Evangelist Noah Ezekiel, in a Facebook Live video, challenged Muslims to prove that Jesus was not crucified. In his defense, he displayed a text on the screen from At-Tabari that read:
“According to Ibn Humayd – Ibn Ishaq – an impeccable authority – Wahb b. Munabbih al-Yamani: GOD ALLOWED JESUS, THE SON OF MARY, TO DIE AT THREE O’CLOCK IN THE DAY; then He took him unto Himself.”
Noah, a recent sensational Christian apologist, has been reading from Sam Shamoun and got his argument from this article: https://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/tabari_on_jesus.htm
When Muslims debate Christian apologists, we reference their Bibles without asking them to defend the Gospel of Barnabas or the Apocalypse of Peter. At-Tabari is an historian, and his works include narrations from different perspectives, including Jewish narrations.
Noah, who posits himself as an authority in Islam, suggests that we must take the narrations in At-Tabari’s works as absolute, the same way we take the Quran and authentic hadiths. However, At-Tabari’s works provide different accounts, similar to the Bible.
Unfortunately for Noah, Wahb b. Munabbih al-Yamani from is known for narrating hadiths and historical reports but is considered controversial due to concerns about his reliability. He was famous for his knowledge of Isrā’īliyyāt—narrations derived from Jewish and Christian traditions.
Reliability in Hadith and History
Not a hadith authority: Most hadith scholars, including al-Bukhari and Muslim, did not include his reports in their collections.
Biblical Stories: He was widely referenced by early historians, especially for biblical parallels in Islamic narratives.
Isrā’īliyyāt: Some scholars, like Ibn Taymiyyah, warned against relying too much on his reports without verification from Islamic sources.
If Noah wants to debate Muslims, he must make serious research and stop relying on near Islamic apocryphals to build his arguments. In shaa Allah, he will be met with constant refutation going forward.
Bashir Lucas Samson Lukman
KnowIslam Project
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