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Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Crucifixion

Article Table of Contents

Etymology and meaning

Crucifixion as a pre-Islamic punishment

The non-crucifixion of Jesus

Crucifixion as a divinely-ordained punishment?

Bibliography

Nailing or binding the hands and feet of a criminal to a cross of execution. The verb ṣalaba, “to crucify,” occurs six times in the Qurʾān: twice in the root form and four times in the second verbal form. It is probably a Syriac loan word (see foreign vocabulary ).

Etymology and meaning

The verb “to crucify” (ṣalaba), which occurs in the active voice at q 4:157 and in the passive at q 12:41, is a denominal verb from the noun ṣalīb, meaning a cross. This noun does not occur in the Qurʾān, although found in early poetry (see poetry and poets ). It is probably derived from ṣelībā, the word for cross in Syriac. The precise meaning of the second form of the verb ( ṣallaba), which occurs at q 5:33 in the passive voice and at q 7:124, 20:71 and 26:49 in the active, is uncertain. J. Penrice assumes that it is causative (Dictionary, 85) but as the verb is denominal the first and second forms may be interchangeable. Other possibilities are that the second form is intensive (“to crucify with great violence”) or numerically extensive (“to crucify in large numbers”).

Crucifixion as a pre-Islamic punishment

Crucifixion was widely practiced in antiquity. Herodotus (fifth century b.c.e.) makes numerous references to its employment by the Persians and other classical authors testify to its currency amongst Indians, Assyrians, Celts, Carthaginians and Romans ¶ (M. Hengel, Crucifixion, 4-5). According to the Gospels, when the Romans crucified Jesus they nailed him to a cross which had to be carried to the site of execution (e.g. John 19:17-23; 20:25). However, Paul equates crucifixion with hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13; cf. Deut 21:23).

In the Qurʾān, crucifixion is associated principally with ancient Egypt (q.v.). Joseph (q.v.) interprets the dream (see dreams and sleep ) of a fellow prisoner to mean that the latter will be crucified and birds will eat from his head ( q 12:41; cf. Gen 40:23, where Pharaoh's chief baker is hanged on a tree; see bread ). Another instance occurs in reference to Moses (q.v.). When Pharaoh's magicians testify to their belief in the God of Moses, Pharaoh (q.v.) says that he will cut off their hands and feet on opposite sides and crucify them ( q 7:124; 20:71; 26:49). We are not given details of the procedure, although in one of these qurʾānic references, Pharaoh tells his magicians that he will crucify them “on the trunks of palm trees (q.v.)” ( q 20:71).

The non-crucifixion of Jesus

The Qurʾān takes the Jews to task for claiming that they killed Jesus (q.v..) and it states that they did not kill him or crucify him but that it appeared so to them ( q 4:157; see jews and judaism; christians and christianity). According to the traditional Sunnī and Shīʿī commentators, God raised him alive to heaven, having first projected his likeness onto someone else whom the Jews crucified in the belief that he was Jesus. In support of this interpretation, they cite ḥadīths which state that Jesus will descend to kill the Antichrist (q.v.) before he dies (see apocalypse; eschatology), as well as reports attributed to the early exegetes Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/686-8), Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 110 or 114 a.h.) and al-Suddī¶ (d. ca. 127/745) which narrate how God outwitted the Jews (N. Robinson, Christ in Islam, 127-41, 171-2). Muslim rationalists were quick to point out the difficulties in the projection theory. Some of them proposed more credible alternatives, e.g. that the authorities, after failing to arrest Jesus, knowingly crucified another person and that the crowds were misled into thinking that the substitute was Jesus because they were kept at a distance and his appearance was disfigured by the ordeal (N. Robinson, Christ in Islam, 136-8, 172; see polemics and polemical language ).

As some pre-Islamic texts such as the gnostic Apocalypse of Peter discovered at Nag Hammadi mention the crucifixion of a substitute, it is possible that the traditional commentators have interpreted this verse correctly. However, Christian apologists have long argued that q 4:157 does not actually deny that Jesus was crucified, but rather, that it denies that it was the Jews who crucified him. This accords with the gospel accounts, which attribute his execution to the Romans (N. Robinson, Christ in Islam, 108-9). Christian apologists also draw attention to q 3:55, which seems to imply that Jesus' death is in the past and to q 3:169, which asserts that Muslim martyrs are alive with God. The Brethren of Purity (see brother and brotherhood ) apparently accepted these arguments and adopted the view that Jesus' body was nailed to the cross but that his spirit was raised alive into God's presence (N. Robinson, Christ in Islam, 56).

M.Z. Khan's translation of q 4:157 (…“those who have differed in the matter of his having been taken down alive from the cross are certainly in a state of doubt concerning it”…) gives the impression that the Arabic explicitly states that Jesus was taken down alive from the cross. However, as the Arabic reads: wa-inna lladhīna khtalafū¶ fīhi la-fī shakkin minhu, a more literal translation would be along the lines of “those who have differed in it are certainly in a state of doubt concerning it.” He also renders q 2:72-5 so as to allude to the crucifixion. His rendition of q 2:72-3, in particular, is at variance with the Arabic: “Call to mind also when you claimed to have brought about the death of a Personage [wa-idh qataltum nafsan, lit. “and when you killed a man”] and then differed among yourselves concerning it, and Allah would bring to mind that which you concealed. So We said: ‘Test the crucial question by putting together other incidents relating to the affair and you will arrive at the truth.’ Thus does Allah plan to preserve alive those considered dead [kadhālika yuḥyi llāhu l-mawtā, lit. “thus does God make the dead alive”] and shows you His Signs that you may understand.” The interpretations conveyed in this translation, corresponding to the teaching of the Aḥmadiyya (q.v.), have no textual basis.

