نزول عیسٰی علیہ السلام کا قرآنی تصور : ڈاکٹر خالد ظہیر

The Return of Jesus and Qur'anic Interpretation (1)

Question:
I read your article on "The second-coming of Jesus PBUH". However, I was not quite satisfied because of the following evidence held against your view:


And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way.
(Surah Al Zukhruf 43:61)

Hudhaifa b. Usaid Ghifari reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) came to us all of a sudden as we were (busy in a discussion). He said: What do you discuss about? They (the Companions) said. We are discussing about the Last Hour. Thereupon he said: It will not cone until you see ten signs before and (in this connection) he made a mention of the smoke, Dajjal, the beast, the rising of the sun from the west, the descent of Jesus son of Mary (Allah be pleased with him), the Gog and Magog, and land-slidings in three places, one in the east, one in the west and one in Arabia at the end of which fire would burn forth from the Yemen, and would drive people to the place of their assembly.
[Sahih Muslim, Kitab ul Fitan wa Ashrat As Sa'ah]

Isa ibn Maryam will descend in the east of Damascus at the white minaret, donned in two Saffron coloured garments, his hands on the wings of two angels. If he lowers his head, it will drip and when he raises it, those drops will fall down like shining pearls.
[Jami Tirmidhi Hadith 2247, Classifed as Sahih by Allama Albani]

Can you refute to this?
Response:
There is no reason why you should accept my opinion on the return of Jesus alaihissalaan, if it doesn't satisfy you. However, it would be good if you understand the opinion with its arguments before rejecting it.

Maulana Maududi has correctly explained that if surah Zukhruf's verse 61 was referring to the alleged return of Jesus Christ, then what relevance did it have for the critical kuffar whose skepticism was being addressed in the relevant passage. The kuffar were claiming that the life hereafter was not going to happen; and the Qur'an according to you responded by saying that Jesus's return before the judgement day would be a sign of it; so you -- the kuffar of the prophet's time -- "should not have any doubts about it" (43:61). If that is the kind of explanation we start offering for Qur'anic passages because some people of the earlier times claimed that the Prophet, alaihissalaam, said something about this passage, then it's not going to be a fair understanding of the book.

Are we expected to understand hadith in the light of the Qur'an or vice versa? And what if there is an apparent conflict between the two sources? The Qur'an mentions many things that suggest that Jesus was not going to return. We should therefore worry about how to interpret ahadith that are suggesting that Jesus would return instead of changing the clear meanings of Qur'an because of those ahadith.

The Return of Jesus and Qur'anic Interpretation (2)

Question:
Sir, you mentioned:
"The Qur'an mentions many things that suggest that Jesus was not going to return."
Its my lack of knowledge that I am not aware of any single Aayat or Hadis which mentions any such ascpect. It would be great if you could provide me with one.

Furthermore, Maulana Maududi might have mentioned it in "HIS" commentary, but Ibn-e-Katheer and a whole lot of other Mufassireen have mentioned otherwise. The return of Jesus is STRONGLY supported by Ahadis. Even in christianity, the return of Jesus is termed as the 'second coming' and he will bring peace to the world when he returns. A great lecture has been presented on this topic by Dr. Zakir Naik, "Was Christ actually Crucified?".

The only way in which Jesus PBUH's death can be proven is by renouncing Ahadis, and by writing a "new" Tafsir of Quran after 1400 years which defies all its previous Tafaseer.

We could go on and on by commenting on the Aayat of Quran, beacause it might be ambiguous. But after consulting the Ahadis, which are undoubtedly the best Tafsir, all ambiguity is erased.
Response:
I will write to you the detailed reasons of why I believe Qur'an is indicating that Jesus is not going to return only after I will feel comfortable that you take the Qur'an seriously.

I can't write Qur'anic verses to a person who thinks that Qur'an is ambiguous and Ibn Kathir and the narrators of hadith have done a better job than the Almighty.

You have every right to consult Ibn Kathir and ahadith to understand the Qur'an so long as you are clear that these sources are secondary to the Qur'an. If you are bound to understand the Qur'an through these sources no matter whatever the Qur'an says then there is no point in mentioning the book of God because in that case you believe that the Qur'an says nothing or worse still, God forbid, doesn't know how to say things clearly. How then is it a book of guidance?

The Qur'an clearly declares that it is a clear book (kitabe mobeen).

