The Quran states the following:
“Waqawlihim inna qatlna al Massih Issa ibn Maryam rasul Allah, wama qataluhu wama salabuhu walaken shubbiha lahum”, Quran 4:158. Yet they didn’t kill him and crucified him, but made him look like the man who was crucified (Translation by M. Sher Ali).
The Muslim commentator Abdullah Yusuf Ali explained this verse as follows:
“The end of Jesus’ earthly life was as mysterious as his birth, and indeed most of his private life, except for the three main years of his ministry.” Discussion Between Early Christian Denominations and Muslim Theologians Many questions and conjectures are unhelpful. The Orthodox Church was crucified with his life, buried after his death, raised on the third day with his body intact, walked around, talked, and ate with his disciples, The body was then taken up into heaven. This was necessary for the theological teachings of blood sacrifice and substitutionary atonement, which is rejected by Islam. But some early Christian denominations did not believe that Christ died on the cross. Basilidan believed that someone took his place. Docetae The belief that Christ never had a real or natural body, but only an apparent or phantom body, and that His crucifixion was only apparent, not real. Tha Marcionite Gospel (c. 138 AD) denies the birth of Jesus, saying only He appeared in human form. The Gospel of St. Barnabas supports the alternative theory of the crucifixion. The Qur’an teaches that Christ was not healed or killed by the Jews. Although certain obvious circumstances created this illusion in the minds of some of his enemies; Arguments, doubts and conjectures on such matters are in vain; he is brought up to God. (Comment #663 by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Text, Translation and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Significance of the Glorious Qur’an, 2 vol. Published by Dar Al-Kitab Al-Masri (Egypt) and Dar Al-Kita Allubnani (Lebanon), 1934).
Crucifixion was first attested among the Persians. The Romans adopted the practice from the Greeks and Carthaginians, and later also. In the Old Testament, the bodies of blasphemers or idolaters were stoned and possibly hanged as a further humiliation (Deuteronomy 21:23).
Crucifixion was introduced to Palestine during the Greek period. The Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 AD) tells us that the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes crucified those Jews who rejected Hellenization. This practice was abolished by Constantine the Great in honor of Christian belief in the death of Jesus.
Jesus was crucified on Matt. 27. Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19, and many other places in the New Testament. The influence of early Christian literature on this and other themes pervades the Qur’an. Ali’s comments on Christianity and Gnostic literature are just one example of this influence.
Crucifixion was a form of capital punishment. It involved the public humiliation of the crucified man. The condemned man had to be stripped of all his clothes; he was tortured physically, and was forced to carry his cross on a public road to his execution; Crucifixion discredits the condemned.
Crucifixion set up an obstacle to subsequent efforts to convert Jews to Christianity. The Jews were not ready to accept the idea that the Messiah should be crucified as stipulated in the Old Testament. For many of them, such a thought is considered sacrilege. This may have been the idea of the Muslim community, who introduced the hadith tradition.
But contrary to the hadith interpretation of the Qur’an, contrary to the above translations, and also contrary to Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s erroneous interpretation, the Qur’an does not deny the death and crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah. In fact, the Aramaic of the Qur’an is the same as the story of the crucifixion mentioned in the New Testament.
Qur’anic conjugation “w” in word “[w]ama” is similar to Aramaic “w”, meaning “so, then, and”; Akkadian “u”. The Qur’anic word “wama” has been misinterpreted as “without”. Syriac “wmo” or “wma ” is an interrogative pronoun meaning “what”. “wmo li wlokh” or “wma li wlokh” in Syriac means “what have I to do with you”. The Syriac “wmo qatluuy or wma qatluuy” is equivalent, which means “what they killed”. The Qur’anic verse “wama salabuuhu” is the same as the Syriac “wmo salbuuy or wma salbuuy”, which means “what they crucified In other words, the Qur’an confirms the death and crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah by saying “what did they kill and crucify”.
The word “walaaken” in the Qur’an has been misinterpreted as “but”. Aramaic “lkn”. The “l” at the beginning is a preposition meaning “for, for, about”. When adding a suffix, it is pronounced ‘li (mine), lokh or lakh (yours, singular), leh (his), loh (hers), lan (ours), lkhuun (yours, plural), lkhen (Your, Female Plu.). When the vowel sign /a/ was added to Syriac “lkhen”, it became “lakhen”, Arabic “laken”, meaning “their”. It is important to remember that early Qur’anic manuscripts did not use vowel symbols. Thus, the original word used in the Qur’an is “lkn”, which in Syriac is “lken, or lkhen”, meaning (thy, fem. Plu), in Syriac Peshito (Ezekiel 13:18) and in Hebrew “lknh” is found in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel 13:18). References to the female plural in the Qur’an correspond to biblical events, which are mentioned in Matthew 27:55, which reads: “There were many women, who watched from afar, and they followed Jesus from afar. Galilee, help He. Among them was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the wife of Zebedee.
The word “shubbiha” in the Qur’an has been misinterpreted as “He was made to appear before them like the crucified”. The Syrian word “shabah” means “blessed”. The Qur’anic preposition “lahum” is equivalent to the Aramaic “lhmh”, which means “regarding, referring to” (Jeremiah 14:16).
The correct explanation is: “They said, We did kill the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah, what they killed, crucified, and to you (who followed Jesus in the Passion women), and he is blessed to them (his followers).
This and other interpretations of the Qur’an in Aramaic are the subject of a new book called “The Qur’an: Misunderstood, Mistranslated and Misunderstood.” Aramaic of the Qur’an.Available for purchase on Amazon.com and our website http://www.syriacaramaicquran.com
