JESUS APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER FROM HEAVEN

Q.

I cannot remember whether Al-Suyuti said that it was the disciples of Isa (as) that were granted a heavenly vision of Isa after the crucifixion or Isa’s mother? Or was it all of them?

A.

I was previously of the impression that al-Suyuti himself said this. But when I checked the Arabic text today I found that this is actually in a commentary on al-Suyuti’s commentary. It so happens that sometimes a commentator writes a commentary within the margin of someone else’s shorter book. Many classical Arabic books are published in this form with the main text in the middle of the page and the commentary around it. In this case we have a commentary on the commentary on the Quran, hence a supercommentary.

In this supercommentary, titled Haashiyat al-Saawi, the author al-Saawi explains al-Suyuti’s statement with reference to Quran 3:57 that God sent a cloud to raise Jesus up and his mother clung to him.

Al-Saawi says that this happened seven days after Jesus was first lifted up. God told Jesus to descend to his mother seeing that she was weeping and in such grief. On this occasion Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out and preach, the result being that the following morning each disciple found himself speaking the language of the people to whom he was commissioned.

I hope that helps.

Q.

So, can I explain that the post-mortem appearances to the disciples were, Islamically speaking, a heavenly vision or a number of visions given to the disciples of Jesus, so as to comfort them that Jesus was alive.

And if so is there any way I can support this view by using any Muslim sources?

Of cause a secular historian may say what they were experiencing were hallucinations.

Thanks for all your time that you have given me in the past and now. I feel much obliged!

A.

The way I prefer to put this is as follows:

Raymond Brown has shown that all of the reports of post-mortem appearances of Jesus to his disciples in the Gospels go back to only one such appearance, and that too was of a spiritual kind that did not involve the eating and touching as described in, for example, Luke’s Gospel.

If it is true that Jesus appeared to his disciples that once from heaven, as explained by Brown, this is not difficult for Muslims to accept. In fact, a supercommentary on al-Suyuti’s Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that seven days after Jesus was raised to heaven, God had him descend again to comfort his mother and commission his disciples.

Hence we have no reason as Muslims to deny such an encounter. The question that remains for us is whether or not from a historical point of view we can accept the detailed reports in the gospels. Since even Christian scholars reject those details which show a physical Jesus interacting with his disciples, we as historically-minded Muslims have no reason to accept such details either.

Q.

Was that meeting between Jesus and his mother and disciples, a spiritual meeting or a physical meeting according to the sub-commentary?

And how you would explain away the preaching of the disciples in the book of Acts when they says that, this Jesus whim you crucified, God raised him from the dead?

A.

I would not be surprised if the commentator thought that Jesus descended physically. They tended to accept the most miraculous possibility among the apparent options. But that does not mean we should posit that. We should not even commit to the idea that Jesus appeared as a matter of Muslim belief. We just maintain that if Jesus did appear in a spiritual matter, then we have no objections.

The speeches of the disciples in Acts are generally held to be not historical. They may have a historical core, but only in Luke’s estimate of the kinds of things which the disciples could be expected to have preached. But his estimate was, of course, coloured by his understanding of the crucifixion, and by his high Christology.

Q.

In terms of a historical investigation, can we give any interpretation that would lend towards a certain belief or do we remain agnostic about it or can we ever discover and know what did actually happen that started Christianity off with a Big Bang?

A.

The idea that something was needed post-crucifixion to get Christianity going is based on the false assumption that the crucifixion disproved the messiahship of Jesus.

However, Jesus could have been a priestly or a prophet Messiah. This sort of messiahship is not disproved by the crucifixion. It is only the claimed Davidic Messiah that is so disproved. The Davidic Messiah was to sack the Roman authorities and assume temporal rule so that the kingdom of God is established on earth.

The Gospels make every effort to depict Jesus as the Son of David, and hence the Davidic Messiah. If Jesus himself claimed this position then, yes, his claim is disproved by the crucifixion, and then something is needed to reverse the situation.

On the other hand, Muslims and Christians believe that Jesus’ preaching and interacting with his disciples had a great impact on them. Why should such an impact diminish because some wicked people conspired to put him to death by illegitimate means?

What started Christianity, then, if we can anachronistically call the Jesus movement by this name, is the preaching and healing of Jesus himself. This left a great impact that could not be snuffed out by the crucifixion.

We do not need to commit to a particular theory of what happened. However, the theory that he was taken down alive, and that God raised him to heaven from his tomb dispels many arguments and helps us to concentrate on the central question as to whether or not Jesus died for the sins of the world.

Q.

Thank you for making the points clearer to me.