1. The Meaning of Innī Mutawaffīka

Javed Ahmed Ghamidi has interpreted the term ‘إِنِّي مُتَوَفِّيك’ – ‘Innī Mutawaffīka’ - (‘I will cause you to die’) in Surah Aale Imran to mean ‘death.’ According to him, the meanings of the words in this verse, the composition of its sentences, its contextual usage, and the references and evidences found in the Qur’an, all indicate that the word ‘tawaffā’ is used here in the sense of death. To interpret it as meaning ‘to take someone in full’ (without death) is incorrect in this context.^[100] Hence, in his exegesis Al-Bayan, the translation of the mentioned verse is as follows:

وَمَكَرُوْا وَمَكَرَ اللّٰهُ وَاللّٰهُ خَيْرُ الْمٰكِرِيْنَ . اِذْ قَالَ اللّٰهُ يٰعِيْسٰ٘ي اِنِّيْ مُتَوَفِّيْكَ وَرَافِعُكَ اِلَيَّ وَمُطَهِّرُكَ مِنَ الَّذِيْنَ كَفَرُوْا وَجَاعِلُ الَّذِيْنَ اتَّبَعُوْكَ فَوْقَ الَّذِيْنَ كَفَرُوْ٘ا اِلٰي يَوْمِ الْقِيٰمَةِ ثُمَّ اِلَيَّ مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَاَحْكُمُ بَيْنَكُمْ فِيْمَا كُنْتُمْ فِيْهِ تَخْتَلِفُوْنَ.

[This is what happened] and the Israelites started to devise covert schemes [against him] and [in response] God also devised a hidden scheme and in such scheming God is the best.

At that time when God said: ‘Jesus, I have decided to give you death and lift you up to Myself and I shall purify you from these who have disbelieved in you and shall grant your followers supremacy over these disbelievers until the Day of Judgement. Then to Me finally you shall all have to return. So, at that time, I shall give verdict on what you have been differing in’. (3:54-55)