'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful' His saying, exalted is He: ﴿When Allah said, 'O Jesus, indeed I will take you and raise you to Me and purify you from those who disbelieve and make those who follow you [in submission to Allah alone] superior to those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection. Then to Me is your return, and I will judge between you concerning that in which you used to differ.'﴾ ﴿So as for those who disbelieved, I will punish them with a severe punishment in this world and the Hereafter, and they will not have any helpers.﴾ ﴿And as for those who believed and did righteous deeds, I will give them their rewards in full, and Allah does not like the wrongdoers.﴾ Al-Tabari said: The operative word in 'When' is His saying, exalted is He: ﴿And Allah planned﴾ [Al-Imran: 54]. Other grammarians said: The operative word is an implied verb whose meaning is: remember. This is the more correct view. This saying is through the angel because Jesus is not spoken to directly. 'Jesus' is a foreign name that is definite, and for this reason it does not decline. In Syriac, it is 'Eisou', which the Arabs modified to 'Jesus'. The interpreters differed regarding this taking. Al-Rabi' said: It is the death of sleep; Allah raised him while he was asleep. Al-Hasan, Ibn Jurayj, Matar al-Warraq, Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn al-Zubayr, and a group of scholars said: The meaning is that I am taking you from the earth and gathering you in the heavens, so it is a taking of gathering. Ibn Abbas said: It is the death of death, meaning: I will cause you to die. This is the wording of Ibn Abbas, and he did not elaborate. Wahb ibn Munabbih said: Allah took him in death for three hours and raised him during that time. Then Allah revived him after that with Him in the heavens, and in some books, it is mentioned as seven hours. Al-Farra said: It is the death of death, but the meaning is: I will take you at the end of your matter when you descend and kill the Dajjal. Thus, there is a precedence and delay in the speech. Malik said in the Jam' al-Utbiyya: Jesus died at the age of thirty-three years. It was reported in the book of Makkah from a group that the meaning of 'I will take you' is 'I will accept your deeds', and this is weak in terms of wording. The ummah has agreed on what is included in the mutawatir hadith that Jesus, peace be upon him, is alive in the heavens, and that he will descend at the end of time to kill the pig, break the cross, kill the Dajjal, spread justice, and manifest this religion, the religion of Muhammad, and perform Hajj and Umrah, and he will remain on earth for twenty-four years, and it is said forty years, then Allah will cause him to die.

The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: The saying of Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, is: It is the death of a death that must be completed, either according to the saying of Wahb ibn Munabbih, or according to the saying of Al-Farra'. And His saying, the Most High: ﴿And I will raise you up to Me﴾ is an expression of His transferring him to a high place from a low one. And His saying: "to Me" is an addition of honor to what was His heaven and the honored, exalted, and hoped-for direction. Otherwise, it is known that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, is not confined to a direction. And His saying, the Most High: ﴿And purifying you﴾ the reality of purification is indeed from filth and the like. This is used in cursing, accusations, sins, and mixing with the wicked and their companionship, likening all of that to filth. So Allah, the Great, purified Jesus from the accusations of the disbelievers and their vile companionship with him.

And His saying, the Most High: ﴿And making﴾ is a noun of the doer for the future, and its tanween was omitted for ease. It is transitive to two objects, as it means making. One of them is "those who," and the other is in His saying: ﴿Above those who disbelieved﴾. Ibn Zayd said: Those who followed him are the Christians, and those who disbelieved are the Jews. And the verse informs about the humiliation of the Jews and their punishment by the fact that the Christians are above them in all corners of the earth until the Day of Resurrection. Ibn Zayd specified the followers and the disbelievers and made it a worldly ruling with no virtue in it for the following disbelievers among them, but their being above the Jews is only a punishment for the Jews. The majority of the interpreters said about the followers in general terms, so the Ummah of Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, enters into that because they are followers of Jesus. Qatadah and others stated this explicitly, and likewise they said about the disbelievers in general terms. So the implication of the verse is to inform Jesus, peace be upon him, that the people of faith in him, as they should be, are above those who disbelieved with proof and evidence and with honor and dominance. It appears from the saying of Ibn Jurayj and others that the intended followers of him at the time of his seeking help are the disciples. Allah made them above the disbelievers because He honored them and kept their mention among the righteous. They are above them with proof and evidence, and what has appeared upon them of the signs of Allah's pleasure. And His saying, the Most High: ﴿Then to Me will be your return﴾ is addressed to Jesus, and the intended meaning is the information about the Resurrection and the gathering. Therefore, the wording is general in terms of the matter itself and does not specifically pertain to Jesus alone, as if He said to him: Then to Me - that is, to My judgment and justice - people will return. He addressed him as one addresses a group, as he is one of them, and as it is intended in meaning. And in His saying, the Most High: "So I will judge"... until the end of the verse, is a promise to Jesus and the believers and a warning to the disbelievers.

And His saying, exalted is He: "As for those who disbelieved," is news about what will be their state from the beginning of their matter. It is not news about what will be done after the Day of Resurrection, because He has mentioned the world before that. The meaning is: As for the disbelievers, the consequence for them is that they will be punished with a severe punishment in this world by means of captivity, killing, jizyah, and humiliation. And whoever does not experience this from them is under His fear, as he knows that the law of Islam demands this of him, and existence has made this evident. In the Hereafter, its meaning is: with the punishment of the Fire. Then He mentioned the category of faith and associated with it righteous deeds to indicate the degree of perfection and to call to it.

Hafs read from Asim: "So He will give them in full" with the pronoun 'he' in the third person. The action is attributed to Allah, exalted is He. The others and Abu Bakr from Asim read: "So We will give them in full" with the pronoun 'we,' which is the pronoun of greatness. The giving of rewards is the distribution of ranks in Paradise, and that is according to the deeds. As for the very entrance to Paradise, it is by the mercy of Allah and by His grace. The similar statement has preceded in His saying: "And Allah does not love the wrongdoers" in His earlier statement: "But if they turn away, then indeed Allah does not love the disbelievers." [Aal 'Imran: 32].