The Return of Jesus and Qur'anic Interpretation (3)

Question:
Exactly, sir, Quran is unambiguous, but when we are here arguing on its interpretation, it means that we are considering it to be ambiguous. If we consider that there is only one interpretation of Quran, than its simple than 2+2=4, because the following verse makes it as clear as "saint-gobain":

And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me: this is a Straight Way. (43:61)

You are using nothing but Maududi's explanation to refute your point, and in response to ONE Maududi, I am giving you a reference of so many Ahadis and other Mufassireen. Now it is upto you to decide whether Maududi is a better interpretter of Quranic verses, or the Holy Prophet S.A.W.

Response:
I mentioned Maulana Maududi not because I am his blind follower. I disagree with him on many issues. In fact, like you, he too believes in Jesus's return. But he has offered an explanation of the verse under discussion which, contrary to your understanding, makes it absolutely clear that it was not referring to the alleged return of Jesus.

The translator you have quoted already had the return of Jesus in mind when he mentioned "And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment). The actual Arabic wording in the Qur'an "wa innahu la'ilmullissa'ah" is a tense-neutral expression. It can be translated for past, present, or future tenses. The translator preferred the future tense because he had already decided from sources outside the Qur'an that the verse must be translated for that tense. And if my criticism is correct, then you can appreciate why I believe it is such a big offence to insert meanings into the Qur'anic text which was never the intent of the Almighty, simply because of the decision of allowing outside sources the right to decide what the Qur'an was saying. It is an offence that causes a reader not to understand what the Almighty was actually saying.

Look at what has happened because of your preferred translation: The disbelievers of Makkah were denying the hereafter; the Qur'an presented Jesus, alaihissalam, as the sign of the hour of the judgment day and affirmed on the basis if it: "therefore have no doubt about the (Hour)." How could the rejecters of the Hour at the time of prophet, alaihissalam, be convinced about it by the mention of Jesus's return? Were those who denied the Hour likely to accept it if they were informed that Jesus would also come close to the hour? While they denied the happening of one future event how could they be convinced of it by a reference to another future event about which they had no clue? Did they believe that Jesus was going to return or was his return so obvious that they couldn't have denied it? These are some of the questions the complete absence of whose answers makes the translation of the verse in the future tense a non-serious exercise. And yet many translators did it because they gave an outside source more importance for understanding the Qur'an compared to the text of the book of God itself. You too are so influenced by it that you believe that the translation has made the concept of return of Jesus and the verse "as clear as 'saint-gobain.'"

The simple translation of the verse is this: "He was the sign of the hour of judgment" and it is followed by "therefore have no doubt about it (the Hour)." The Qur'aish were criticising the repeated mention of the miraculous birth of Jesus and his other miracles because they claimed that their false deities were superior to Jesus. The Qur'an responded to their criticism by saying that his miracles didn't make him a god; he was simply "the sign of the hour of judgment." In other words, the fact that he was born without a father and that he was given miracles like bringing back to life some of the dead and causing hand-made birds of clay to fly were signs of "the Hour". Like God caused such miraculous things to happen through Jesus, He is going to cause the judgment day to arrive as well.

The Return of Jesus and Qur'anic Interpretation (4)

Question:
Even if for the sake of argument we agree that 43:61 actually means what you are telling it means, then also there are CLEAR-CUT Ahadis speaking of the return of Jesus PBUH. Can they be denied? I read your reply on this on your website, but it does not suffice. Yes, Ahadis were COMPILED 300 years after the Prophet PBUH's era, but it does not mean that they were actually heard for the first time by the Muslims 300 years later than said. If something is contained in a Sahih Hadis (especially one which has no contradiction), why should it not be followed? And if you allege that these Ahadis speaking of Jesus's return are actually fabricated, then what could the intention of the narrators of these Ahadis possibly be??

Let me just summarize my points to give an end to this argument.

1) All major Quranic interpreters and Mufassireen believed that Quran does speak about Jesus's return.

2) There are absolutely clear Ahadis speaking of his return.

3) No Quranic verse or Sahih Hadis speaks about Jesus not returning before the Hour.

Please refute to these points if you are sure that Jesus PBUH will not return.

