Quran Garden

Session 390

Chapter 3

Verse 55

God said, "Jesus, I will take you back and raise you up to Me: I will purify you of the disbelievers. I will make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieved till the Day of Resurrection. Then you will all return to Me, and I will judge between you regarding your differences." (Chapter 3: Verse 55)

Jesus, peace be upon him, sensed that some of the people around him disbelieved and conspired to kill him.  Allah reassured His messenger about how this battle will end: "Jesus, I will take you back and raise you up to Me: I will purify you of the disbelievers.  I will make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieved till the Day of Resurrection."

There are four actions that God highlighted for Jesus.  The first is "I will take you back," the second "I will raise you up," the third "I will purify you of the disbelievers," and, fourth and last, "I will make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieved."  Let's take them one by one. 

The phrase "I will take you back" is translated from the Arabic origin متوفيك (Mutawafeek).  The word توفى (Tawafa) is used in the Arabic language today and means "to die."  However, the widespread use of this word to refer to death has stripped it from many of its other meanings.  When you read the Quran, you realize that توفى (Tawafa) is far richer in meaning.  God says:

It is He Who takes your souls back by night, knowing what you have done by day, then raises you up again in the daytime until your fixed term is fulfilled. It is to Him that you will return in the end, and He will tell you what you have done. (6:60)

In the verse above, " takes your souls back" or توفى (Tawafa) means "to put to sleep."

And, in another chapter, God says:

God takes back the souls of the dead and the living while they sleep–He keeps hold of those whose death He has ordained and sends the others back until their appointed time.  There truly are signs in this for those who re?ect. (39:42)

Allah, the Almighty, referred to both sleep and death with the verb يَتَوَفَّى (Yatawafa).  The same word is also used to refer to the full payment of the debt to the lender.    

So, which meaning does the verse under study hold?  We answer that the phrase "Jesus, I will take you back" could fit any of those meanings.  It could mean "to cause to die," or "to cause to go into a sleep state," or "to take back whole" just like when a loan is fully repaid to the lender.  This begs the question, why did God choose such an ambiguous word?  We answer that in matters that are difficult for the mind to understand, such as the event of raising a living prophet to the heavens, Allah chooses a word that each person can accept at his or her comfort level.  Allah is telling you not to worry about the mechanics of how He does things but to have faith in what He says. 

More importantly, such wondrous and mysterious matters have no ramifications for the believer's actions.  If you believe that God caused Jesus to die, would that affect any action you do or duty you perform in Islam? How about if you believed that God simply raised Jesus to the heavens alive? Would that make any difference in religion? The issue does not affect your religious duties, so do not overthink it. 

As in matters that affect your life and religious duties, Allah uses straightforward and clear language.  For other issues that are of no consequence and are beyond our understanding, Allah may employ words that could be understood in more than one way so that each person can find a comfortable meaning. 

Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the word توفى (Tawafa) does not hold the meanings of "to kill" or "to harm." 

But isn't death and killing the same?  We have explained before that there is a difference between death and killing.  Both share the departure of the soul and the end of life, but they are very different.  God says:

Muhammad is but a messenger, and messengers passed away before him. If, then, he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? Whoever turns back on his heels can in no way harm God. But God will reward the grateful. (3:144)

Take note that God mentioned death and killing as separate events.  Killing necessitates the harm and destruction of the physical body, while death does not.  The soul is subject to specific laws, and it can only reside within a matter of particular characteristics.  If the physical characteristics are violated, the soul departs.  Any human can kill by violating the body's physical characteristics, but no one can declare, "I want so and so to die," and they drop dead.

On the other hand, God, the Grantor of life, is the only one Who can cause death without changing the physical body.  Many of us have seen footage of a young, perfectly healthy athlete suddenly drop dead for no reason at all.  This is death.

Here is an example to clarify the interaction between the soul and the body. Suppose that you have a lit light bulb.  What is causing the light bulb to emit light? It is the electricity flowing through it.  If you break the glass, the bulb goes dark, but is the electricity gone? No, the electricity is still there, but it only shines as light under certain physical conditions –such as the vacuum inside a bulb. Likewise, the soul manifests as life only in a structure that has unique characteristics.  Hence, the killer does not take the soul away; rather, he or she only destroys the physical structure making it inhospitable to the soul. 

             All the different meanings of the word توفى (Tawafa) imply completion or recovery in an unharmed state, whether it is the return of the soul to its Creator, the culmination of life as we know it, or the repayment of debt.  Allah told His beloved Jesus, "I will not allow those who conspired to kill you to hurt you in any way, and I will return you back to me unharmed." 

The second action God promised His Messenger Jesus was "and I will raise you up to me." Here we must point that the conjunction "and" does not indicate the order of events.  For example, God says in verse 16 of Chapter 54,

So, how severe were My punishment and warnings!

Did the punishment come before the warnings? Of course not.  Allah repeatedly warned before punishing, but the conjunction "and" only indicates the grouping of two or more events, not their order. 

So, the conjunction "and" in the phrase "Jesus, I will take you back and raise you up to Me" does not give us a timeline.  We can look to our beloved Muhammad for more clarification.  He said, "What will be your state when the son of Mary descends amongst you while you have your own Imam as your leader?" In other words, Muhammad, peace be upon him, clarified to us that Jesus would descend to earth again.

This would make the logical order of events as follows: Allah protected His Messenger Jesus from the corrupt Israelites and raised him up unharmed, then, as the Day of Judgment approaches, Jesus will descend back to earth to live among the believers till his death.  Allah protected His messenger, but as all the living –including God's messengers– must eventually die, Jesus will return to earth to live amongst the believers and then die.  God decreed in the Quran:

Every self shall taste death. You will be paid your wages in full on the Day of Rising. Anyone who is distanced from the Fire and admitted to the Garden has triumphed. The life of this world is just the enjoyment of delusion. (3:185)

Here you may ask, if that is the logical order of events, then why did the verse start with "I will take you back" and then mentioned "and raise you up to Me" second?  We answer that Allah discussed death first, so no one would think that being raised to the heavens is a pardon from death.  Death is an inescapable stage all human beings have to go through.  Jesus, like all the living, will surely die.