Is Qurʾān Sūra 4:157–158 an Islamic Kalima-Like Christological Reading of the Crucifixion? A Textual Investigation beyond Polemics

Abstract It is believed to be a fact that the Qurʾān takes a rejective and antagonistic stance to Christian Christology and the belief in the crucifixion. However, is this conviction unquestionable or hard to re-consider? This article demonstrates that opting for revision and reconciliation, rather than antagonism and rejection, may be a considerable stance characteristic of how the Qurʾān approaches Jesus’s crucifixion in Sūra 4:157–158. The article offers an analysis of these verses, demonstrating that the Qurʾān’s concern about the crucifixion neither implements heterodox Christian views that deny it happened, nor does it negatively respond to the orthodox Christian insistence on the truthfulness of the cross. Rather, this article proposes that the Qurʾān attempts to develop an Islamic theological approach that resonates with a particular Christological trend, but was also adopted by the Qurʾān as it was a more appropriate revised interpretation of the fate of “Allah’s Word and Spirit from Him.” Discerning the revisionary, propositional, and reconciliatory characteristics of the Qurʾānic attestations on the crucifixion not only invites observers to realize the serious dialogical, interlocutional, and connectional – and not just the apologetic – nature of the Qurʾān. It also unravels the fascinating development of the Qurʾān’s complex, multi-phased and multi-faceted theology, which amounts to more than a simple call to monotheism.