Response:
The fact that the second coming of Jesus, alaihissalaam, has been mentioned in several ahadith is true. I agree with you that it is not easily possible to dismiss them all by claiming that they were fabricated. There could be several possible reasons one could imagine of for the existence of those ahadith. I will mention them later but before doing that I would like to state two other facts too.

The Qur'an is not just silent about the issue but seems to be indicating that it was very unlikely that Jesus would return. I will clarify the Qur'anic position in another message. Unfortunately, because of the predominance of the concept of Jesus's return in the minds of many people due to the mention of that possibility in ahadith, many Muslims have interpreted some Qur'anic verses in a manner that has created an impression that Qur'an supports the claim that Jesus was going to return.

The very first book of hadith that got published and widely circulated amongst the Muslim ummah was Mauta Imam Malik. Even though it carried many opinions of Imam Malik on issues of jurisprudence, it was primarily a book of hadith. Published in the middle of the second century hijrah, the book is a source of learning about information on important issues of religion available in the Madina of the second century hijrah. It is significant that while the book talks about the arrival of Dajjal close to the judgment day, it doesn't mention the return of Jesus. The question that arises is: Was the fact of Jesus's return not known to the people of Madina at that time while they knew about the arrival of Dajjal or was it that Imam Malik thought it wasn't a fact significant enough to deserve to be included in his book?

As for ahadith on Jesus's rerurn there could be several explanations possible: i) All those ahadith were created under the influence of information about Jesus's return that Christian traditions were mentioning. ii) They were referring to the metaphorical return of Jesus: the spirit of Islam would be revived close to the judgment day like Jesus revived the spirit of Torah. iii) The mention of the arrival of al-Masihuddajjal by the prophet, alaihissalaam, was mistaken by some narrators to be suggesting the arrival of Jesus himself.

Of course, the possibility that the ahadith were referring to a Jesus-like person who was to come, as claimed by the Ahmadis, is not an acceptable possibility because in that case one has to believe that another person was to come from God after Muhammad, alaihissalaam, belief in whom was to be an integral part of Muslims' faith. If we accept that proposition then we will also have to accept that the Qur'an was, God forbid, an incomplete book of religious guidance, because it doesn't mention anyone coming from God belief in whom was important for a Muslim.

Whatever be the truth about the second coming of Jesus, and only Allah knows what it is, the understanding is not religiously significant. Had it been significant, it would have been clearly mentioned in the Qur'an.

The Return of Jesus and Qur'anic Interpretation (5)

Question:
i) All those ahadith were created under the influence of information about Jesus's return that Christian traditions were mentioning

If a strong Sanad of a Hadis is traced back to the Prophet SAW, it means that the Prophet SAW had indeed uttered those words. The Ahadis I mentioned are classified Sahih, which means that it is a high probablity that the Prophet SAW had said those words and they were not CREATED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF INFORMATION ABOUT JESUS'S RETURN THAT CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS WERE MENTIONING.

ii) They were referring to the metaphorical return of Jesus: the spirit of Islam would be revived close to the judgment day like Jesus revived the spirit of Torah.

If it was metaphorical, then please explain how metaphorical the following Hadis can get:
Isa ibn Maryam will descend in the east of Damascus at the white minaret, donned in two Saffron coloured garments, his hands on the wings of two angels. If he lowers his head, it will drip and when he raises it, those drops will fall down like shining pearls.
[Jami Tirmidhi Hadith 2247, Classifed as Sahih by Allama Albani]

iii) The mention of the arrival of al-Masihuddajjal by the prophet, alaihissalaam, was mistaken by some narrators to be suggesting the arrival of Jesus himself.

Highly un-probable after the above two replies.

If a Hadis or a Subject is not mentioned in Muwatta of Imam Malik, it does not mean that that Subject does not exist at all, because a lot of jurisprudence is derived from other books. And if Imam Malik did not mention Ahadis related to Jesus's second-coming in his book, there could have been several other reasons. Probably, the Muslims were so aware of those teachings that he did not consider them necessary. Probably he FORGOT to mention them. Probably, he did not obtain an authentic Sanad of those Ahadis yet.

It is an established truth that Ahadis do claim the second-coming of Jesus. Only the Munkireen-e-Hadis can reject this truth.

Response:
If one reads several ahadith in Bukhari, all supported by strong asnad, that those who lower their garments beneath ankles are going to enter the hell shouldn't one believe it? Why should one then accept the condition that it is going to be a case only if such an act is done out of arrogance? Clearly there were other ahadith explaining the true picture but there were many complete ahadith that made those uncompromising statements without any conditions mentioned. Why should one explain a complete hadith whose message is unequivocal.

