Page 45 - The Prophet Jesus (as) will Return

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HARUN YAHYA (ADNAN OKTAR)
ing du'a, which the Prophet Muhammad (saas) often used to
recite when he woke up: "All praise is for Allah, Who has made
us alive after He made us die [sleep]. (Al-hamdu li Allah illadhi
ahyana ba'da maa amatana; wa ilayhi al-nushoo)" (Narrated by Abu
3
Hudhayfa; Sahih Bukhari). No doubt, he used these wise words
not to refer to biological death when one is asleep, but rather to a
sleeping person's soul being "taken." Ibn Kathir, the famous
Islamic scholar and commentator, used this hadith, along with
many other proofs in his commentary on Surah Al 'Imran, to
explain that tawaffa refers to sleep. In addition, he indicated the
word's meaning in other verses where it appears. He then gave
his opinion using a hadith handed down by Ibn Abi Hatim:

Ibn Abi Hatim says that: "My father told us … from Hassan that the
meaning of the verse 'I will take you back...' is this: Here it means
that 'I shall kill you with the death of sleep; in other words, I shall
cause you to sleep.' So Allah raised the Prophet Jesus (as) to the heav-
ens while he was asleep … As an incontrovertible truth, Allah caused
the Prophet Jesus (as) to die the death of sleep and then raised him to
the sky, rescuing him from the Jews, who were inflicting suffering
upon him at the time." 4
Imam Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari, another Islamic
scholar who examined the meaning of tawaffa, stated that it did
not mean death, and drew attention to the use of mawt in one
verse of the Qur'an:

Had the Prophet Jesus (as) died [which is not the case], then the word
mawt revealed in the verse: "Allah takes the souls [of people] at
death" (39:42), would not have been revealed… This is because if, as
has been claimed, Allah had referred to normal death [in the biological
sense], then this would have been clearly stated. Since Allah refers to
the fact that the Jews did not kill the Prophet Jesus (as), but that he