After we finished, in the previous studies, plumbing the depths of the dominion-related station of the greatest Messenger of Allah and the seal of the prophets, Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), and clarifying his existential rank that made him the cause of lowering and raising and the intermediary of the divine effusion for the worlds, we deemed it a doctrinal and epistemic necessity to follow that with an exposition on transcending all the previous prophets and messengers (peace be upon them).

For the station of prophethood is one in its essence and its responsibility, and the preservation of the station of the seal is not completed except by preserving the awe and stations of his brethren among the prophets and messengers; for casting doubt upon the purity of one of them is a breach in the general wall of prophethood, and a demolition of the divine exemplarity that Allah made a proof over His creation.

Here it must be pointed out, historically and scholarly, that this detailed method of dismantling the ambiguous verses and defending the prophets is not the offspring of wandering conclusions; it is derived and founded entirely from the debates of the scholar of the Family of Muhammad, Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Rida (148–203 AH / 765–818 CE) (peace be upon him), in the assembly of the Abbasid al-Ma’mun (170–218 AH / 786–833 CE); where the Imam laid down the great exegetical and linguistic rules upon which the Shia scholars, one and all, built their demonstrations, which we dismantle in this article.

---

1. The Rational and Transmitted Demonstrations of the Household (AS) in Establishing Infallibility

The Imams of the Household (AS) were distinguished by laying down solid evidentiary rules relying on the firm Quranic text and the pure rational entailments to refute any falsehood attributed to the prophets, and these demonstrations manifested clearly in the argumentations of Imam al-Rida (AS) against his adversaries:

1. The Demonstration of the Necessity of Absolute Obedience and the Impossibility of Contradiction

The Imams (AS) argued by the verses commanding obedience, such as His saying, exalted is He:

“Obey Allah and obey the Messenger.”

• The point of rational inference: the divine command to obey the prophets came absolute, general, and without restriction. So were it possible for the prophet to err or disobey, the responsible persons would fall into a rationally impossible contradiction; for their compliance with the prophet in the case of his error would mean obedience to disobedience, which is impossible because Allah does not command indecency, while their opposing him would mean breaking the divine command of absolute obedience to him. So that the purpose of obligation may be sound, it is by rational necessity that the prophet must be infallible and purified, from whom nothing issues but the truth.

2. The Demonstration of “Allah’s Covenant Does Not Reach the Wrongdoers”

This is the demonstration upon which the Imams (AS) focused, relying on His saying, exalted is He, to Abraham (AS):

“He said: I will make you a leader (imam) for the people. He said: And of my progeny? He said: My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers.”

• The point of inference: disobedience and sin, in the Quranic logic, are explicit “wrongdoing” — either against the self or against the truth. And the verse decisively negates that Allah’s covenant — that is, prophethood, the message, and the imamate — should reach anyone who was clothed in wrongdoing at any moment of his life. So the prophets, since they attained this covenant, are infallible from wrongdoing and disobedience in their essence throughout the course of their lives.

3. The Demonstration of Satan’s Incapacity (the Exception of the Sincere)

The Quran related the explicit admission of Iblis:

“He said: By Your might, I will surely misguide them all, except Your sincere servants among them.”

• The point of inference: Satan admitted the severing of his ruse and the falling away of his instruments of whispering at the station of “the sincere” (al-mukhlasin) — that is, those whom Allah purified for Himself. And the prophets are the cream of the purified vanguard by the text of the verses; accordingly, it is impossible, existentially and legislatively, for Satan to penetrate to their will so as to make them fall into disobedience or slip.

---

2. The Existential Philosophical View of Infallibility

The philosophers and sages of the Shia did not stop at the limits of the theological proofs; they anatomized infallibility as an “existential reality” and a dominating epistemic faculty, drawing inspiration from the epistemic depth transmitted from Imam al-Rida (AS):

1. Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi (Mulla Sadra, 979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE): The Faculty of the Immateriality of the Holy Soul

The founder of the Transcendent Philosophy holds that infallibility is not an external compulsion that abolishes the prophet’s choice; it is a firmly-rooted psychic faculty arising from the immateriality of the prophet’s soul and its connection with the “Active Intellect” (the Holy Spirit).

And since disobedience arises, philosophically, from the predominance of the bodily powers — such as desire and anger — over the rational power, then the soul of the prophet, which reached the rank of the holy luminous soul, was fully illuminated, so that the issuance of sin from it became impossible, on account of the impossibility of the lofty intellect submitting to the dark desire.

