Jesus’ Travels Post Crucifixion

  

All the Messengers of Allah, especially the law-bearing prophets were made in some way or another to leave their initial place of residence for another place through the will of Allah. Sometimes, places within their own homelands or they switched altogether countries where their missions went on to be successful.

Today I would like to put before you the heart-touching story and the lesson which Jesus – Hazrat Isa (as) has given us in his emigration from Jerusalem to Kashmir in India. [Inset: Jesus in western art, symbolic- not historically accurate, representation]. 

In his post-crucifixion period, Jesus was helped by his well-wishers and disciples in secret. His disciples on record may have been official twelve men, out of which one (i.e. Judas) became a hypocrite and “sold” him to his enemies, but he may have had many secret disciples not recorded in history who became sincere help when he had to flee Jerusalem. From a study of his life, and the research of various authors including the Promised Messiah Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), Jesus (as) may have stayed in Palestine, as well as Afghanistan and Northern India before he finally met his lost sheep, i.e. the Lost Tribes of Israel.

 

Like we know, Hazrat Isa (as) was sent for the Children of Israel and no one else, but in his divine mission, while seeking his Lost sheep, i.e. the twelve tribes, representing the children of Hazrat Yaqub – Jacob (as), other people also were illumine by his message and became his followers. But his initial quest to look for his lost sheep never stopped until he found them. That was to be the peak of his life’s mission.

He intended to preach to these ‘lost sheep’ and to bring them into his fold as he had despaired of the Jews in Palestine. God, the Gracious, the Merciful, must have guided Jesus on his journey and mission. He was helped by his friends in undertaking this long and arduous journey. He was probably accompanied by his mother Mary and one of his disciples or brother Judas Thomas Didymos, who received also the appellation “twin” (Thomas [Hebrew]) & Didymos [Greek]) due to his complete obedience and faithfulness to Jesus (as).

[So, some people have mocked the fact that Zafrullah Domun Sahib and I were “twin messengers”, but we see that in one way or the another Jesus’ brother Judas, i.e. Thomas have received twice the name of “twin” within his name. A twin can be either physical or metaphorical when two persons share the same interest and do everything together like brothers. So, Allah called us twins despite that we were not true twins born of one mother and shared the same womb at the same time.]

To come back to the subject of my sermon, Jesus was like unto the Holy Prophet (pbuh) in that which as a result of Jewish Persecution, he and his mother Mary had to migrate from Palestine and leave for a far off country and he went from country to country until he found what he was looking for.

 

Jesus must have gone to Galilee first as it lay on the caravan route to Syria and then on the East through the Fertile Crescent. It is of benefit to remember that according to the Gospel of John, Jesus appeared for the third time to his disciples at Lake Tiberius in Galilee. Following the route through Syria he would have inevitably visited Damascus where the small community of believers might have been converted by Jesus himself.

 

Next we hear of Jesus at Nasibain which is a place between Mosul (Iraq) and Syria. If one travels from Syria towards Persia, one has to go through Nasibain. It lay on a caravan route from Syria to Persia through Mesopotamia. Nasibain has also been called Nisibis or Nasibus. Some think that this town is modern Nusaybin which lies in Turkey near the Syrian border. Through the examination of the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas there is the mention of Jesus and Saint Thomas being at Nasibain. The arrival of Jesus at Nasibain is also stated in the well-known Persian historical work known as Rauzat-us-Safa. Its author is Mir Muhammad Bin Khawand and was written in 836 A.H. (1417 A.D.). It was later printed at Bombay in 1271 A.H. (1852 A.D.). It is stated in this book that Jesus and Mary abandoned Jerusalem and set out for Syria. I present before you an abbreviated translation of few pages of Rauzat-us-Safa, which discard some irrational miracles ascribed to Jesus.

“Jesus (on whom be peace) was named the ‘Messiah’ because he was a great traveller. He wore a woollen scarf on his head, and a woollen cloak on his body. He had a stick in his hand; he used to wander from country to country and from city to city. At nightfall he would stay where he was. He ate jungle vegetables, drank jungle water, and went on his travels on foot. His companions, in one of his travels, once bought a horse for him; he rode the horse one day, but as he could not make any provision for the feeding of the horse, he returned it. Journeying from his country, he arrived at Nasibain, which was at a distance of several hundred miles from his home. With him were a few disciples whom he sent into the city to preach. In the city, however, there were current wrong and unfounded rumours about Jesus (on whom be peace) and his mother. The governor of the city, therefore, arrested the disciples and then summoned Jesus. Jesus miraculously healed some persons and exhibited other miracles. The king of the territory of Nasibain, therefore, with all his armies and his people, became a follower of his. The legend of the ‘coming down of food’ contained in the Holy Quran belongs to the days of his travels”. [Inset: Manuscript of Mirkhvand's Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ. Copy made in Safavid Iran, dated 1635].  

Thus by coming to Nasibain Jesus intended to travel east through Persia to Afghanistan where Israelite tribes had settled.

 

JESUS WAS ALSO KNOWN AS YUZ ASAF

 

After leaving Nasibain, Jesus apparently adopted the alias of “YUZ ASAF” as he is known by this name in the oral traditions and writings of the countries he subsequently visited. The Hebrew name of Jesus (which is a Greek word) was probably JOSHUA or YESHU. From it is derived YUSU which is the name of Jesus in many oriental languages. YUS or YUZ is derived from YUSU. Thus YUZ means Jesus and ASAF, a Hebrew word, means “gatherer”. In other words, YUZ means Jesus, gatherer of the Lost Sheep of Israel. Jesus is known as YUZ ASAF in ancient traditions of Iran, Afghanisthan, and in Kashmir (India). Faizi, the poet of the court of Akbar, an emperor of India, addresses Jesus:

 

Ai Ki nam-i to: Yuz O Kristo

O Thou Whose name is YUZ and Christ.

