Did Jesus (as) die on the cross?

No. Jesus (as) was put on the cross, but he did not die there. God saved him, and he went on living afterwards.

The Holy Qur’an does not say that no one put Jesus (as) on the cross. It says that the plan failed. His enemies wanted to kill him by crucifixion, and that is exactly what did not happen. If someone survives an attempt on his life and dies a natural death many years later, nobody would say he was murdered.

Much of the evidence is found in the New Testament itself. On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus (as) prayed for a long time that God would take this bitter cup away from him, and he asked his disciples to pray with him. If he had wanted to give up his life willingly, there would have been no need for this prayer. God answers the prayer of a prophet.

The course of events points the same way. Jesus (as) hung on the cross for only a few hours, from the afternoon until before sunset, while death on a cross usually took days. His legs were not broken, unlike those of the two men crucified with him. When his side was pierced, blood and water flowed out, which one would not expect from a dead body. He was then laid in a spacious tomb and treated with an ointment used for healing wounds.

Jesus (as) himself had compared his fate to that of the prophet Jonah, who entered the belly of the fish alive and came out alive. After he was saved, he showed himself to his disciples with the same wounds, avoided the public and travelled on to seek the lost sheep of Israel. As the verse above says, God had saved him from death on the cross.