2. Allamah al-Tabataba’i (1321–1402 AH / 1904–1981 CE): The Demonstration of Presential Witnessing Knowledge

The philosopher-exegete formulated the reality of infallibility through the nature of knowledge and awareness. The ordinary human disobeys because he falls into ignorance and heedlessness, where he sees in the sin a “temporary pleasure” and the punishment becomes absent from him.

As for the prophet, his knowledge is divinely-granted and presential; he witnesses the realities of things and their dominion; he sees the sin in its existential reality as the eating of embers or the gulping of deadly poison. And just as the ordinary human is “necessarily” infallible from throwing himself into the fire, on account of his decisive knowledge of the destruction, so the prophet is infallible from sin because his existential vision of the corruptions prevents his will from turning toward ugliness absolutely.

3. The Chief Master Ibn Sina (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE) and the Investigator al-Tusi (597–672 AH / 1201–1274 CE): The Intuitive Power and the Obligatory Grace

Ibn Sina held that the prophets possess an extraordinary “intuitive power” that receives knowledge all at once, which renders their conceiving of vices impossible and inherently ugly. And Khwaja Nasir al-Din al-Tusi came to affirm that infallibility is a “divine grace” that reason makes obligatory for the preservation of the purpose of the sending, and that it arises from the purity of the prophet’s disposition, his knowledge of the corruptions of disobediences, and the support of the infallible angel for him.

---

3. Dismantling and Refuting the Objections and the Ambiguous Verses

The adopted method in repelling the objections rests on referring the ambiguous back to the firm, and understanding the eloquence of the language of the Arabs and its figurative usages. History records for al-Shaykh al-Saduq (306–381 AH / 918–991 CE), in the book Uyun Akhbar al-Rida, the great document, when the Abbasid al-Ma’mun (170–218 AH / 786–833 CE) asked Imam al-Rida (148–203 AH / 765–818 CE) (AS):

“O son of the Messenger of Allah, is it not your position that the prophets are infallible?”

He said:

“Yes.”

So al-Ma’mun began to survey the verses, and the Imam (AS) dismantled them verse by verse, as follows:

1. The Story of Adam (AS) and Eating from the Tree

• The objection: the inference from the outer sense of His saying:

“And Adam disobeyed his Lord, and so went astray.”

• The Ridawi dismantling and transcendence: Imam al-Rida (AS) clarified that the prohibition of the tree was a guiding prohibition, like the advice of a physician, not a legislative, authoritative one; for Paradise was not an abode of obligation and Sharia — rather obligation began after the descent. And “disobedience” (isyan), linguistically, is the failure to comply with the advice of the adviser, and the import of “so went astray” (fa-ghawa) is that his prosperous life was spoiled and his state was constricted by his going out to the toil of the earth. The Imam also clarified that his undertaking came after Iblis swore to him falsely, and Adam did not suppose that any of Allah’s creatures would swear by His name falsely.

2. The Story of Moses (AS) and the Killing of the Copt

• The objection: the inference from his saying:

“This is from the work of Satan.”

And his saying:

“I did it then, and I was of those who erred.”

• The Ridawi dismantling and transcendence: Imam al-Rida (AS) clarified that Moses (AS) did not intend deliberate killing at all; rather he intervened to aid an oppressed man seeking help, and he struck the Copt — that is, pushed him with his palm — to restrain him, and the man died accidentally on account of the weakness of his constitution. And his saying “this is from the work of Satan” is a reference to the strife and fighting occurring between the two men, not to his own act, or to the predicament and constriction that would give Pharaoh a pretext to pursue him. As for his saying “and I was of those who erred” (al-dallin), its eloquent meaning, by which the Imam brought out the truth, is “the heedless or those oblivious of the consequence”; that is: I did it while I did not know that this push would lead to his death — so “erring” (dalal) here is the absence from the consequence of the matter, not the erring of creed.

3. The Story of Jonah (AS) and the Departure from His People

• The objection: the inference from His saying:

“So he thought that We would not restrict him.”

And his admission:

“Indeed, I was of the wrongdoers.”

• The Ridawi dismantling and transcendence: the Imam (AS) clarified that Jonah did not become angry with his Lord; rather he became angry with his people on account of their obstinacy. And the Imam interpreted his saying “that We would not restrict him,” by recourse to the richness of the language, as derived from “al-qadr” in the sense of constriction, as in:

“Allah expands provision for whom He wills and restricts.”

That is: he thought that We would not constrict him with a confinement or a predicament for his going out without an explicit permission. And his admission of wrongdoing is the wronging of the self by leaving what was more fitting; that is: I brought myself into this straitness and constriction — the belly of the whale — by my haste, and it is not a legal sin.

4. The Objections Directed at the Infallibility of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

• The Verse of Forgiveness:

“That Allah may forgive you what preceded of your sin and what will follow.”