Crucifixion as a divinely-ordained punishment?

The traditional interpretation of q 5:33 is that it prescribes crucifixion as one of four possible punishments for brigandage. The basis for this view is a ḥadīth which states that the verse ( āya) was revealed when some people from the tribe of ʿUkl abused the Prophet's hospitality by killing a herdsman and stealing cattle (Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, viii, 201-2; see occasions of revelation ). Without mentioning this ḥadīth, M. Asad argues that the Qurʾān would hardly promulgate a divine law which advocated a punishment identical to that inflicted by Pharaoh, whose qurʾānic characterization is that of an enemy of God. Asad suggests that the āya is not a legal injunction, but rather a description of what the unbelievers were doing to each other in their perverseness (The message, 148-9; see chas- ¶ tisement and punishment ; belief and unbelief; gratitude and ingratitude; disobedience; law and the qurʾān).

Bibliography

Primary

K. Aland et al. (eds.), The Greek New Testament, London 1966

Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ

M.Z. Khan, The Quran. Arabic text with a new translation, London 1971, 19813 (rev. ed.)

R. Kittel (ed.), Biblica Hebraica, Stuttgart 1937

J.M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi library in English, Leiden 1977

Secondary

M. Asad, The message of the Qurʾān, Gibraltar 1980

M. Hengel, Crucifixion in the ancient world and the folly of the message of the cross, London 1977

B.T. Lawson, The crucifixion of Jesus in the Qurʾān and qurʾānic commentary. A historical survey. Part II, in Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Sciences 10.3 (1991), 6-40

J. Penrice, A dictionary and glossary of the Koran, London 1873; repr. 1971

N. Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity. The representation of Jesus in the Qurʾān and the classical Muslim commentaries, London 1991

O. Spies, Über die Kreuzigung im Islam, in R. Thomas (ed.), Religion und religionen. Festschrift für Gustav Mansching, Bonn 1967, 143-56

F.E. Vogel, Ṣalb, in ei2, viii, 935-6

A.J. Wensinck and D. Thomas, Ṣalīb, in ei2, viii, 980-1

Cite this page

Robinson, Neal, “Crucifixion”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Consulted online on 07 January 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00046>

Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition / Ṣalb

(a.), “crucifixion”. In Islamic doctrine and practice, it refers to a criminal punishment in which the body of the criminal, either living or dead, is affixed ¶ to or impaled on a beam or tree trunk and exposed for some days or longer.

Before Islam, many cultures, including the Persian and Roman ones, practised crucifixion as a punishment for traitors, rebels, robbers and criminal slaves (M. Hengle, Crucifixion in the ancient world, London 1977).

The Ḳurʾān refers to crucifixion in six places. The significant verse for legal practice is V, 33: “The recompense of those who make war on (yuḥāribūn) God and His messenger and sow corruption (fasdd) in the earth shall but be that they shall be slain, or be crucified (yusallabu), or have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be banished from the earth...".

The standard hadith collections report one case where Muhammad practiced crucifixion (of persons who murdered a shepherd and stole camels). This account is, however, contradicted by many others describing a different punishment (cutting hands and feet and gouging eyes) (see al-Nasa°I, tahrim al-dam, bdbs 7-9). In another hadith, the first crucifixion in Medina was by cUmar, of two slaves who killed their mistress (see Abu Dawud, saldt, bdb 61).

Fikh [q.v.] applies the above verse chiefly to highway robbers, as hadd [q.v.; and see KATL]. The choice of crucifixion, instead of another of the four stated penalties, is governed by complex, contested rules. Most scholars require that a robber who both killed and took property be crucified, as a hadd penalty (see KATL); others, while requiring execution, do not demand crucifixion. For most scholars, offenders are to be beheaded before being crucified. Malikls, with most Hanaffs and most Twelver ShIcTs, provide that the offender is crucified alive, but then killed by lance thrust. For the Zahiris, crucifixion itself must cause the death. Most scholars limit the period of crucifixion to three days (after which the body is to be washed, prayed over and buried).

Various minority views permit or prescribe crucifixion for crimes other than highway robbery, usually on authority of the same verse. These crimes include insults to the Prophet (sabb al-nabi) [see KATL], heresy (zandaka) [see MURTADD; ZINDIK], sorcery [see SIHR], and killing by stranglers (khanndkuri) and assassins drugging their victims (mubanniajun), such punishments sometimes represented as hadd and sometimes as tacztr [ q . v . ] . The quoted verse itself conceivably applies to anyone whose corrupting effect on society can be prevented only thereby (Ibn Taymiyya, al-Siydsa al-sharciyya, Cairo 1322, 55). Al-Mawardi (apparently alone) permitted crucifixion while alive (but not necessarily to death) as a generally applicable form of tacztr (al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya, Cairo 1966, 239; cf. al-Ramli, Nihdyat al-muhtddj., Cairo 1967, viii, 21). Reports of actual crucifixions exist under most of these doctrinal headings. Exposure, often extremely prolonged, of headless bodies is common, especially for political or religious opponents [see e.g. CABD ALLAH B. AL-ZUBAYR; HASANAK; IBN BAKIYYA], Crucifixion while alive also appears, such as for al- Halladj [q.v.] and murderous slaves (H. Ritter, Kreuzigung eines Knaben, in Oriens, xxv [1976], 38-40, suggesting a frequency in the 7th/13th century of crucifixion to death).

In later Persian and Turkish usage, salb meant "hanging". In the form of exposure after beheading, crucifixion is practised in Saudi Arabia today.

Cite this page

Vogel, F.E., “Ṣalb”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 18 March 2021 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6530>

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