A History of Understanding the Qur’an’s Verdict on Jesus’ Crucifixion

From the early days of Islam, the overwhelming majority of Muslims and non-Muslims understood the Qur’an as unambiguously denying the Jewish and Christian claim that Jesus was crucified. A tiny minority of Ismaʿili scholars disagreed with this interpretation. In the last century and a half, and increasingly more so in the last few decades, some Muslims and non-Muslims have denied the standard understanding of the crucifixion in the Qur’an, often citing those Ismaʿili scholars.