Imam al-Rida (AS) clarified in the assembly a detail that astonished those present: that the “sin” here is not a sin in the sight of Allah; it is the sin in the view of the polytheists of Quraysh, who saw in his call to Islam and his belittling of their gods an unforgivable crime and an old blood-feud. So Allah forgave him this “sin” by the conquest of Mecca, where their power vanished and they surrendered, so that they were no longer able to take him to task or seek vengeance from him.

• The Verse of Erring:

“And He found you astray and guided you.”

Imam al-Rida (AS) directed the nation to the fact that “erring” here means “obscurity, hiddenness, and being unknown,” so he said:

“He found you unknown and obscure among a people who did not recognize your merit, and He guided them to you.”

And it was also said in the school of the Family: He found you perplexed, thirsting to know the details of the Sharia and the rulings of the unseen, so He guided you by the revelation; for the Prophet was a complete monotheist from his childhood and was never clothed in any pre-Islamic ignorance (jahiliyya).

• The Verse of Pardon:

“May Allah pardon you; why did you give them permission?”

The Ridawi narrations mention that this eloquent style is called “opening the speech with supplication and honoring,” and it is for praise, not blame — as when you say: May Allah keep you well; why did you tire yourself and come to me? The Prophet’s permission to the hypocrites was in accordance with the complete welfare, on account of his knowledge of their hypocrisy, and the reproach is outward, to expose the ugliness of the hypocrites.

• The rule of the eloquent address: every verse whose outer sense is severe reproach, such as:

“If you associate others with Allah, your deed will surely become worthless.”

is subject to the great rule upon which the Imams (AS) proceeded:

“I mean you, O daughter; but listen, O neighbor.”

For the address is directed, in its outer sense, at the Prophet, to clarify the difficulty of the matter and the gravity of the responsibility, but the true intent and target of it is the nation and its flock; for the Prophet is transcendent, in his existence, above polytheism and ignorance.

---

4. The Doctrinal Uniqueness of the School of the Household (AS)

Whoever contemplates the map of religions and schools arrives at a shining truth: the school of the Household (AS), the Imami Shia, exclusively and singly undertook the absolute and rigorous defense of the infallibility of the prophets (AS).

If we look at the other heavenly religions, such as Judaism and Christianity, through the texts of the Old and New Testaments, we find that they attributed to the prophets grave enormities and abominations of conduct that make the brow sweat with shame. And if we turn to the other Sunni schools, we find that their creed deems permissible for the prophets minor sins — indeed some major sins before the sending — and they deemed permissible for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) severe forgetfulness, forgetting in prayer, and falling under the effect of magic; indeed they deemed permissible for him erroneous reasoning in legislation and politics, as in the story of the captives of Badr or the pollination of the date-palms, and they made Umar ibn al-Khattab (40 BH–23 AH / 584–644 CE) in some situations more correct in opinion than the infallible Messenger of Allah (PBUH).

The school of Shiism alone — through discipleship at the hand of Ali (23 BH–40 AH / 599–661 CE) (AS), al-Rida (148–203 AH / 765–818 CE) (AS), and the pure Imams (AS) — is the one that stood as an impregnable barrier, negating from the prophets and messengers (AS) every deficiency, every defilement, and every lapse or forgetfulness, manifesting the most complete divine beauty in His chosen elite, in safeguarding the absolute authority of the revelation.

---

Conclusion and Prelude to the Coming Study

By reaching this epistemic station, we have, by the praise of Allah and His granting of success, firmly fastened another link in the chain of these great doctrinal studies; where the demonstrations settled and the proofs were consolidated for establishing the foundation of prophethood and the message, erecting the towering stations of the prophets and messengers (AS), stopping at the rank of their seal and the very essence of their perfection, Muhammad (PBUH), and establishing their absolute infallibility and their complete purity from every blemish, forgetfulness, and slip — led by the exegetical lights that Imam al-Rida (AS) broadcast.

This solid structure places us directly before a witnessed truth and a pressing objective question; for if the divine source is one, and the prophets are infallible and purified, conveying the very same pure monotheistic truth, then from where did this vast multiplicity of religions, schools, sects, and creeds that surge through humanity today come?

Based on the foregoing, we will discuss in the coming study: “The Phenomenon of the Multiplicity of Religions and the Causes of Their Present Divergence”; was religion, in its origin and first starting point, different and multiple from the side of heaven? Or was religion one in its pure essence, and then the divergences and fragmentations came upon it as a result of human deviations, psychic caprices, and historical distortions after the absence of the prophets? This is what we will examine in detail in the coming paper.