In reality...

In reality, if the prophet were not infallible, either he would accidentally or intentionally make mistakes in guiding people or, at the very least, his people would not trust him sufficiently, either in terms of his claims to prophethood or in terms of the message and duties that he brings. In the first case, the prophethood would become a cause for the misguidance of people. In the second case, the prophethood would be utterly without purpose.

Far be it from Allah (awj) to either misguide or act without purpose. Until now, we have defined infallibility and presented one intellectual proof for the necessity of this quality in the prophets. We now turn to an examination of the Qur`anic verses that deal with infallibility. We shall…