ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Leading The Ummah Chapter 23: How Can A Sinner Be Innocent? Is there a more significant position in the community than that of the leader of that community? Can anybody without the physical and mental prerequisites ever resume such a position which is considered to be a divine position?

Neither the political leaders, dealing only with the political issues of the country nor the economic leaders dealing only with the economic matters, are ever able to manage the issues of a country. If this is the case then we should admit that the divine prophets and their genuine successors should have sublime attributes which could strengthen their leadership; Such a sublime position is bestowed upon them because of such magnificent qualities in them.

The required qualities of these leaders could be summed up under the following topics: Immunity against sins. Immunity against errors in learning the divine commands and in propagating them among people. Before stating the necessity of infallibility in divine leaders, we shall deal with the nature of infallibility and with the techniques of staying flawless. What is the nature of Infallibility? Infallibility is an internal power which hinders a person from being engaged in sins.

In other words, it is an internal God-fearing instinct which insures a person vis-à-vis the commitment of sins. Now, we are faced with the following question: how could a person be immune against all sorts of sins and against the issue of disobedience? The answer: the avoidance of committing sins depends on the recognition of the consequences of committing sins. This, of course does not mean that any recognition of sins would automatically lead to being infallible.

Rather, this recognition should be so vivid as to make clear to man all the abominable consequences of the engaging in sins. In this way, any occurrence of sins in him is absolutely impossible. An analogy is in order here: Every one of us has mechanisms inside ourselves which keep us out of danger in life-threatening situations.

Take, for example, two bordering countries the soldiers of which are located at the borders watching one another carefully and making use of strong binoculars, projectors and trained dogs. They watch the passage of any living thing across the borders; as soon as one tries to pass he would definitely meet with death.