Who Forgives

If a child dies before puberty, do they go right to heaven? According to the tradition, Abraham takes care of the children who die — the children whose parents are destined for paradise; Abraham takes care of those children, in what is called his ḥabānah.

And when the woman came, was that forgiveness from Muhammad (peace be upon him)? It was not Muhammad (peace be upon him); he cannot forgive. It is not as in the Christian tradition, where there are some verses that would indicate that Jesus said: go and sin no more, for you are forgiven. And that was seen as a kind of blasphemy by the Jews. From the Muslim point of view they would say: Allah knows. If that is a true account of Jesus, they would say that that is not Jesus forgiving, but rather God revealing to him that the woman's actions were forgiven. Because the Prophet (peace be upon him) did tell people that they were forgiven, but he does not forgive: the Prophet (peace be upon him) does not absolve people's sins. It is God alone who forgives.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) is seen as a human being. He is a man. He does not have divinity; he is a human being like the rest of us in his human nature, but not like the rest of us in that he is a prophet. So, as some of them said, a ruby is a rock, but it is not like other rocks; it is a mineral, but it is not like other minerals.