“Christ Was Not the One Crucified”

Abstract

This chapter is focused on the only text about a crucifixion that we find in the Qur’an. It is a difficult text. For, in sura 4, there appears to be a crucifixion of Jesus; and yet, the Qur’an forcefully denies the reality of Jesus’ crucifixion by Judaeans (not by Romans). “They killed him not”, reads the Qur’an, “nor did they crucify him”. The question then becomes: If Jesus is not crucified in sura 4, who is crucified? The dominant Islamic interpretation of the most cryptic words in sura 4—“so it was made to appear to them”—is that a man other than Jesus died in his place on the cross. The origins and fortunes of this idea are lightly sketched in this chapter, which concludes with a question: What might it mean, that Pilate is perceived as ‘innocent’ in pagan, Judaic, and Islamic traditions?