from it until the sun began to decline; then it would fly away while they watched beneath its shadow, until it disappeared from them. It would descend on alternate days: descending one day and not descending the next, like the she-camel of Thamud. Then Allah Most High revealed to Jesus (1): “Make My table and My provision for the poor rather than the rich.” This distressed the rich greatly, until they began to doubt it and to cast doubt about it among the people. They said, “Do you really think that the table is descending from heaven?”
Allah Most High then revealed to Jesus: “I stipulated that whoever disbelieves after it has descended, I will punish him with a punishment unlike any I have inflicted upon anyone in all the worlds.” Jesus said, “If You punish them, they are Your servants; but if You forgive them, then You alone are the Almighty, the All-Wise.”
Three hundred and thirty men among them were transformed. They went to sleep that night in their beds with their wives, and in the morning they had become swine, roaming through the streets and rubbish heaps and eating filth in the latrines. When the people saw this, they fled in alarm to Jesus and wept. When the swine saw Jesus, they too wept and began circling around him. Jesus called them by their names, and they nodded their heads and wept, unable to speak. They lived for three days, then perished.
“And when Allah will say, ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people, “Take me and my mother as two gods besides Allah”?’ He will say, ‘Glory be to You! It was not for me to say what I had no right to say. Had I said it, You would surely have known it. You know what is within me, whereas I do not know what is within Yourself. Indeed, You alone are the Knower of all unseen.’ (116) I told them nothing except what You commanded me: “Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.” I was a witness over them as long as I remained among them; but when You took me, You were the Watcher over them. And You are a Witness over all things. (117) If You punish them, they are Your servants; but if You forgive them, then You alone are the Almighty, the All-Wise. (118)”
Allah’s statement: “And when Allah will say, ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people, “Take me and my mother as two gods besides Allah”?’” The scholars differed as to when this statement will occur. Al-Suddi said: Allah Most High said this to Jesus when He raised him up to heaven, because the particle idh is used for the past. The rest of the commentators said: Rather, Allah will say this to him on the Day of Resurrection, as indicated by His earlier statement (2): “On the Day when Allah gathers the messengers” (al-Ma'idah, 109). After this, He says: “This is the Day when the truthful will benefit from their truthfulness” (al-Ma'idah, 119). By both verses, He means the Day of Resurrection. The particle idh may also carry the meaning of idha, as in His statement: “If only you could see when they are terrified”—that is, when they are terrified on the Day of Resurrection (3). Although the Resurrection has not yet occurred, it is as though it has already taken place, for it will inevitably come.
His statement: “Did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods besides Allah’?” If it is asked: What is the purpose of this question when Allah, exalted is He, knows that Jesus did not say this?
It is said: He asked him this question in order to rebuke his people and to magnify the gravity of this statement. It is like one person saying to another, “Did you do such-and-such...”