The biblical account of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (ʿĪsā) recorded in the Christian New Testament is traditionally rejected by the major branches of Islam, but like Christians they believe that Jesus ascended to heaven and he will, according to Islamic literary sources, return before the end of time. The various sects of Islam have different views regarding this topic; traditionally, mainstream Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but was bodily raised up to heaven by God, while the Ahmadi paradigm reject this belief and instead contend that Jesus survived the crucifixion, was taken off the cross alive and continued to preach in India until his natural death. However this idea is rejected as heretical by mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Jesus' death in the Quran

Jesus' death is mentioned in the future sense (on the Day of Resurrection) in the Quran, and his attempted death and his ascension into Heaven in the past sense.

Past sense Depending on the interpretation of the following Quranic verses (-), Islamic scholars and commentators of the Quran have abstracted different opinions and conflicting conclusions regarding the death of Jesus. He was replaced as Jesus and the executioners thought the victim was Jesus, causing everyone to believe that Jesus was crucified. A third explanation could be that Jesus was nailed to a cross, but as his soul is immortal he did not "die" or was not "crucified" [to death]; it only appeared so. In opposition to the second and third foregoing proposals, yet others maintain that God does not use deceit and therefore they contend that the crucifixion just did not happen:

In the past sense it is said that the Jews did not kill or crucify Jesus but it only appeared to them as if they had, because Jesus had been raised up by God according to the Quranic narrative. Given the historicity of Jesus' death and the Islamic theological doctrine on the inerrancy of the Quran, most mainstream Muslims and Islamic scholars deny the crucifixion and death of Jesus, deny the historical reliability of the Gospels, claim that the canonical Gospels are corruptions of the true Gospel of Jesus for their portrayal of Jesus dying, and they also claim that extra-Biblical evidence for Jesus' death is an alleged Christian forgery.

Future sense In the future sense it is said that Jesus will not die until the day of resurrection. Given that, according to the Quran, Jesus had not died before going up to God, nor will he die before the day of resurrection, the interpretation by most Muslims is that Jesus entered heaven alive.Shafaat, Dr. Ahmad, Islamic View of the Coming/Return of Jesus" article dated May 2003, at the Islamic Perspectives Web site: "In 4:159, after denying that the Jews killed or crucified Jesus and after stating that God raised him to Himself, the Qur'an says ...". Retrieved March 29, 2007. Jesus' words "the day I die" in are interpreted by most Muslims in the future sense (Jesus will die on the day of resurrection):

By "they did not kill him," "before his death," and "the day I die" it can be assumed, based on a cursory reading of the plain text, that Jesus did not die. By "God raised him up to himself" and "You took me to Yourself" it can be assumed, based on a cursory reading of the plain text, that Jesus ascended to Heaven rather than dying. Despite Quran 5:117 only speaking of Jesus' ascension and 19:33 only speaking of Jesus' future death, Muslim scholars like Mahmoud M. Ayoub claim the aforesaid verses "assert" Jesus' death.

Gnostic influences

The belief that Jesus only appeared to be crucified and did not actually die predates Islam and is found in several New Testament apocrypha and Gnostic Gospels. Although most contemporary scholars argue that the Islamic portrayal of Jesus himself is not docetic, his crucifixion narrative in the Quran could be. The Greek Father of the Church and bishop Irenaeus in his heresiological treatise Against Heresies (180 CE) described early Gnostic beliefs regarding the crucifixion and death of Jesus that bear remarkable resemblance with the Islamic views, expounding on the hypothesis of substitution:

One of the Christian Gnostic writings found in the Nag Hammadi library, the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, has a similar substitutionist interpretation of Jesus' death:

The Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter also holds a substitutionist interpretation of Jesus' death. It does differ in that it seems to think that Jesus's physical body was crucified (rather than saying it was Simon of Cyrene), just that his physical body was unimportant and the real Christ was a purely spiritual being:

The Gospel of Peter is an apocryphal gospel that could be read as docetic. The British biblical scholar F. F. Bruce wrote in a commentary about this text:

John of Damascus, a Syrian Eastern Orthodox monk, Christian theologian, and apologist that lived under the Umayyad Caliphate, reported in his heresiological treatise De Haeresibus (8th century) the Islamic denial of Jesus' crucifixion and his alleged substitution on the cross, attributing the origin of these doctrines to Muhammad:

In his scholarly monograph Gott ist Christus, der Sohn der Maria. Eine Studie zum Christusbild im Koran (1989, ), the German Catholic theologian and professor of religious studies states that Muhammad's distorted understanding of Jesus and the Christian faith, along with the misrepresentation of Christian beliefs about Jesus in the Quran and the hadith, were influenced by the non-Chalcedonian Monophysite Christianity that was prevalent at the time in the pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula and further in Abyssinia, Egypt, and Syria. A similar hypothesis regarding the Gnostic Christian influence on Muhammad's beliefs about the crucifixion of Jesus has been proposed by Neal Robinson, senior lecturer of Religious studies at the College of St. Paul and St. Mary, in his scholarly monograph Christ in Islam and Christianity (1991, ).

