you do not understand islam nor the verse you're quoting. You think you do right now, but ill explain it with more clarity to you shortly.
A few things..
historically muslims were the majority with a christian minority. so debates or any type of dialogue on such topics, was bound to be too easily skewed and never truely open and honest, nor well researched. However even so there have been many muslims who openly spoke in terms that show they clearly believed in the crucifixion. it's just that their voice is filtered out over time by the opposition. so in a sense islam's true position on this topic was hijacked by a mob.
in the post modern secular english speaking world, the likes of Ahmed Deedat appeared. whatever their original ideald and intentions, they were only human and prone to mistakes like anyone. This is before we could just google for information...and plus when they were debating, there's always going to be some ego involved.
just give you an example of how Ahmad Deedat was wrong on a few things
-he quoted the hebrew word 'machmad' in the Song of Songs and said 'that's MOHAMMED!!!ITS A PROPHECY!!!' (it wasnt, he was wrong).
-he quoted deuteronomy 18:18 and said the word 'brethren' meant 'ishmaelites, as brothers of isaac's line' therefore the implication being that this verse was another reference to MOHAMMED.
He was of course totally wrong. the word was 'ummati' translated as 'brethren'. ummati being an arabic word aswell, means 'someone from our NATION'. hence deuteronomy 18:18 was a reference to israelite prophets not any gentile (not forgetting it was already given to Jesus in the NT),
-he saw the word 'camels' in a random isaiah prophecy and said 'that's MOHAMMED/ISLAM'.
again, he was wrong. so just because he was a cool guy with a cool accent and some eloquence, a great memory otherwise...and was debating total dingbats, it doesnt mean he was right on those topics, so why would he be right on the crucifixion topic? afterall all of these assumptions are based on his work. However his work was made popular due to mass printing and digital media and then guys like zakir naik parroted him and tried to profit heavily off the genre.
now ive said that, ill just break this down simply..
1) islam says this about martyrs
And call not those who are slain in the way of Allah "dead." Nay, they are living, only ye perceive not.
(سورة البقرة, Al-Baqara, Chapter #2, Verse #154)
have a little think on this. People who have physically died a martyrs death...are alive. they only appear dead to our external sense perception.
but how and why?
this requires a little deeper understanding of the self. Death and passing away are not the same. martyrs pass away but do not die. DEATH occurs when our carnal nature, the serpent within us, is BOUND to the grave and suffers according tot he extent of our carnal attachments, till the day of judgement. This imprisonment is DEATH.
In islamic hadith this carnal nature, the serpent, is described as a '99 headed snake that torments you in the grave'.
The period between death/passing away and judgement day, is called Barzakh and is the same as sheol/hades.
Now martyrs, at least the true martyrs, their carnal attachments are severed when they die in God's cause, as in they gave up all their earthly attachments for a cause and hence they are not bound to the grave. They pass away (appear dead to the eye) but their souls are free/alive in barzakh.
2) i could of course argue that there are various verses and hadith which prove the Torah and Gospel ARE 'THE WORD OF GOD!!' and as ive said, any reference to 'corruption' was only about the interpretations and translations, esp those translations written by rabbis in arabia and shared with muslims in a time when muslims were in a state of conflict already. As such, if the bible says he was crucified, im not going to question that. Rather, i will try to understand the Quranic verse 4:157 in light of what was already given in the Bible.
simple
-the sadducees were the ones who denied life after death and the resurrection. they only believe in sheol, the underworld..and that we all go there.
-the sadducees were the biggest driving force behind the crucifixion. The pharisees may have clashed with Jesus but they could not directly disagree with his thinking. they knew he was right but were opposed to him out of their own attachments to their position. The sadducees however straight up hated Jesus and wanted him dead.
So when the Quranic verse says 'they said in BOAST' it is not just any kind of reference to any kind of jew, it is specific to the true context, the sadducees. Thus knowing the sadducees denied the afterlife completely, the Quran highlights how Jesus 'appeared dead' (to them, in their perception) but they were wrong, he wasnt dead nor was he crucified.
makes sense to me, Jesus being the LOGOS at the highest point..and a martyr at the lowest...either one, how could he DIE?
so the Quran is right.