If one reads several ahadith with reliable asnad that everyone who recites the kalima shall enter the paradise, why should one not believe in it literally and forget about the fact if it applied to hypocrites or not?

What should one do of a hadith like this one that comes from a reliable source: Ibn Umar, a companion, claimed that the prophet, alaihissalaam, mentioned that if ladies cry over a dead body, the deceased gets punished for it. When Aisha, radhiallahu anha, learnt about it, she responded by saying that he misunderstood it; his statement couldn't be correct because it went against the Qur'an which tells us that none shall share the burden of the other. And she went on to say that the reality of the incident was that a Jew got killed and his relative ladies were crying; the prophet said that while he was getting punished, these ladies were crying over his death. Ibn Umer, may Allah be pleased with him, got the two statements confused. Do we not learn from this incident that we must always see ahadith in the light of the Qur'an?

And what should one do of the two ahadith mentioning the same incident of the arrival of Jibrail, alaihissalaam, in human form when one of them mentioned that the prophet stated that the fact that nobody knew what was in the wombs of mothers except Allah and the other didn't? Both ahadith appear in Sahih Muslim. The one by Abu Hurairah states that the prophet, alaihissalaam, made the above claim. The other, by Umer, didn't mention that claim. Should we accept the unscientific statement in one of them which ran contrary to the Qur'an as well or should we accept the more reasonable one that was reported by Umer, may Allah be pleased with him?

And I can go on and on. The point is that it is a mistake to equate hadith with the prophet's statement. A hadith is a claim and not a certainty. Certainly, there is no reason to reject hadith with sound asnad unless there are evidences against it that are strong enough to justify it. Ofcourse, one can disagree on whether a reason is good enough to reject a hadith or not.

If we can call the person who rejects a hadith or a group of them because to him those ahadith are against the understanding of the Qur'an a Munkire Hadith, what would we call the person who rejects a clear meaning of the Qur'an because he believes that there are ahadith that were suggesting a meaning different from the Qur'an?

I have not even clearly rejected the ahadith on the return of Jesus. All I am suggesting is that the idea is contrary to the Qur'anic message. I still want to accept the ahadith, that's why I offered a suggestion that was meant to explain the ahadith without compromising the meanings of the Qur'an. I am sure your criticism against my explanation carries weight. But what else can I do? Should I compromise the message of the Qur'an?

Let us also not be under any mistake about the fact that all ahadith were not known to all Muslims in the first two centuries of the Muslim calendar while Qur'an and sunnah (like Salat, Zakat etc) were; not even to the scholars. That's why Imam Abu Hanifa (80-150 H) was accused of not knowing many ahadith. Even companions of the prophet didn't know all of them. In fact one can say with complete authority that there wasn't a single companion who knew all ahadith. Then there is confusion and about the meanings of some ahadith some of which I have referred to above. How can such a source of knowledge be a part of the original message of Islam which not all Muslims fully knew? Hadith is an explanation of the original message of Islam that we find in the Qur'an and sunnah and as such it cannot go against the clear verdicts of the two sources. There can be no new belief nor an injunction derived from ahadith. However ahadith provide details and explanations of what has already been mentioned in the Qur'an and sunnah or in the human nature.

Let me also clarify that our dispute is not regarding the question as to who loves the prophet, alaihissalaam, more. In fact, a person who loves the prophet can adopt a stance that we should be extra careful in accepting information about the him. The dispute in reality is about the issue as to what measures were adopted by the Almighty to deliver the message of Islam to the mankind. We insirt that God adopted foolproof measures to communicate His message to the mankind in thwe form of Qur'an ands sunnah. Others are insisting that the work done by humans like Bukhari, Muslim was also so significant that it must be accepted by Muslims as a part of the original Islam. We believe that the scholars who compiled ahadith were great; we salute them. But they were humans. What they have gathered is not an undiluted message of Islam. They have attempted to collect information aboiut the explanation fo the original Islam. They have done a great job. However, they were humans and therefore the end result of their efforts were not fault free.

The ahadith on beard you have mentioned are incomplete. There are more facts about the issue than you have mentioned. We need to be first clear about the status of ahadith.

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