This docetic interpretation regarding Jesus' crucifixion was also shared by Manichaeans. Since Manichaeism was still prevailing in Arabia during the 6th century, just alike prohibition against wine and fasting rules, Islamic views on Jesus' death might have been influenced by it. However, while Zoroastrianism existed only in the eastern and southern Arabia, the existence of Manichaeism in Mecca in the 6th-7th century is denied as lacking historical support. Similar reservations regarding the appearance of Manichaeism, Gnosticism, and Mazdakism in pre-Islamic Mecca are offered by Trompf & Mikkelsen et al. in their latest work (2018).

Gospel of Barnabas The apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas, probably written during the Middle Ages, also promotes a non-death narrative. The work claims itself to be by the biblical Barnabas, who in this work is one of the twelve apostles; however, text of this Gospel is late and pseudepigraphical. Nonetheless, some scholars suggest that it may contain some remnants of an earlier, apocryphal work (perhaps Gnostic, Ebionite, or Diatessaronic), redacted to bring it more in line with Islamic doctrine. Some Muslims consider the surviving versions as transmitting a suppressed apostolic original.

According to the Gospel of Barnabas it was Judas, not Jesus, who was crucified on the cross. This work states that when Judas led the Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus in an effort to betray him, angels appeared to take Jesus out a window and up to the heavens. As Judas entered the room, his appearance was transformed to that of Jesus, and the Romans arrested him and brought him to be crucified. The narrative states this transformation of appearance not only fooled the Romans, but the Pharisees, the High Priest, the followers of Christ, and his mother Mary.

The Gospel of Barnabas then mentions that after three days since burial, Judas' body was stolen from his grave with rumors spreading of Jesus being risen from the dead. In following with Islamic lore, when Jesus was informed in the third heaven about what happened he prayed to God to be sent back to the earth, and later descended and gathered his mother, disciples, and followers and told them the truth of what happened. He then ascended back to the heavens, with the narrative continuing Islamic legend mirroring Christian doctrine of returning at the end of times as a just king.

Literal interpretation Earliest reports Professor and Muslim scholar Mahmoud M. Ayoub sums up what the Quran states despite interpretative Islamic arguments:

Some disagreement and discord can be seen beginning with Ibn Ishaq's (d. 761 CE/130 AH) report of a brief accounting of events leading up to the crucifixion, firstly stating that Jesus was replaced by someone named Sergius, while secondly reporting an account of Jesus' tomb being located at Medina and thirdly citing the places in and that God took Jesus up to himself.

Muslim historian al-Tabari (d. 923 CE/310 AH) records an interpretation transmitted from Ibn Ishaq Bishr: "God caused Jesus to die for seven hours". Ibn al-Athir forwarded the report that it was Judas, the betrayer, while also mentioning the possibility it was a man named Natlianus.Ayoub 1980, page 108. [Muhammad b. 'Ali b. Muhammad al-Shawkani, Fath al-Qadir al-Jami bayn Fannay al-Riwaya wa 'l Diraya min 'Ilm al-Tqfsir (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d.), I, 346, citing Ibn Asakir, who reports on the authority of Ibn Munabbih.] Al-Masudi (d. 956 CE/343 AH) reported the death of Christ under Tiberius.

10th and 11th-century Ismaili Shia scholars Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman, Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi, Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani, Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi and the group Ikhwan al-Safa affirm the historicity of the crucifixion, reporting Jesus was crucified and not substituted by another man as maintained by many other popular Qur'anic commentators and Tafsir.Lawson 2009, page 12.

Substitution interpretation

Unlike the Christian view of the death of Jesus, most Muslims believe he was raised to Heaven without being put on the cross and God created a resemblance to appear exactly like Jesus who was crucified instead of Jesus, and he ascended bodily to Heaven, there to remain until his Second Coming in the End days.

The identity of the substitute has been a source of great interest. One proposal is that God used one of Jesus' enemies. Judas Iscariot, Jesus' betrayer, is often cited, and is mentioned in the Gospel of Barnabas. The second proposal is that Jesus asked for someone to volunteer to be crucified instead of him. Simon of Cyrene is the person most commonly accepted to have done it, perhaps because according to the Synoptic Gospels he was compelled by the Romans to carry Jesus' cross for him. Al-Baidawi writes that Jesus told his disciples in advance that whoever volunteered would go to heaven.Muhammad Saed Abdul-Rahman The Meaning and Explanation of the Glorious Qur'an (Vol 10) MSA Publication Limited 2009 page 93

Tabari's versions of events Tabari (d. 839–923/ 224–310 AH) divided the early reports regarding Jesus' crucifixion into two groups. According to the first, one of Jesus' disciples volunteers to take the form of his master and is crucified. According to the other, the Jews mistakenly carried only an empty resemblance to the cross.

Tabari narrated the first strand as follows:

The second strand is narrated as follows:

Ibn Kathir's version of events