For Akram, Jesus was a “man without a father,” whose extraordinary life served to remind lapsed believers of God’s power: “God made every single thing in Jesus’ life against the norm. His entrance in this world—against the norm.” His exit, too. He did not die upon the Cross, as the Bible says, but was raised to heaven alive. As Akram explained it, Christ’s would-be killers “were confused.” The Quran’s language is more formal: “They did not crucify him, although it was made to seem thus to them.”
