It is very interesting that those who idolize the concept of a messenger have taken up a Shia-style understanding of infallibility. That the messenger himself cannot make mistakes, cannot make mistakes when it comes to religious teachings, and that a messenger cannot make a mistake when it comes to religious teachings, and then repent and reform, and correct their mistakes.
You see, I do not trust the messenger(s) because they are infallible. I trust the messenger(s) teachings because God’s providence is infallible. God promises us that he causes the truth to prevail even despite messengers going astray:
[Quran 34:48] Say, “My Lord causes the truth to prevail. He is the Knower of all secrets.”
[Quran 34:49] Say “The truth has come while falsehood can neither initiate anything, nor repeat it.
[Quran 34:50] Say [Oh Rashad], “If I go astray, I go astray because of my own shortcomings. And if I am guided, it is because of my Lord’s inspiration. He is Hearer, Near.”
[Quran 34:51] If you could only see them when the great terror strikes them; they cannot escape then, and they will be taken away forcibly.
[Quran 34:52] They will then say, “We now believe in it,” but it will be far too late.
[Quran 34:53] They have rejected it in the past; they have decided instead to uphold conjecture and guesswork.
Notice the interesting associations in these group of verses. In verse 48, God says He causes the truth to prevail, and then in verse 50, God commands the messenger to acknowledge that he can go astray when it comes to his delivery of the message, and then the next verses say these people will be shocked when the great terror strikes them and it will be too late for them, and then it says they harbored too many conjectures. Very interesting because this is exactly the problem people have with Rashad. They make conjectures on what qualifies or disqualifies a messenger, and use that to disqualify Rashad Khalifa. What is interesting is (even if we give them the benefit of the doubt Rashad made a mistake), based on their own conjecture, they would disqualify Abraham from being a messenger based on his mistake discussed in the Quran.
Abraham’s false teaching to his father:
[Quran 19:46] He said, “Have you forsaken my gods, O Abraham? Unless you stop, I will stone you. Leave me alone.”
[Quran 19:47] He (Abraham) said, “Peace be upon you. I will implore my Lord to forgive you; He has been Most Kind to me.
Here, Abraham was acting in his messenger role as he has been preaching to his father to abandon his idols. After his father refused to believe, Abraham said he will implore God to forgive his father and then he said God has been most kind to him, so he is further implying that God will be similarly most kind in dealing with Abraham’s father (or implying that God will be most kind to Abraham by also forgiving his idol worshiping father–a lie/falsehood attributed to God). Abraham said this directly to his father–he gave his father this false teaching that it is appropriate to implore God to forgive an idol worshipper and that God will be most kind in dealing with the idol worshippers (his father) just as he has been to Abraham. Wrong teachings, lies/falsehoods attributed to God, and we will see later God acknowledges Abraham’s mistake as a messenger in the Quran.
Abraham also says it again, even after he had his children in old age (read the context of this verse especially verse 14:39):
[Quran 14:41] “My Lord, forgive me and my parents, and the believers, on the day when the reckoning takes place.”
Abraham then repented and reformed:
[Quran 9:114] The only reason Abraham asked forgiveness for his father was that he had promised him to do so. But as soon as he realized that he was an enemy of GOD, he disowned him. Abraham was extremely kind, clement.
(Side note: 9:114 is talking about the actual action of Abraham asking for forgiveness, therefore, it is referencing verse 14:41. Below, we will see that in verse 60:4, God tells us Abraham made a mistake in promising his father he would pray for his forgiveness in the first place–just as we wrote above about verse 19:47–this was the actual mistake of Abraham, not 14:41. This is not really relevant for the purposes of this blog, but I just noted it here for future reference, God Willing).
God informs us that Abraham made a mistake by even telling his father that he will ask God to forgive him:
[Quran 60:4] A good example has been set for you by Abraham and those with him. They said to their people, “We disown you and the idols that you worship besides GOD. We denounce you, and you will see nothing from us except animosity and hatred until you believe in God alone.” However, a mistake was committed by Abraham when he said to his father, “I will pray for your forgiveness, but I possess no power to protect you from GOD.” “Our Lord, we trust in You, and submit to You; to You is the final destiny.
Conclusion:
The infallibility of messengers is grossly misunderstood. They assume infallibility is a quality of the messengers themselves, rather than a product of God’s divine providence over what they do and God’s corrective action for messengers when they commit mistakes. I don’t trust the messenger’s teachings because the messenger is infallible–I would even go as far to say that this is idol worship–I trust the messenger’s teachings because God’s Providence is infallible and God’s control over what the messengers ultimately produce is infallible. God is doing everything. I put my trust in God, and nothing and no one else.
Related article: Example of Jonah: Messengers Committing Gross Sins
Indeed, those who cling on this conjecture provide no evidence for it (they just hold it with strong conviction, and whenever I press them for proof/evidence, they do not provide anything from the Quran that demonstrates a messenger can never make a mistake and then repent and reform to correct his actions), and worse their own doctrines of messenger infallibility when it comes to religious teachings is refuted in the Quran by the God himself. Indeed, the Quran is fully detailed and has all the information we need to be guided. The conjectures of the nonbelievers, regardless of how strongly they hold them, will never avail them nor us. All praise be to God, Lord of the Universe.
A classical scholar affirms messengers are not infallible:
We have a user on the discord server, who defends the false hadiths and problematic positions within Sunni Islam, by quoting a minority of classical scholars who saw things differently from the norm, and this user would argue that “there is precedent” to believe in this thing he holds that many sunnis reject. And I thought it would be worth mentioning that we can use his own methodology to show that “there is precedent to believe in this in Sunni Islam”.
The Syrian Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), accept the validity of these [Satanic verses] reports:
Ibn Taymiyya agreed with the majority that all prophets are infallible; however, he understood this infallibility not as preventing prophets from ever committing errors but as preventing them from persisting in them once committed. The commission of such errors is part of God’s wisdom to allow them an opportunity to repent and perfect their character. (Ingrid Mattson, The Story of the Qur’an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life [Wiley-Blackwell, Second edition 2013], pp. 54-55).
Note this is in the context of Satanic verses. For context, in very early Sunni traditions, it has been widely believed by the overwhelming majority of the earliest islamic scholars that Prophet Muhammad received idol worshipping verses from Satan and recited/preached those verses to the people, and consequently, the idol worshippers prostrated for that moment and were happy to hear the Prophet finally preaching idol worship. Subsequently, these Satanic verses have been retracted after the Angel Gabriel told the Prophet that it was Satan who gave him those verses. This scholar here, Ibn Taymiyya, is acknowledging this event and stating that prophets are not infallible in the sense they cannot commit errors, but instead he believed they are infallible in the sense they ultimately correct their errors and repent and reform.
Of note, the religion of Submission does not accept hadith reports as reliable, including the Satanic verses narrative discussed above. Those are a stain on the sunni tradition, and we dissociate completely from hadith reports as part of our religion since we believe they are Satanic fabrications attributed to the Prophet.
Disclaimer: These blogs are not meant to be authoritative for Submission, but instead, informal documentation of my evolving thoughts. I do not claim ‘truth’ to anything I say or write, even if I currently feel like it is likely true based on my current reasoning and knowledge–anything and everything I say is subject to revision or complete abandonment of the theories/concepts/thoughts discussed in any of these blogs. See the about this blog section. Join our discord server, where you can chat with us or ask any questions (there is frequent activity in the voice channels):Https://Discord.gg/Submission
Submission to God 