Allah says in the Quran, “˹They were condemned˺ for breaking their covenant, rejecting Allah’s signs, killing the prophets unjustly, and for saying, ‘Our hearts are unreceptive!’—it is Allah Who has sealed their hearts for their disbelief, so they do not believe except for a few—and for their denial and outrageous accusation against Mary, and for boasting, ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.’ But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so. Even those who argue for this ˹crucifixion˺ are in doubt. They have no knowledge whatsoever—only making assumptions. They certainly did not kill him. Rather, Allah raised him up to Himself. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wise” (Quran 4:155-158).
From reading these verses, one might wonder why Allah would make it look like Jesus PBUH was crucified. First of all, what we say as Muslims is that Allah, Glorified and Exalted, has Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge and He does things because He wants to and He knows what He is doing. However, this action is clearly the fault of those Jews. Do people really blame Allah for saving His Prophet from being killed by the hands of the disbelievers? The Jews tried to kill him, so why would Allah not want to save Jesus? Additionally, it is clear from history that there were very early Christian writings and Christians that believed Jesus was a Prophet and didn’t believe that he had died (Muslims would believe that these “Christians” would actually be called Muslims since they submitted to God and followed their Prophet, but I will call them Christians here for argument’s sake). For example, the Ebionites (years 30-80 C.E.), who were among the very earliest Christian people, believed that Jesus was just a Messiah and Prophet of God, and that the one true God is The Father. This is essentially what Muslims believe. In fact, in the first 300 years of Christianity, there is not a single church father that believed in the trinity, not a single one! So saying that Allah helped start the religion of Christianity is a baseless claim, as many early Christians who believed in the true teachings of Jesus Christ knew who he was only a Prophet (it was not until hundreds of years later in 325 C.E. that the Council of Nicea officially voted and agreed that Jesus was co-equal to God), and those who tried to kill Jesus PBUH were already disbelievers. To add on to all of this, if Allah showed Jesus being raised to the heavens instead of making it appear like he died, it would have been very likely for the the people to be misguided even more and think that Jesus is God and Divine all along. So to conclude, there are many wisdoms behind the decisions of Allah that people can’t comprehend, but it is very clear that this action was the fault of those Jews who tried to kill Jesus PBUH, and Allah protected his Prophet from the disbelievers.
And Allah knows best.