Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 11
WHILE it was expected that a study of the question whether Jesus. Christ did or did not die on the cross would arouse widespread interest, some people are unable to appreciate why this question should be of such serious concern to the Muslims that the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam should have promoted the holding of this Conference on this question. Unfortunately it is not yet sufficiently recognised in the West that Islam is the culmination of the Judeo-Christian revelation and that the life and death of. Jesus are of as vital concern to Muslims, particularly the members of the Ahmadiyya Movement, as they are to Jews and Christians. . The Holy Quran, the Scripture of Islam, requires faith in. Jesus as a righteous prophet of God in the Dispensation of Moses, and as the Messiah whose advent had been prophesied in the. Jewish Scriptures. The Jews believe that Jesus died on the cross and thus became accursed according to the pronouncement in. Deuteronomy, 21:23, and that, therefore, he was not either a true prophet or the Messiah. The Christians, fairly early, developed the doctrine that Jesus had died on the cross and had become accursed as an atonement for the sins of mankind and to lead it to salvation. The Quran emphatically repudiates both these notions. . It affirms clearly that Jesus was, through Divine mercy and grace, delivered from death on the cross. He was taken down from the cross in a state of coma and was ministered unto and was resuscitated and carried his message to the dispersed tribes of Israel. The Quran further affirms that God provided shelter and security for Jesus "on a pleasant plateau with springs of running water” (23:51). . The Holy Prophet of Islam is reported as having said that. Jesus lived to an honoured old age exceeding one hundred and twenty years. . The mass of orthodox Muslims, being influenced in later centuries by the Christian tradition, adopted the utterly untenable notion that Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven before being placed upon the cross. This is a direct contradiction of the 12