According to the prayers from the prophets and other innocent people...

According to the prayers from the prophets and other innocent people, they consider themselves guilty and ask God to forgive them for their sins. In such circumstances and with these confessions how can they be considered as infallible? The answer is that the innocent were at the highest level of perfection and were in a close relationship with God; therefore, they considered their duties much more beyond those of other (ordinary) people.

For them, paying attention to anything except God was considered to be a great sin; this is why they apologised, and asked for God’s forgiveness. However, as I previously mentioned, infallibility in the prophets does not only mean immunity against anything, which can be called sin; rather it is also against opposing the essential duties and committing what is religiously forbidden. How is Satan’s influence on the prophets (a) in agreement with their infallibility?

One of the arguments, with relation to the prophets’ infallibility, asserts that the prophets are completely pure and that Satan cannot affect them. However, the Holy Qur’an itself mentions some instances in which Satan has affected the prophets, for example, one of Qur’anic verses claims: “O Children of Adam! Do not let Satan tempt you, like he expelled your parents from Paradise” (al-A’rāf:27). In this verse, Adam and Eve’s deception and expulsion from Paradise have been attributed to Satan.

Moreover the Qur’an asserts, in another verse when quoting Job (a): “And remember Our servant Job [in the Qur’an]. When he called out to his Lord,’The devil has visited on me hardship and torment’” (Sād:41).

Similarly, in the following verse a kind of satanic inspiration to all prophets has been approved: “We did not send before you any apostle or prophet but that when he recited [the scripture] satan interjected [something] in his recitation” (al-Hajj:52) The response is that in none of these verses, does the penetration attributed to Satan cause the prophets (a) to oppose their essential duties. However the first quoted verse -i.e.

al-A’rāf:27- points to the satanic temptation (concerning Adam and Eve) for eating from the forbidden tree, which was not lawful. In fact God had just reminded Adam and Eve not to eat from that tree; otherwise, they would be expelled from that garden and cast down to the Earth. Nevertheless, the satanic temptation caused them to oppose that ‘guiding prohibition’.