Tafsir Ibn Abbas: An-Nisaa, Ayah 157
Common Words
Other Scholars on This Ayah
Tafsir
And for their saying boastfully ‘We slew the Messiah Jesus son of Mary the Messenger of God’ as they claim in other words for all of these reasons We have punished them. God exalted be He says in repudiating their claim to have killed him And yet they did not slay him nor did they crucify him but he the one slain and crucified who was an associate of theirs the Jews was given the resemblance of Jesus. In other words God cast his Jesus’s likeness to him and so they thought it was him Jesus. And those who disagree concerning him that is concerning Jesus are surely in doubt regarding the slaying of him for some of them said when they saw the slain man the face is that of Jesus but the body is not his and so it is not he; and others said no it is he. They do not have any knowledge of the slaying of him only the pursuit of conjecture illā ittibā‘a l-zann is a discontinuous exception in other words ‘instead they follow conjecture regarding him that which they imagined they saw’; and they did not slay him for certain yaqīnan a circumstantial qualifier emphasising the denial of the slaying.
Ibn Abbas Commentary
(And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger) Allah destroyed their man Tatianos. (They slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them) Allah made Tatianos look like Jesus and so they killed him instead of him; (and lo! those who disagree concerning it) concerning his killing (are in doubt thereof) in doubt about his killing; (they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture) not even conjecture; (they slew him not for certain) i.e. certainly they did not kill him,