Malfuzat – Volume X — Page 421
3 May 1908 421 repeatedly mentioning his death, God makes it very clear that he [ Jesus as ] had most certainly died and is not present [bod- ily] alive in Heaven. God has not accepted this argument of theirs at all; otherwise, He would have smashed the idol of Christianity again through mention of some precedent just as He had humiliated and frustrated them earlier by adducing a precedent. However, God did not do so in this instance. The reason for this is, indeed, that God has refuted this argument of theirs by referring to his death. And this is, indeed, the true and real answer to their contention. It is not at all the intent of the Quran that Jesus as was taken up alive into Heaven. On the contrary, he had died like all the other Prophets. It is strange to say that since he [ Jesus as ] was not killed, therefore, he climbed up to Heaven. Is it the case that every- one who is not murdered, necessarily goes to Heaven? If this were so, then one would have to accept that there are hundreds of thousands—indeed tens of millions—who will have to be believed alive in Heaven. The real dispute of the Jews was that Jesus as was not raised spiritually. They wanted to prove that he was, God forbid, accursed and rejected. It was for this very reason that they emphasized having put Jesus as on the cross. They claimed to have killed him in that fashion in order to prove he had been a false prophet according to the verdict of their scripture. There was no dispute about bodily ascension. And since the Holy Quran is the judge and decisive word for settling the disputes with the Children of Israel, it answered that objection and false allegation which the Jews had put together to prove that Jesus as was accursed and false, by saying: