The Conclusive Argument — Page 64
64 death’, but rather, ‘after his being raised’. Since the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, made no such distinc- tion, it proves categorically that he intended the same meaning on both occasions. Now one must see with open eyes that when the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and Jesus are both included in the words 1 اَّمَلَف ْيِنَتْيَّفَوَت —implying that this verse applies to both of them—then whatever meaning of this verse you may choose, they will both share it. If you say that the word توفّي [ tawaff i ] here means ‘raising someone alive to heaven’, then you must admit that this ‘raising alive’ is not unique to Jesus alone; our Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, has also been raised to heaven alive, because they both equally share in the meaning of the verse. However, it is well known that the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, was not raised alive to heaven; rather, he passed away and his blessed tomb is present in Madinah Munawwarah. So, it follows that Jesus, too, has died. Interestingly, a tomb of Jesus is also found in the Levant. To elaborate, I will reproduce here in a footnote the testimony of my brother-in-faith, Sayyid Maulaw i Muhammad as-Sa‘ i d i T ar a bulus i. He lives in Tripoli, the Levant 2 and the tomb of Jesus, peace be on him, is found within its boundaries. 3 1. When You caused me to die ( S u rah al-M a ’idah, 5:118). [Publisher] 2. The word Sh a m, which nowadays refers to Syria, was used historically for a much larger area that can be translated as the Levant. [Publisher] 3. When I enquired in a letter to Hadrat Sayyid Maulaw i Muhammad as- Sa‘ i d i T ar a bulus i ash-Sh a mi about the tomb of Prophet Jesus, peace be on him, he replied with the following letter [in Arabic], which I tran- scribe below, along with its translation: