Yet this “substitution”
theory, which is still almost the standard view among Muslims today, raises lots
of questions. Fakhraddin al-Razi, the medieval scholar, addressed some of them
frankly in his major exegesis of the Qur’an. “God was no doubt capable of
delivering Jesus from the hands of his enemies by simply taking up him to
heaven,” he first reminded, “What then,” he asked, “is the purpose of casting
his likeness on another man, except to condemn an innocent man to death to no
purpose?” He also made the following observation, which is in fact a good
reminder for all religious believers that their arguments against the rival
tradition can turn back on themselves:
All Christians in the
world, with all their great love for Jesus and their extremist beliefs concerning
him, have reported that they witnessed him being crucified and killed. If we
were to deny this, we would cast doubt on the principle of tawatur
[universally accepted transmission]. Casting doubt on this principle would also
necessitate casting doubt on the prophethood of Muhammad and Jesus, and even in
their very existence, as well as the existence of all other prophets, and that
would be untenable. (Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of
Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017],
153)