Where did Jesus Die? Where did Jesus Die? The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a Messenger. All Messengers before him have passed away. And his mother was righteous. Both of them used to eat food. See how We explain the Signs for their good, and see how they are turned away. (The Holy Quran 5:76) by J.D. Shams Imam of the London Mosque 1936–1946 Islam International Publications LTD. Where did Jesus Die? written by Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams ra, Imam of the London Mosque (1936–1946) First published in UK, 1945 Eighth edition in UK, 1989 Ninth edition in UK, 1996 Tenth edition in UK, 2004 Eleventh edition in UK, 2014 (ISBN 1-85372-190-6) Present Twelfth edition, printed in India, 2017 © Islam International Publications Ltd. Published by Nazarat Nashro Isha‘at Qadian 143516 District Gurdaspur (Punjab), India Printed in India at Fazl-e-Umar Printing Press Qadian - 143516 (Punjab) For further information please visit www.alislam.org. ISBN 978-1-84880-892-8 Contents About the Author ........................................................ix Foreword to the First Edition................................... xiii Foreword to the Present Edition ..............................xvii Introduction ..............................................................xix Preface ....................................................................xxxv Chapter One—Passages from the Gospels ............... 3 Chapter Two—The Judgment ...................................17 Chapter Three—The Story of the Resurrection .....35 Chapter Four—Early Documentary Evidence .......45 Chapter Five—Recent Discovery: Shroud of Jesus.............................................................................65 Chapter Six—Modern Medical Opinion ................71 Chapter Seven—Did Jesus Ascend to Heaven? .....79 Chapter Eight—Did Jesus Die on the Cross and Ascend to Heaven? .......................................................89 Chapter Nine—Paganism and Paul ...................... 107 Chapter Ten—Redemption or Atonement ......... 121 Chapter Eleven—Jesus Goes to India ................... 139 Chapter Twelve—The Unknown Life of Jesus .... 175 Chapter Thirteen—Yus Asaph and Jesus .............. 191 Chapter Fourteen—A Paramount Prophecy ...... 205 Appendix to Sixth Edition ...................................... 217 Appendix to Seventh Edition .................................. 223 Appendix to Twelfth Edition .................................. 231 Bibliography ........................................................... 237 Publisher’s Note ...................................................... 243 The Tomb of Jesus— Khanyar Street, Srinagar, Kashmir According to the oral and written evidence of dis- tinguished people in Srinagar, the occupant of the above tomb is a Prophet, Yus Asaf by name and also called Prince, who came to Kashmir some 1900 years ago. The author of theTarikh-i-Azami of Kashmir, a historical work written some 200 years ago refers to this tomb as follows: The tomb next to that of Sayyed Nasr- ud-Din is generally known as that of a prophet who was sent to the inhabitants of Kashmir, and the place is known as the shrine of a prophet. He was a Prince who came to righteousness and devotion, he was made a prophet by God and was engaged in preaching to the Kashmiris. His name was Yus Asaf. (p. 82) Yus Asaf in Hebrew means Jesus the Gatherer. Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams ra About the Author Hazrat Maulana Jalal-ud-Din Shams ra was born in 1901 and was a companion of the Promised Messiah as, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. His father, Mian Imam-ud-Din Sekhwani ra, his two paternal uncles, Mian Jamal-ud-Din Sekhwani ra and Mian Khair-ud-Din Sekhwani ra, and his paternal grandfather, Muhammad Siddique Sekhwani ra, were also companions of the Promised Messiah as—all of whom who were blessed to be included in the list of 313 Companions, along with their respec- tive families. Jamal-ud-Din, Khair-ud-Din, and Imam-ud-Din are recorded in the ‘History of Ahmadiyyat’ as the Sekhwani Bradaraan or Sekhwani Brothers after the town they lived in, Sekhwan, a few miles to the northwest of Qadian. The family used to pray in a mosque that was built by the father of the Promised Messiah as and they were well acquainted with the young Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as as he was growing up. When Ahmad as claimed to be the Mahdi and Messiah, the brothers and their families unanimously x Where did Jesus Die? accepted his claim without question as they knew his truthful and virtuous character. Growing up in this inspirational environment, the young Jalal- ud-Din Shams dedicated his life for the cause of Ahmadiyyat, and was trained to be a missionary by various companions of the Promised Messiah as including Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad ra and Hazrat Hafiz Raushan Ali ra. In 1925, Maulana Shams ra was dispatched to the Middle East where he founded the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Damascus, Syria. However, there he was viciously attacked from behind by a knife-wielding