A Discussion of the Narrations: The Evidence for the Messiah Being Alive

1. The Ascension of the Messiah

From ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn who says: “Indeed, God has places (biqāʿ) in His heavens; so whoever is made to ascend to one of those places has been made to ascend to Him. Do you not hear that God says: ‘The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him’ (70:4) and God says in the story of Jesus son of Mary ‘Rather God raised him up toward Himself’ (4:158).(43)”

Note: According to the apparent meaning of this narration, what is meant by the ascension of the Messiah is flight to heaven, and this matter is rationally possible - that that personage lives in one of the celestial spheres. However, in such cases, the chain of transmission (sanad) of the narration must be reliable and knowledge-producing, so that one can rely on it, because such a matter is not a jurisprudential subsidiary issue (farʿ fiqhī) that one could rely on a conjectural report (khabar ẓannī).

2. The Sign of Jesus’s Bodily Ascension

From Abū ʿAbd Allāh who said: “Jesus son of Mary was raised up wearing a woolen tunic (midraʿa)(44) spun by Mary, woven by Mary, and sewn by Mary. When he reached the heaven, he was called: ‘O Jesus, cast off from yourself the adornment of this world’”.(45)

From the Prophet in the tradition of the Night Journey (ḥadīth al-miʿrāj): “And he(46) is residing there(47) until he descends to earth, whereupon he will kill the Antichrist (Dajjāl) and fill it with justice as it was filled with oppression. Then he will live in it for forty years or the remainder of them from the age of his ascension, and he was at that time thirty-three years old. And he will die as humans die and will be buried in the chamber of the Prophet or in Jerusalem”.(48)

From Abū Jaʿfar who said: “When the Commander of the Faithful passed away, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī stood in the mosque of Kufa, praised God and extolled Him, and sent blessings upon the Prophet. Then he said: ‘O people! Indeed, there passed away in this night a man whom the first ones did not surpass and the last ones will not reach… By God! He passed away in the night in which the successor of Moses, Joshua (Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn), passed away, and the night in which Jesus son of Mary was made to ascend, and the night in which the Qur’an was revealed’”.(49)

Note:

a. The spirit of the Commander of the Faithful, like the spirit of the divine prophets, ascended to heaven, and his noble body that was placed in the grave is like the apparent meaning of the Qur’an that came to the natural world.

b. Based on this narration, the complete revelation (nuzūl) of the Qur’an was on the night of the 21st of Ramadan.

c. The word “ascended” (ʿurija) is a sign of the bodily ascension (miʿrāj) of the Messiah and the fact that that personage is alive.

3. The Return of the Messiah

From al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī who said: “And his age [Jesus son of Mary] in this world was thirty-three years; then God raised him up to heaven and he will descend to earth in Damascus, and he will kill the Antichrist (Dajjāl)”.(50)

Note: This narration also speaks of the Messiah being alive. In contrast to these types of narrations that apparently indicate that personage being alive and are in agreement with the fifth possibility, there are also other narrations that could bear witness to the third and fourth possibilities, namely the natural death of that personage; such as this prophetic narration: “And it was only made to appear so to them, and they were not able to torture him and bury him, nor to kill him and crucify him… because if they had been able to do that, it would have been a denial of His saying: ‘But God raised him up to Himself’ after He had caused him to die”.(51) The end of the hadith and the phrase “after He had caused him to die” (baʿda an tawaffāhu) indicates natural death, otherwise everyone who perishes or is killed under any circumstances is subject to God’s causing to die (tawaffī), and what Imam al-Sajjād said in the governor’s house in Kufa in response to Ibn Ziyād regarding the martyrdom of the Master of Martyrs: “God takes the souls when they die…”,(52)(53) shows that if someone is killed, it does not contradict divine causing to die (tawaffī), and God causes both the killed and the unkilled to die (yatawaffā).