Their heart was sealed because of their disbelief and they killed the wrong man (according to what we read in Tafsir Ibn Kathir that I enjoy you to read) More on reddit.com

2:154 Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it. This verse reminds me of the " made to appear so" verse. They may have killed him in this earthly life, but Isa pbuh lives on by the will of Allah. More on reddit.com

Dr. Khalil Andani is a Muslim Ismā’īli scholar who I believe agrees with this view. And I’m sure others do. However, one thing I would like to say is that this view is personally unconvincing to me, primarily for the following reason: The Arabic term ’tawaffā’ CANNOT be reasonably equated to ’mawtā’ (‘death’)—since in the Qur’an, they are distinctively used in different ways, and sometimes even joined together in ways that would otherwise render the text awkward or superfluous. For example, Sūrah 4:15 of the Qur’an states: ”Those of your women who commit lewdness, you must have four witnesses against them from among you. So if they testify, then confine them under house-arrest until DEATH CLAIMS THEM (yatawāfāhunnā al-mawt), or God makes a way for them.” Here, we see that both terms are used adjacent to one another—but more strikingly, the person in context is said to be “taken” (yatawaffā) BY MEANS OF “death” (mowt) itself. So clearly, the two terms cannot have identical meanings. This is also the case in Sūrah 39:42 (Az-Zumar), where we are explicitly told that some souls undergo ’tawaffā’ WITHOUT experiencing death: ”God takes the souls (yatawaffā al-anfus) at the time of their death (mowtihā), as well as those that have NOT died (lam tamut) during their sleep…” So in at least 2 cases, we can see that the Qur’an not only makes a clear distinction made between ’tawaffā’ (‘to take away’) and ’mowt’ (‘to die’)—but in fact sometimes uses them in mutually exclusive ways, which thus means they can NOT be understood interchangeably when interpreting other relevant passages, such those of Jesus. And the fact of the matter is—in EVERY single case of Jesus’s ‘ascension’ or deliverance by God, the Qur’an always uses the term ‘tawaffā’ (to take away)—without exception—and NEVER the term ‘mowt’ (death). Sūrah 3:55 says: God said, “Jesus—I am going to TAKE YOU AWAY [innī mutawaffīka], and raising you to Myself, and will clear you of those who disbelieve.” Sūrah 5:117 (also cited by Reynolds) states: [Jesus said] “…And I was a witness over them during my time among them; but once You TOOK ME AWAY [fa-lammā tawafayytani], You then became the Watcher over them. You are Witness over all things!” And the list goes on. The only time that ’mowt’ seems to be applied to Jesus in the Qur’an, is in an unrelated context, spoken as an infant by his own words, where he declares: ”So peace be unto me the day I was born, and the day I shall die [yowma amūtu], and the Day I shall be resurrected alive!” [yowma aba’athu hayyā] However, because we are never given a timeline on when this foretold “death” and “resurrection” will take place—it can be vaguely interpreted as either referring to an earthly death or resurrection (as orthodox Christianity holds), or to a death and final resurrection on Judgement Day (‘Yowm Al-Qiyāmah’), as will happen to all souls at the end of the time according to the Qur’an. Moreover, Sūrah 4:158 notably does not say that Christ underwent ‘ba’ath’ (resurrection); but rather that he was ‘raf’a’ (LIFTED UP) by God—which is also another detail that should not go unnoticed. There are other passages to consider (such as Qur’an 4:159 and 5:110), but I’ll leave it there, because that is one issue I feel cannot be ignored in this discussion. And so I feel it is a grave mistake to assume interchangeability between the terms tawaffā & mowt, without having this nuanced Qur’anic context in mind. Glad to hear anybody else’s views on this. More on reddit.com

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