assailant and left for dead in a pool of blood. Fortunately, he was discovered by a neighbour and immediately taken to the hospital. The doctors’ prognosis was grim and it was expected that he would soon die from the several knife wounds he sustained in his back. A telegram was sent to Hazrat Mirza Bashir- ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the Second Khalifah ra, in Qadian to apprise him of the situation. He requested the Community to gather in Masjid Aqsa to collectively pray for Shams and another missionary in another locale. Miraculously, Shams started to heal within three days. Upon full recovery, the French authorities requested him to leave as they could not guarantee his protection. Maulana Shams, under the guidance and direction of the Second Khalifah ra, went to Palestine. There he frequented various centres of Muslim learning to preach the message of Ahmadiyyat. He established the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Kababir, Haifa (now in Israel) and laid the foundation of Mahmood Mosque. A street in Kababir is named after him. After deliver- ing a lecture at the famous Dar-ul-Hikmah in Cairo, one of the Arab scholars stood up and questioned him where he received About the Author xi his knowledge. Shams replied that these are the teachings of the Mahdi. Astonished, the scholar then turned around to face the audience and said that this man is the Ibn Abbas of our generation. Maulana Shams later returned to India in 1931; he married and had two children. He was appointed the Secretary of the All- India Kashmir Committee, of which the Second Khalifah ra was elected President and Sir Muhammad Iqbal was a member. He was then dispatched to England in 1936 to be the Imam of the London Mosque. As he did not know much English, he made an arrangement with a man in England to learn English from him in exchange for lessons in Arabic. Despite this initial language barrier, approximately sixty British citizens accepted Ahmadiyyat. He authored this book while in London and made arrangements to print 100,000 flyers of Jesus’ tomb in India and distribute them among the British with the help of other missionaries who were sent to London for training. When World War II broke out and the Germans launched bombing raids over England, Shams announced that God would protect His house and anyone who enters it. As a result, approxi- mately twenty families moved into the Ahmadiyya mission house next to Fazl Mosque. Although many buildings surrounding the vicinity of the Mosque had been destroyed, Fazl Mosque was left unharmed. Two bombs fell into the Mosque’s courtyard, but they failed to detonate, and were later disarmed by the British military authorities. In 1946, after ten years of separation from his wife and two children—a sacrifice he willingly accepted for the spread of Islam Ahmadiyyat in Europe—Maulana Shams was called back to the Ahmadiyya Headquarters in Qadian to serve in various capacities. xii Where did Jesus Die? During the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, he was appointed the Ameer of the last Ahmadi caravan departing from Qadian to Pakistan. Upon reaching the outskirts of Qadian, he halted the caravan, looked back at Qadian, and recited the same words that the Hoy Prophet saw recited as he departed from Mecca’s city limits. Maulana Shams also proposed the name Rabwah for the Ahmadiyya Community’s new Headquarters in Pakistan, which was approved by Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih II ra. He was one of only three recipients given the prestigious Khalid- e-Ahmadiyyat title, reminiscent of the great Muslim general Hazrat Khalid bin Waleed ra, the ‘Sword of Allah’, whose unsur- passable skills in warfare would not allow him to achieve martyr- dom despite hundreds of duels he engaged in during the battles he led against the Apostates, Romans, and Persians. In addition, the Second Khalifah ra indicated that one of the peripheral interpreta- tions of the Holy Prophet’s prophecy that in the Latter Days the Sun would rise from the West was fulfilled in the person of Shams (shams meaning sun in Arabic), when he returned from the West to the East. Maulana Shams served as Nazir Islaho-Irshad (in charge of missionary work in Pakistan) until his death on 13th October 1966. He held various positions until that time including: Secretary of Bahishti Maqbarah, Managing Director of Al-Shirkat-ul- Islamiyyah, Secretary Majlis Iftaa, and President of Majlis Kaar Pardaaz. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife and seven children. He had written approximately seventy books in Urdu, Arabic, and English. Foreword to the First Edition Maulvi Shams has done me the honour of asking me to write a foreword to his interesting and enlightening treatise, which I do with pleasure. Religion, if it is to have its natural and proper place in the spiritual life, must be founded upon fact, and the search for and the assimilation of fact is one of the aims of Islam. Maulvi Shams has certainly been assiduous in his search and he has set out the result with a skill calculated to arouse envy in a high- ly-placed lawyer.