 

We next hear of Jesus in Persia, where he reached by travelling east through Mesopotamia. According to an old tradition of Iran, YUZ ASAF came to this country from the west and preached there and many believed in him. The sayings of YUZ ASAF as recorded in Iranian traditions are similar to those of Jesus (Agha Mustafai, Ahwali Ahalian-i-Paras, p. 219).

 

TRACES OF JESUS IN AFGHANISTAN AND KASHMIR

 

From Persia Jesus travelled to Afghanistan probably passing through Herat which lies near the western border of Afghanistan. As the Lost Tribes of Israel, the Afghans, were settled there, he might have stayed there for many years and preached to these tribes. Apparently he made his final journey to India which lasted for many years until his demise in Kashmir.

 

Searching for Jesus in Afghanistan we find that at Ghazni (western Afghanistan) and at Jalalabad (southeast Afghanistan) there are two platforms which bear the name YUZ ASAF because he sat and preached there. One of the kings of Afghanistan appointed a caretaker for this sacred place at Jalalabad and also made a grant for its upkeep.

 

There has been another discovery. An Englishman, Mr. O.M. Burke, travelled in many Islamic countries in Asia and Africa and lived among Sufis (Mystics) for about four years. Writing about his experiences in his book, ‘Among the Dervishes” (1975), he mentions that while travelling through Afghanistan he came to know of a special sect called ‘followers of Jesus’ near Herat. O.M. Burke writes:

 

“The followers of Isa, son of Maryam - Jesus the son of Mary - generally call themselves Moslems and inhabit a number of villages scattered throughout the Western area of Afghanistan whose Centre is Herat. I had heard of them several times, but considered that they were probably people who had been converted by European missionaries from Eastern Persia, or else that they were a relic of the times when Herat had been a flourishing bishopric of the Nestorian rite, before the Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh and eighth centuries. But, from their own accounts and what I could observe, they seem to come from some much older source.

 

I found them through one of the deputies of the Mir of Gazarga, the descendant of Mohammad under whose protection they are. Gazarga is the shrine were Abdullah Ansar, a Sufi mystic and great local saint, is buried in a magnificent tomb formerly mush visited by the emperors of India and other notables.

 

There must be about a thousand of these Christians. Their chief is the Abba Yahiyya (father John), who can recite the succession of teachers through nearly sixty generations to- Isa, son of Mary, of ‘Nazara’, the Kashmiri.

 

According to these people, Jesus escaped from the cross, was hidden by friends and was helped to flee to India where he had been before during his youth, and settled in Kashmir where he is revered as an ancient teacher, Yuz Asaf. It is from this period of the supposed life of Jesus that these people claim to have got their message.

 

I had several conversations with the Abba though, not unnaturally if his story was true, there were few points on Christian doctrine as we know it today which we could recognize.

 

The Abba lived on a farm, and like all the ‘Christian’ says that their teacher stipulated that his followers should always have a worldly vocation. Jesus, according to this community, was a carpenter and also a shepherd. He had the power to perform miracles, and he did indeed ‘die for the sake of his people’. This death, astonishingly enough, is not the death generally assumed. The death was a real one, but it took place long before Jesus started his mission, and it was as a result of this experience that he met God and was sent back to mankind to warn them of their possible fate if they did not seek love and truth.

 

The ‘Traditions of the Masih’ (anointed one) is the holy book of the community. They do not believe in the New Testament, or, rather, they say that these Traditions are the New Testament, and that the Gospels which we have are partly true but generally written by people who did not understand the teachings of the Master.

 

Abba Yahiyya, a towering figure with the face of a saint, was certainly an erudite man, and he knew his own scriptures, plus a great deal of the Jewish writings, very well indeed. He had heard of the teachings of the ‘heretics’ as he called what we would call the various sects of Christians known to us; and he wanted no part of it.

 

‘My son’, he said, in his softly accented Persian, ‘these people are reading and repeating a part of the story. They have completely misunderstood the message. We have the story told us by the Master, and through Him we will be saved and made whole. Some of the events in that document which you call the Bible are true, but a great deal is made up or imagined or put in for less than worthy reasons. Isa lived for over thirty years after the materials you have were completed, and He told us what was true.”

 

Briefly, the doctrine is that Jesus was the Son of God because He had attained that rank through his goodness and sacrifices, just like someone gets the appellation of twin to someone similar to him despite not sharing the same womb at the same time. Thus, he had a revered position and status.

So, Jesus, or YUSU or Isa (as) succeeded in his mission and found along his way until his death in Kashmir, India, the lost generations of the Children of Hazrat Yaqub (as) who was himself a twin. These children were divided and sub-divided into several tribes and groups and most of them later on became Muslims. 

Hazrat Isa (as) was respected as a great master and prophet, and Alhamdulillah, through divine revelations and the discoveries which researchers have made, it is clear that Jesus came to India and travelled within the continent until his final days in Kashmir where he was later on buried in ROZA BAL. And Jesus did not remain celibate throughout his existence on earth. He married and had children, and now, unbeknownst to many, the descendants of Isa (as) have filled the earth, many of whom became Muslims. [Inset: Interior of Roza Bal shrine.]

 

Now, it is the time for the rise of the true teachings of Jesus (as), now is the rise of Islam, the true way of life of Jesus (as). May Allah unveil more truths on his existence on earth and his works, and may Allah reinforce our Islam and faith in Him and the glorious Quran. Insha-Allah, Ameen.

---Friday Sermon of 23 December 2022~28 Jamadi’ul Awwal 1444 AH delivered by Hazrat Khalifatullah Munir A. Azim (aba) of Mauritius.