بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
والصلاة والسلام عليك يا رسول الله
In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful
The heretical Batinis—Ismailis who deny the apparent meaning of the Scripture and the Sharia in favor of a far-fetched esoteric meaning—have inherited their theology from the ancient Gnostic heresy in early Christendom. This is particularly true with regard to Christology (the nature of Christ) and the reality of his crucifixion. Khalil Andani, a contemporary Ismaili—Aga Khani apologist, says, “Christ’s soul, as the manifestation of his divine nature (lahut), could not be killed and this is what the Qur’an speaks of when it says ‘they killed him not, nor did they crucify him’...As the Isma‘ili thinkers argue, it was only the human body or the nasut of Jesus that was killed and crucified upon the Cross while the eternal reality or lahut of Christ can never be killed or crucified. In other words, the historical Jesus may have died but the eternal Christ is ever-living (Andani, Khalil. The Crucifixion in Shi’a Isma’ili Islam, 2011).
If the terms lahut and nasut confuse you, Andani has thankfully explained them, “The idea of Christ possessing two natures is not at all foreign to Christianity. While the schools of Islamic thought and mysticism speak of the nasut and the lahut, traditional Christology sees Christ as both fully human and fully divine. Theological differences notwithstanding, it is not difficult to see that the nasut and lahut of Islamic thought correspond to the human nature and divine nature of traditional Christology.” (ibid) He goes on to explain how the Ismailis deny the physical, corporeal ascension of Jesus to Heaven, “There was a tendency among some Qur’anic commentators to read ‘raising up’ to mean that God literally took Jesus’ physical body to Heaven and that He will return him to earth before the Day of Judgment. However, there are no other Qur’anic verses using the same Arabic word rafa‘a which can support such a reading. God does not reside in a physically ‘high place’ and thus there is no question of an object being literally ‘raised up’ to Him. The word rafa‘a is never used in the sense of heavenly ascent or miraj. On the contrary, it is used in the sense of God honouring and exalting His Messengers or other objects in greatness and spiritual status” (ibid)
The Gnostic text called the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, discovered at Nag Hammadi, describes a vision of Peter in which he says, “I saw him as if he was seized by them, and I said: ‘What is it that I see, O Lord? Is it you yourself whom they take and are you grasping me? Or, who is the one who is glad and who is laughing above the wood and do they hit another one on his feet and on his hands?’ The Saviour said to me: ‘The one you see glad and laughing above the wood, that is the Living One, Jesus. But the one into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute. They put to shame that which has come into existence after his likeness. But look at him and at me.’ But when I had looked, I said: ‘Lord, nobody is looking at you. Let us run from this place.’ But he said to me: ‘I told you, Leave blind ones alone. And you, see how they do not know what they say. For the son of their glory instead of my servant they have put to shame.’ But I saw someone who intended to approach us, who looked like him and like the one who was laughing above the wood. He was woven in a holy Spirit, and he is the Saviour. And there was a great ineffable light surrounding them and the multitude of ineffable and invisible angels, blessing them. And I, I saw that the one who glorifies was revealed. But he said to me: ‘Be strong, because you are the one to whom these mysteries are given to know them openly, that the one who was nailed is the firstborn and the house of the demons; and the vessel of stone in which they live—of Elohim, of the cross, which is under the law. But he who stands near him is the living Saviour, he who was in him before, (in) the one who was seized and he was released, while he is standing gladly because he sees that those who have treated him violently, are divided among themselves. Therefore, he laughs about their inability to see. For he knows that they are born blind. So, the one who suffers shall stay (behind) because the body is the substitute. The one who is released is my incorporeal body. I am the intellectual Spirit which is filled with radiant light. The one you saw coming towards me is our intellectual Pleroma who unites the perfect light with my holy Spirit.’”
To summarize, the Gnostic belief that while Jesus’s human body died, his eternal spiritual self was a separate being that was released from that body before it was crucified and killed. And the Batini Ismailis believe essentially the same thing.
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