Forgiving Sins: How Jesus Explains an Ismaili Muslim Practice

Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ forgave his people's sins just as Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾ forgives the Jamat's sins today

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Everyday in the Ismaili Jamatkhana, the Ismaili congregation (gat-jamat) calls out to the Imam of the Time and asks for his forgiveness of their sins in the giryah-u zari tasbih:

Ya Ali, Tu Gat Jamat Mathe Rahem Kari,
Gat Jamatja Kul Gunah Ma‘af Karie

Translation:

O ‘Ali, may you have mercy upon the Jamat,
May you forgive all the sins of the Jamat.

Asking the Imam to forgive our sins is an age-old Shi‘i Ismaili Muslim practice. The Fatimid court poet Ibn Hani al-Andalusi (936-973) mentions in his poetry that God forgives those whom the Imam forgives (The Shimmering Light: An Anthology of Ismaili Poetry, 34). Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 1274) of Alamut mentions that the Nizari Ismailis address prayers of repentance and forgiveness to the Imam of the Time (The Paradise of Submission, 127).

In recent decades, however, this established Ismaili practice of devotion and loyalty to the Imam of the Time has come under increased attack and scrutiny, from Wahhabi-influenced Sunnis and theologically illiterate Ismailis. Such people object to the Imam’s ability to forgive sins by arguing that: a) only God can forgive sins; b) the Imam forgives sins in Ismaili practice; therefore, c) Ismailis inappropriately attribute to the Imam something that is the prerogative of God alone.

While a full-length article on this topic is forthcoming, in this short piece, we will show how the practice of asking the Prophet (ﷺ) or Imam of the Time to forgive sins goes back to the time of Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾.

Below are two excerpts from the New Testament Gospels in which Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ forgives the sins of a paralyzed man and heals him:

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

Gospel of Mark 2:1-10

Jesus got into a boat, crossed the sea, and came to his own city. Some people brought him a paralyzed man on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Cheer up, friend! Your sins are forgiven.” Then some of the experts in Moses’ Teachings thought, “He’s dishonoring God.” Jesus knew what they were thinking. He asked them, “Why are you thinking evil things? Is it easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” So the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe and praised God for giving such authority to humans.

Gospel of Matthew 9:1-7

In both passages, Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ forgives the sins of a paralyzed man and informs him that “your sins are forgiven.” In response, certain Jewish scribes and scholars objected to Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ saying: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ This objection is exactly the same as what many people claim today: “But only God can forgive sins.” However, Jesus Christ⁽ᶜ⁾ (Nabi ‘Isa) refuted their objection when he said: “I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

In other words, Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ affirmed his divine authorization to forgive sins as a human being whom God invested with His authority. The concept of “Son of Man” in Second Temple Judaism refers to a special human being that God has chosen, appointed, and granted His authority to. In fact, the Gospel authors understood the Jesus’⁽ᶜ⁾ forgiveness of sins to mean that God had bestowed special authority upon human beings. The Gospel of Matthew states: “When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe and praised God for giving such authority to humans.”

Thus, the Son of Man forgiving sins does not mean he is equal or identical to God. It simply means that whatever the Son of Man does is representative of God’s will and command based on the authority that God has delegated to him. The Qur’an depicts the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) having the same authority as Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ in his role as the Son of Man: “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God” (Qur’an 4:80).

Recent New Testament scholarship concurs that Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ forgiving sins does not make Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ identical to God; it only means that Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ is specially appointed and authorized by God. Steven Nemes writes: “Neither the crowds nor Matthew himself understood Jesus to be claiming God’s nature for himself but rather only God’s authorization to forgive. Yet clearly God himself does not need authorization to do anything.” (Nemes, Trinity and Incarnation, 144).

J. R. Daniel Kirk analyzed these passages in detail and offered the following conclusions:

“[I]n Mark’s story, the scribes are wrong because they do not recognize Jesus as someone that God has uniquely appointed to exercise God’s rule on earth - even the prerogative of removing sins. As Adela Yarbro Collins puts it, ‘the force of this saying, in the context of the paralytic and in the context of the collection as a whole, was that Jesus has the power to forgive sins because he is the chief agent of God’.

Thus, readers of Mark’s Gospel already know that in this story human agents are capable of acting on God’s behalf to perform the work necessary for sins to be forgiven… the narrator of Mark signals that being an agent of the removal of sins on earth is not an agency reserved for God alone (or a god incarnate).

Forgiveness of sins is, in fact, a divine prerogative, but it is one whose mechanisms are, at times, mediated by human activities on earth.

Authority to act for God, even in the divine prerogative of establishing forgiveness of sins, does not indicate ontological divinity or preexistence.”

J.R. Daniel Kirk, A Man Attested by God, 274-279

Medieval Sunni Muslim scholars also presented a similar interpretation of Jesus’⁽ᶜ⁾ forgiveness of sins in the Gospels. Najm al-Din al-Tufi (d. 1316) composed a commentary on the Gospel accounts mentioned above. In his comments, al-Tufi argued that Jesus’⁽ᶜ⁾ act of forgiving sins does NOT entail that Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ must be God.

“On the contrary, the messengers of God, the Glorified, on earth convey from God what He reveals unto them. Thus, they are in the position of His deputies among His creation, and His representatives… Thus, (Christ) informed him about it, attributing the act to himself on the basis that his own judgement is judgement of God and judgement of God is his judgement. It is also conceivable that he was authorised to pass judgment on the basis of his being supported by infallibility. Hence, he attributed the act to himself, because he alone on earth possessed the right to judge, while He Who appointed him as a deputy is in heaven.

[I]t is not right to conclude that anyone who rightly assumes the responsibility of forgiving sins is a god in any respect, but rather it is a condition that he be independent, and that no other judge exists above him. Moreover, his speech contains that which precludes his (divine) sonship, namely, his words: ‘that the Son of Man has authority to forgive.’ Thus, he indicates by the fact of his being the Son of Man, that he is neither a god nor the son of a god.”

Najm al-Din al-Tufi, tr. Lejla Demiri, Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Cairo, 2013, 248-249.

Al-Tufi’s main argument, from a Sunni perspective, is that the mere fact that a human being forgives people’s sins does NOT necessitate that they are God or a partner with God. This is because true divinity requires ontological independence and Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ does not forgive people’s sins as an independent agent; rather, Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾forgave sins as a deputy appointed by God and whose powers derive from God - this being indicated by Jesus’⁽ᶜ⁾ own statement referring to himself as “Son of Man”: “I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

Therefore, the next time someone attacks the Ismaili Imam’s practice of forgiving the sins as a type of shirk or attributing divinity to the Imam, the above example of Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ forgiving sins as a human being appointed by God as His deputy should be presented to them. Mawlana Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾, as the religious successor of both Jesus⁽ᶜ⁾ and Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), holds the divine authorization to forgive people’s sins as God’s vicegerent (khalifat Allah) on earth. The Imam’s forgiveness of sins conveys and represents God’s forgiveness of sins. Mawlana Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾ possesses the power to forgive sins as a capacity bestowed upon him by God, not as an independent agent.

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