Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 147
of Islamic evidence: the Holy Quran. The plan of my address The outline of the material gathered by me from the Quran will be presented in three sections: 1. The mortality of man. 2. The mortality and death of all Prophets. 3. The mortality and death of Jesus. In the last section I shall treat in some detail with the two texts that are specially relevant for the understanding of the deliverance of Jesus from death on the cross. As I have said, I shall restrict myself primarily to the Quranic evidence, applying the principle that the Quran is the best interpreter of the Quran, i. e. to discover the correct connotation of a phrase we must have recourse to other texts in which the phrase has been used. We may also have recourse to classical dictionaries, but only as a possibly helpful medium, without placing too great confidence in all the mass of material which is often confusingly offered us there. Finally we might incidentally consult commentaries, mainly for the sake of curiosity, as we know only too well that commentators were only too prone to accept any fantastic story they gathered from Jewish or Christian sources. The modem trend in Islamic exegesis reveals a growing realization of the credulity of earlier commentators in accepting what is known as Jewish tales. Strangely enough this criticism has not yet in any great measure been directed against the heretic Christian interpretation of the event of the crucifixion which is so obviously the source on which many commentators rely when they touch upon the simple account of this event found in the Quran. All men are created mortal and are bound to die after 139