3) if you say
'but the verse says specifically
'but they killed him not, nor crucified him'', then you'll be misquoting it. That is what muslims have been doing, guys like ahmed deedat.
as ive said, it begins with 'they said in boast' and so the rest is related to this story.
4) just to give you an example of how some muslims have manouvered around this topic through utter deception.
-some read the gnostic apocalypse of peter
The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."
so what did they do with this? they went as far as WRITING THE QURAN WITH THEIR OWN HANDS!! like this
this here is the mOHSIN KHAN translation of the verse
And because of their saying (in boast), "We killed Messiah 'Îsa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), the Messenger of Allah," - but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but it appeared so to them [the resemblance of 'Îsa (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man)], and those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no (certain) knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not [i.e. 'Îsa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary) عليهما السلام]:
(سورة النساء, An-Nisaa, Chapter #4, Verse #157)
so you cant tell me that by differing from these regular dufus muslims, im the one who is sidelined and wrong. im speaking honesty here. this verse translation contains the actual misinterpretations of a stupid man, whoever he was. this 'mob' has influenced hundreds of millions of muslims. so by this stage, its fair to say the majority of muslims will continue believing what they believe, because it's hard to stop a moving train...
im one guy, but there are thousands who prob repeat this crappy lie every single hour of the day.
-another example was that muslims clearly forged a book called 'the gospel of barnabas'. i dont need to get into specifics, its a muslim created forgery.
-going back to the actual gnostic text
The Apocalypse of Peter, from The Nag Hammadi Library. This site includes the entire Nag Hammadi Library, as well as a large collection of other primary Gnostic scriptures and documents.
gnosis.org
even though im sure you reject gnosticism, the text itself actually doesnt even imply what that idiot mohsin khan and others assumed (eg that another man, maybe even judas, decided to take on a physical transformation and appeared to look like Jesus to con the jews). the 'substitute' was the physical body itself, as a substitute of the spiritual body 'made in it's likeness'.
i dont believe the physical world is hell, indeed the body is called 'temple of God'. However typically when we speak of the physical body and the world we're talking about the FLESH/sin.
islam has a lot of material on the subject of 'dying before death' as in spiritual martydom. not just martydom in battle, but to kill the nafs/ego/flesh before physically passing away. on that theme.
ive touched on this before..you think islam is just slavery/under the law. However ISLAM is only the second level of faith. The word 'islam' is just adopted as the name of the whole religion, but the religion really has islam as the second of three stages. The first is iman (belief where one is still sinful and ruled by the flesh). Islam is submission to the will of God, but the highest level is IHSAN. Long story short, ihsan is that level Jesus was preaching. the SINGLE EYE, to see God in all things (not literally)..and that means to not even leave room for the 'self'. So of course islam has a lot of history with this topic. So this topic is not something new. it's just that muslim-christian dialogue is a seperate genre and typically muslims from one field dont get involved in another.
islam is also very very diverse in all other fields. its just that with the dawah stuff with christians, int he modern contexts it is monopolised by a very small few who got the benefits of the age we live in. past generations didnt have those advantages so it wasnt monopolised before.
maybe you just arent that away of muslim diversity in terms of our interpretations and world view?
5) lastly, no, there is no taqqiyah eitherway. i explained what taqqiyah really means and the context it relates to.
when you run out of arguments you just say 'oh your lying about your faith'
im in no fear of you, we're online, we both hold secular values and this isnt the 7th century.
taqqiyah itself in its original quranic context was not merely about dialogue between muslims and people of the book, in matters of faith. it was about all areas of life..for muslims to just be on their guard against non-muslims who would be a threat to them.
being on our guard doesnt mean weve got license to lie..it just means we're not going to be as trusting of you.
for example, if i was in the holy land, jerusalem.i would be on my guard against israelis. afterall they've killed muslims before there and will do it again im sure. if im on a forum like this, why would i need to be on my guard against you? lol im calling you 'xtians' so clearly im not on my guard.