting him.The Qur 'an and Jesus's cntcifixion and death 357But the issue was so complicated that it was left at that level without furtheror explanation. It was, later Muslim exegetes who developed the, .-wv•VF.J of God's obligation to protect his prophets to the extent that there was noin it for the acceptance of Jesus's dying on the cross. Hence God must haveint,,rv,.m>rl to rescue him prior to that. The stories that describe God's interventionthe plot of the Israelites to kill Jesus, and describe who was made to be crucifiedJesus's place, merely reflect efforts on the part of these exegetes to come upacceptable responses to a challenging issue. The stories that later exegetestraditionalists report are theological speculations that make use of a largeof lmown and conflicting narratives within the Christian tradition thatthe crucifixion of Jesus. After all, the Muslims were not the first, or the only,to be puzzled by the theological implications of Jesus's crucifixion andThat several early Christian groups (e.g. Gnostics) could not tolerate theof Jesus's crucifixion is a case in point: their belief could not stand if his.: cruci.tixion were not absolutely rejected. Indeed, one cannot emphasize enoughChristianity ultimately emerged out of the attempts to make sense of theuvillAJLvll and death of Jesus.Finally it is important to note that the use of verses 4:157-58 in anti-ChristianJ-'V''"w""" constrained the way Muslim scholars could interpret them. Once thesewere situated in polemic, their function became essentially to point to theof Christian belief regarding the crucifixion of Jesus, and thus Muslim· >exegetes, operating within the parameters of the polemical contextualization ofthese verses, were simply unable to come to a different reading.21 The tomb inscriptions read: "'This is the grave of Jesus son of Mary, the messenger of God to the people.of this land." See Tabati, Ta 'rlkh al-rnsul wa-1-mu/iik, ed. M.J. De Goeje et al., Leiden: Brill, 1879- ·1901, 1:738--39; trans.: The History ofal-Tabari, vol. 4, trans. M. Perlmann, Albany: SUNY Press,1987, 4:123-24. There is no doubt that, given what we know, this story is to be treated as a completemyth, with no historical basis whatsoever.22 AI-Taban, Jami' al-bayan, 3:289.23 Al-NiibulusT, Risa/at al-tawbld, ed. Mui)ammad ShTkhiinT, Damascus: Diir Qutayba, 1999, Ill.